The things we hide

By the time the plane landed in London, it was too late. Charity Norman received the news while she was in transit in Hong Kong. Her mother had died – the woman who had given birth to her in Uganda a half century before and raised her in vicarages across the UK. She was, says Norman, a “very brilliant woman, one of the first, early blue-stocking Cambridge classicists”, who’d led a full life until her brightness was dimmed by Alzheimer’s in her final years.

“It was the same week as Brexit, which was two disasters together,” recalls Norman from a tiny wooden cabin-cum-writing room on an isolated property in central Hawke’s Bay.

Going through her mother’s desk, documents and letters in the days following her death was fascinating and tragic, says Norman, as the insidious effects of the disease were laid bare. “But you could also see her awareness