So why did I get involved?

In two words, guilt and regret, about my great aunty who is now in a nursing home in Tooting.

But the story starts like many South Asian immigrants who came to the UK in the 60s with the ubiquitous Asian corner shop, which was open all hours before the days of Getir and Deliveroo.

The Chocolate Box was the name of the corner shop in Tooting run by my great aunt Qaisar and her husband, Mazhar. As children, my brother and I would love to visit because of the free sweets we would get. Because they did not have children of their own, we became their surrogate children, and there were times when I stayed over the weekend and learned how to use the till, which became my first job. For no other reason except where they lived and worked, my brother and I called her Tooting Nani and her husband Tooting Nana.

I love this picture of the old shop (which ironically is still a convenience store run by the latest Asian immigrants, a Tamil family, and is now called Ceylon Corner) with Tooting Nani and a customer outside. In the front window, you can see a reflection of a bygone age with a bottle of Corona, which was a favourite pop drink of the time but is now more known for the virus ravaging the world during the recent pandemic.

Tooting Nana died in 1992 after a rapid decline with Parkinson’s disease, which came in the wake of him being beaten up by one of the petty criminals who started to proliferate in the 80s in Thatcher’s Britain. Tooting Nani never really got over his death, and after selling their imposing property overlooking Streatham Common, she moved into sheltered accommodation. We had asked her at that time to move in with us, but she declined, and as you will see from a number of the anecdotes, I recount the saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink it” is a common theme I have encountered when dealing with the elderly.

This was also the year I graduated as a doctor, and as work took hold, I saw less and less of her, although she always asked when I was coming. Whenever I did visit I would accept her justified complaints, particularly since I was too sleep-deprived as a junior doctor to say anything else!

However, I missed the first red flags as I just viewed her complaints as being part of old age and loneliness, and it was on one visit when she asked me for advice on getting a lawyer that I started to understand what was happening.

She provided me with a bundle of letters and demands from the council for unpaid carers’ fees, which she insisted she had not asked for. The penny really dropped when she said her bank account was with the Midland Bank; this had not existed for decades and had been taken over by HSBC. I spoke to the council on her behalf, and after the usual run around and getting consent from her for me to act as her proxy, I explained to the council that she seemed to be having problems with her memory and she wanted to sue them. I suggested they might need to look into this and liaise with her GP to make sure she wasn’t suffering from Dementia. After a considerable time, this was eventually confirmed, and her argumentative and cantankerous behaviour now made sense, knowing she had Dementia. However, by the time this had been confirmed, her Dementia had progressed to the point she was unable to make decisions for herself and lacked capacity. (this will be discussed later as to what this means) Because there was an outstanding bill of over £10,000 the council took over her financial affairs as appointees, which meant they administered her welfare benefits but not her other finances.

Her lack of capacity and the outstanding bill meant we were not in a position to draw up the legal documents which would grant us the power to help, and it meant as she became more vulnerable, the council were in the driving seat to determine where she would have to live as the sheltered accommodation was no longer sufficient for her needs and set in place the process where she eventually was placed in a nursing home.

My regret is not having planned for all this when she had the capacity, and the bitter lesson I learned was that it is imperative to keep close to your elders and start planning wills and powers of attorney so that one can act on their behalf.

We didn’t do this, and now Tooting Nani is in a home rather than at home…