Terry Prone: Even great nursing homes involve losing crucial everyday freedoms

Freedom is myriad tiny choices that people who are free take for granted. White or beige coffee filters. Toast or porridge. Driving the long way or the short. Now try living without that autonomy

People who are free take tiny everyday freedoms for granted — but we lose it all when we are consigned to a nursing home, even when it's ‘for your own good’. Stock picture: iStock

Three books. Treats for the new year. A collection of short stories. A World War II. A thriller.

Nothing in common, on the face of it. Yet all three bringing the reader, unwarned, into the same situation. The nursing home. The old people’s home.