One day in June 2020 Ruthie Henshall – actor, singer, dancer, star of musical theatre – went to visit her mother, Gloria, at her residential care home in Suffolk. This was the first time Ruthie had seen her mum for three months – not because she didn’t want to go, or through neglect, but because of lockdown. They had done a few Zoom calls, but there was only one iPad to go around the 50 or so residents in the home, it needed to be booked and there had to be a carer free to help, so it only happened every couple of weeks. And anyway, Gloria, who had Alzheimer’s, didn’t get on very well with Zoom. “She thought she was watching us on television,” says Henshall.
“Visit” is perhaps an exaggeration. Henshall and her two sisters weren’t allowed in; they could only go to the window and wave at their mother inside. “She would wave back – she still recognised us. She couldn’t understand why we couldn’t come in, so she cried.”
