As a longtime Jilly Cooper fan, I lapped up the TV adaptation of Rivals. There were so many fantastic moments: Maud O’Hara arriving at her own party dressed up to the nines, riding on a camel; David Tennant, as TV mogul Tony Baddingham, smashing up the Corinium Studios set when his arch enemy Rupert Campbell-Black scores a key point in their rivalry. My most memorable scene, however, had nothing to do with shoulder pads and parties. First, some backstory.
My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in January 2025, though for the previous few months it had become clear to me that she had some form of dementia. It came on fast, triggered by a bowel illness. Suddenly she sounded confused on the phone, though it was hard to tell even this because she stopped calling so often. She and I had been accustomed to speaking daily, phoning just to chat, check a recipe, gossip – but now she stopped initiating those calls. Her WhatsApp messaging became so erratic on a family group chat that my cousin offered to go round after work to check Mum’s phone for a virus.
The wheels were set in motion for an assessment, part of which entailed close family members filling in questionnaires about the patient, and any changes observed. We were asked to make comments on her “orientation to time, orientation to place and orientation to person”, so that professionals could understand more about her cognitive function. We filled them in during a get-together of our families at my parents’ house. My brother noted that mum ate “with no off-switch”, and my sister-in-law remarked on her struggle to add up Scrabble scores. I returned from the weekend and cried in the shower, wondering if I had lost a part of Mum. I cried on my cycle to work. I cried in the evening, stacking the dishwasher when the kids had gone to sleep, my husband turning around to see my face covered in tears and snot.
We submitted the assessment forms to the memory clinic and waited to be invited for a face-to-face interview. The demands of work and parenting continued, however I did not feel able to manage either very well. I became snappy with the children and full of rage at work issues. The only activity that let me forget the situation at that time was watching television, and Rivals proved the perfect escape. From the champagne popping and pearls snapping in the opening credits, I loved every minute. I had enjoyed Charles Fairburn’s character throughout, not least when it emerged he was working for a dysfunctional boss, while also caring for his mother with dementia. Then his secret lover Gerald left him, unable to square his political dreams with society’s rejection of queer love. I had been rooting for Charles. In the final episode, he is reunited with his man in a bucolic woodland where, beaming with joy, he tells Gerald: “Mother knew me this morning!”
For the moment, my mum is “oriented” to other people, at least those she has always known – anyone met since October 2024 needs to reintroduce themselves each time, including carers she now sees every day. Charles Fairburn’s mother may have had more advanced dementia, judging by his comment. But it stayed with me: his happy face, as if nothing could be more blissful than his mother knowing him. I have never related to an onscreen character more.
In almost every interaction I have with my mum I am seeking to connect. To give our verdicts on Dad’s latest culinary experiment. To have her ask after my husband, or my son’s football match. To make her laugh with an impression of my daughter when she’s offended by peas on her plate. To paint with her. To have her stroke my head when I’m tired, recommend spice remedies when I have a cold. To be mothered. And when it happens, I could dance. I do. I laugh more easily, I relax rules for my children that evening, I sleep better. And when it doesn’t – I don’t. Charles Fairburn’s line in that scene made me realise how tied into Mum’s wellbeing my happiness is.
He doesn’t offer a solution. Maybe Rivals season two will continue the storyline. Or maybe it won’t, and we’ll work ours out for ourselves. But I am grateful to whoever felt it would be worthwhile to include, so succinctly, the experience we have as children whose parents are getting lost, and what it is to find each other again.
