What broke me as a child was my mother’s death from breast cancer. But around that shattering, I became a person – and learned how to parent my son

I try to remember her hands. They were younger than mine are now. I imagine her long fingers and yellow, uneven and unpolished fingernails. Or had her nails fallen out? I am eight, about to turn nine; she will be dead in two weeks. Today is Mother’s Day and I am allowed to stay home alone with her while everyone else goes to church. I am to be her helper, so I carry a basket up from downstairs. I set it on her bed. She is sitting up.

I know this is meant to be our day, our time; it is the first and last time I will be alone with her in this house. But I don’t want to be here. Within weeks, she has transformed from my mother into a ghost, a skeleton; no hair, scarves covering her head. I know I am supposed to want to be with her on this day, but how can I want that? To be with a dying woman, my disappearing mother, whom I resent. It is too much. “What are you doing?”, I want to scream. “What do you expect me to do now, here without you?”

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Nothing had changed for contents insurance on my London flat but it raised the renewal from £78 to £251

I am 92 and live in a fifth-floor flat. The block is very secure, with a concierge and fobs for access to each floor. Last year I insured the contents of my home against fire and flood only, with Saga, for £78 (the building is insured by Islington council for £10 a month). Nothing has changed; but this year my renewal quote is £251.

I’m trying to get to the bottom of this huge rise. I thought Saga was an organisation that cared for elderly people. Apparently not.

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It is perverse that adults are legally protected from violence, yet striking a child can be defended. Calls for a ban are getting louder

When a child is scared of their parents, they can spend a long time plucking up the courage to talk. I learned this during a decade of volunteering as a Childline counsellor. There is a 20-second period, in between saying your name and waiting for them to share theirs, that is the most silent the air can ever be. You could hear a pin drop or just a caller’s breath echoing on the receiver. In that moment, a young girl who has been slapped by her father is deciding whether to ask for help or to hang up and try again to form the words in a week or two.

I thought of this silence as I read calls from leading doctors to ban parents from smacking their children in England and Northern Ireland. Unlike in Scotland and Wales – where over the past four years the Victorian-era law that allows it has been overturned – it is still legal for a parent or carer to hit, smack or slap their child if it is a “reasonable” punishment.

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist and author of Crippled: Austerity and the Demonisation of Disabled People

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Study by World Health Organization shows more than half of children in Britain had drunk alcohol by age 13

The UK has the worst rate of child alcohol abuse worldwide, and more than half of British children have drunk alcohol by the age of 13, according to a report.

The study, one of the largest of its kind by the World Health Organization (WHO), looked at 2021-22 data on 280,000 children aged 11, 13 and 15 from 44 countries who were asked about alcohol, cigarettes and vape usage.

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And They Lived … Ever After is a south Asian book of reworked European classics written by women with disabilities

A deaf Snow White, a blind Cinderella, a neurodivergent ugly duckling and a wheelchair-using Rapunzel: classic European fairytales have been reimagined in a new anthropology of stories written by south Asian women with disabilities.

“ When disabled people don’t see themselves in the world, it tells us that we don’t deserve to exist, that these stories are not for us, that stories of love and friendship are not for us, and certainly not happy endings,” says Nidhi Ashok Goyal, the founder of Rising Flame, a feminist disability rights group that has produced the book, called And They Lived … Ever After.

“I can’t. There is no ramp from the room to the garden.”

“We will find a way. I can carry you down,” says the prince.

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As bird flu is confirmed in 33 cattle herds across eight US states, Ian Sample talks to virologist Dr Ed Hutchinson of Glasgow University about why this development has taken scientists by surprise, and how prepared we are for the possibility it might start spreading among humans

Read more Guardian reporting on this topic

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Cambridge study finds those from poorest areas have 35% higher risk of second non-breast cancer

Female survivors of breast cancer living in the most deprived areas have a 35% higher risk of developing second, unrelated cancers, compared with those from the most affluent areas, research shows.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK, with about 56,000 people being told they have it each year. Improved diagnosis and treatments mean that five-year survival rates are now 86% in England.

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Charities say high rates of people signed off work are caused by crumbling public services after years of underinvestment

Rishi Sunak has been accused of making mental ill health “another front in the culture wars”, as critics warned his plan to curb benefits for some with anxiety and depression was an assault on disabled people.

In a speech on welfare , the prime minister said he wanted to explore withdrawing a major cash benefit claimed by people living with mental health problems and replacing it with treatment.

Shifting responsibility for issuing fit notes, formerly known as sicknotes, away from GPs to other “work and health professionals” in order to encourage more people to return to work.

Confirming plans to legislate “in the next parliament” to close benefit claims for anyone who has been claiming for 12 months but is not complying with conditions on accepting available work.

Asking more people on universal credit working part-time to look for more work by increasing the earnings threshold from £743 a month to £892 a month, so people paid below this amount have to seek extra hours.

Confirming plans to tighten the work capability assessment to require more people with “less severe conditions” to seek some form of employment.

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The suggestion that the drug may be more helpful than regulated care for mental ill health is dangerous, writes Dr Rachel McNulty

Rose Cartwright’s article ( I was the poster girl for OCD. Then I began to question everything I’d been told about mental illness, 13 April ) claims to expose “the fallacy at the heart of mental healthcare”, arguing that the sector – including but not limited to psychiatrists, occupational therapists, social workers, employment advisers, psychologists, dementia nurses, experts by experience, care home staff, art therapists, carers and support workers – fails to grasp the multifaceted nature of mental health and, instead, reduces it to an illness/treatment model.

I was part of a recent multi-disciplinary team meeting. A psychiatrist shared their concern about patients facing homelessness and asked what might be done. To which a support worker replied that funding for the local homelessness organisation – a key resource for such patients – had just been cut. Everyone, including the psychiatrist, slumped in their chair, knowing that homelessness is a potent risk factor for addiction, mental health crises and suicide. Without such organisations, these risks often become a reality.

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