IF you watched this week’s BBC2 documentary about families living with dementia you would no doubt have been moved by the scenes of Chris Gilliver singing with a local choir.

Chris and her husband, former Bradford City player Allan Gilliver, were featured in the excellent Dementia & Us. Allan, known as Gilly, has vascular dementia and can no longer dress or wash himself. As the documentary revealed, his condition worsened during lockdown.

Chris cares for Gilly at home, and she wants to keep him there. But in the programme she struggled with the overwhelming demands of looking after him, leading her to arrange respite care for Gilly. Watching her eyes fill with tears as she left him sitting in a wingback chair in a care home, I thought of the times my mum, who had early onset dementia, went into respite care, and how heartbroken I felt leaving her in a place with people decades older than her.

I first met Chris and Gilly a few years ago, when I interviewed them at their home. They were raising awareness of dementia, and the link with football - they believe Gilly’s dementia was caused by a career of heading the ball as a centre forward. “I scored a lot of goals heading the ball, we had ‘heading tennis’ practice every day,” he told me. “It hurt like hell. Footballs were much heavier back then.”

I’ve met Chris and Gilly several times, at Memory Walks. Chris told me recently how tough the past year has been, physically and mentally, and how the isolation of lockdown led to a breakdown. She stressed there’s still a long way to go in understanding dementia, and supporting carers. “Dementia isn’t just losing your keys. It affects the whole body ,” she said. “You don’t get a pack to deal with it. Nobody tells you how lonely it can be, or that you feel like a failure. I put signs on our doors telling Gilly where the kitchen, bathroom etc is. Then I remembered he can’t read anymore. Some days I’m struggling to get by.”

Respite care gives Chris time for herself, crucial for any carer, and she’s found solace in a Yorkshire community choir, Altogether Now. “I love it, it’s so uplifting and I’ve made good friends,” she told me. The programme showed Chris singing with the choir; their rousing rendition of Elbow’s One Day Like This accompanied the final moving scenes.

As Chris says, communal singing is uplifting, I’m glad she has the friendship of a choir. My friend’s mum, who joined a Rock Choir after her husband died, says: “I’d never done anything like it before, I went with a friend who’d also lost her husband and we found singing in a group exhilarating, bonding and a wonderful escape for a couple of hours. The last thing I expected was to perform in public, but that’s exactly what we did, in shopping centres, care homes and theatres! It brought positivity and comfort when I needed it most.”

Bradford Friendship Choir, which I’ve written about in today’s T&A (p20) is a “joyful singing sanctuary” for refugees and asylum-seekers. From male voice choirs of mining towns to the Military Wives, choral singing is a primal thing. I read about a doctor who sees patients less often if they’re in a choir because, he says, singing together is good for health and wellbeing. Singing is used as therapy in care homes and dementia groups, and during lockdown choirs kept connected by singing together online.

My mum sang in choirs all her life and music was the one pleasure she had left. Even when she could no longer speak, she could still sing.