A beautiful, moving piece about love in old age. Sophie Elmhirst draws you in from the first sentence and keeps you hooked with her quick-fire sentences. It’s an essay to make you both smile and cry.
It’s not entirely clear when this was. Two years ago, maybe three? Timings, the order of things, time in general, can be confusing. But there are some things we know for sure. Mary is Mary Turrell, nearly 80 years old. She had been living at Easterlea Rest Home in Denmead, near Portsmouth, for a little while, a year or two, perhaps, when the man with the voice arrived. And his name was Derek Brown.
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