Ruth Institute Blog

The doctor mentioned in my previous post ought to have a long chat with this woman.

By Victoria Moore

The moment I hear Elisabeth Shepherd’s voice on the phone I think she sounds like just the sort of person you would want looking after you if you were ill.

Down-to-earth, energetic and warm she reminds me of my mum, a feeling of happy comfort that is enforced when I arrive in her Shropshire kitchen to find her immaculately made up, shooing a pair of yappy sausage dogs out of the way and talking ten to the dozen.

‘Be quiet, be quiet – do you mind dogs? Don’t worry, the dog-walker’s just come to get rid of them so we can talk in peace. I’ll just turn the stereo down. Do you want a cup of tea? Coffee? I’ll put the kettle on, then I’ll take you to meet my son, James.’

James, 36, is Elisabeth’s fifth child. She has been caring for him since he was injured in a car accident as a small boy and does not, she says, always feel quite as cheerily capable as she seems.

It’s because of the hard times and the dark emotional wilderness the human soul has to find some way to cross – even when it is exhausted and ground down by long weeks, months and years of dealing with the almost intolerable – that I am here to talk to her.

Elisabeth wrote to the Daily Mail after reading our columnist Allison Pearson’s piece on her support for Kay Gilderdale.

Gilderdale is the mother who was recently acquitted of the attempted murder of her ME-plagued daughter Lynn, whom she helped commit suicide after Lynn made it clear that she wished to take her own life.

‘Your admiration for the mother of Lynn Gilderdale frightens me,’ Elisabeth wrote. ‘Across the hall from me is a young man who is listening to Radio 4. His name is James and he is my son. Quadriplegic since the age of eight, he has no controlled use of any limbs, nor even a finger tip. If his nose itches, he has to holler for help.

Keep reading.