An Extra Pair of Hands: A story of caring and everyday acts of love

Read with Gloucester Book Club as part of our read and review in exchange for free copies.

Having cared for my father in law for 10 years this book really resonated with my own experience of what it means to be great friends and the same time a carer. Never easy walking the fine line of being a support and allowing the person to retain as much independence as they wish. Kate manages to convey the emotions around all of this, and what comes through most is her love for all those people she’s been close to and cared for. Read in a day! Loved it!

As the population ages, more and more of us find ourselves in the role-reversal position of caring for elderly, frail, often dementia-suffering parents; and frequently at the same time as we are still bringing-up our own children. We are the “sandwich generation” – nearly 9 million people in the UK, a hidden regiment of carers holding families together. As Kate Mosse usefully underlines, it is a sad fact that caring for elderly family members seems to be a refugee from sex equality, for the bulk of the day-to-day responsibility seems to fall on women, on the daughter/s: an important point, well made.

In this book, Kate Mosse tells her own story of unexpectedly becoming a carer in middle age. Initially, she helps her mother care for her father through Parkinson's, then she supports her mother in widowhood. And finally she becomes 'an extra pair of hands' for her 90-year-old mother-in-law, the redoubtable Granny Rosie.

Whilst this is Kate Mosse’s personal story, it chimes so well with the experiences of anyone who finds themselves in the same position, anyone who has cared for an elderly, dying parent, that it will re-awaken old griefs and regrets, and thus it makes for a very emotional, and frequently damp, read. Her description of the phoney war with grief during the interval between the death and funeral is both deeply personal and yet universal. For readers of a similar age to Kate Mosse, the era conjoured-up by the family anecdotes and photographs that illustrate the book will be familiar and, strangely, comforting.

Superficially, yes, this is a story about the gentle heroism of our carers. But it is also a story about the emotional harvest we reap from that caring: what our elderly relatives give us back, the joy and solace we can gain from our connection in what may seem the worst of times. I fully endorse the publisher’s claim that this is a story about celebrating older people and, most of all, about love.

This review was written as a fair review in return for a free copy of the book from publisher Profile Books, provided via the Reading Agency and Gloucester Book Club, much appreciated.