Kate Garraway and Derek Draper: Derek's Story shows how carers everywhere get their bank balances broken as cruelly as their hearts

It is a remarkable watch; one that puts you through a ringer of emotions. I found myself lurching from joy to despair, elation to frustration, admiration to pity. Joy at the love they so clearly shared; despair as you bear witness to that precious bond being broken by ill-health. Elation as Derek achieves recovery milestone after milestone; frustration as one step forwards for him leads to two steps backwards, and the old, fit, healthy, happy Derek pushes a haunting scream of pain and torment through the mouth of the now-broken man he wishes he was not. Admiration, infinitesimal admiration, for Kate as she ploughs on through all that is thrown at her, juggling work, motherhood, life and … care.

So, ahead of writing to you today, I conducted a little rudimentary research into how the programme had impacted upon others, assuming those emotions I list just now would reflect back at me in the comments I was about to discover. I wish I hadn’t. I wanted to shield Kate from every one of them. One thing I am not, by virtue of my upbringing and the career I’ve enjoyed to date, is naive. I went to the school of hard knocks; when I were a lad we had ‘oles in us shoes and rain on the INSIDE of our bedroom windows! Almost nothing shocks me. Then…

...step forwards some of the cruellest, most mean-spirited individuals: take THIS one from Adam; a self-declared Norwich City fan and a member of Essex County Cricket Club. ‘Didn’t realise Kate Garraway was the only person that’s ever cared for a loved one’ he declares on his twitter feed. Why? Quite what is it that merits such passive-aggressive vindictiveness from one stranger to another? What does it say about society today that a seemingly nice guy who clearly takes part in sport and in his community would take it upon himself to attack a grieving woman in public like that? Seriously, I’d love your feedback on that - why do people do it? What’s going through their heads, do you think? And, listen: his nastiness looks like rainbows and buttercups in comparison to some of the other abuses. I won’t repeat them, here. The vilest of them are sub-human. Save to say there are as many, if not more, nice people out there saying nice things ... about a woman who allowed cameras into her home, wanting to give carers and those who need care a voice, sharing with us all the sacrifices you are quite literally forced to make in this country should a loved one suddenly require care. She told us her debts are upwards of three-quarters-of-a-million-pounds, accrued as a result of the cost of care, something that The Yorkshire Post has campaigned on relentlessly, for longer than should be necessary. We still are … it still is.

Google ‘social care, The Yorkshire Post’ and it will return a maelstrom of articles through which you could infinitely scroll. Headline after headline, plea after plea. Repeatedly calling for a National Care Service, there for everyone who needs it, when they need it, fairly and equitably. But nobody listens. Nobody cares, you might say. It is too complex, too expensive, too difficult, they say. But, in truth, what it is is too easy to allow the burden of care to fall away from the state and into the arms of unsung, unpaid heroes whose bank balances are left to break faster than their hearts. It's a national disgrace.

Yet, if it is any consolation, we care about care. It bothers us at The Yorkshire Post that Kate Garraways everywhere, regardless of what they earn or own, are plunged into caring for another, yanked away from everything else in their lives - livelihoods, social lives, friendships and hobbies - to be there for someone who needs help because without them, help isn’t coming.

We'll keep caring for as long as it takes…

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