Over the summer holidays Sharon Birch has spent more than 30 hours a week entertaining her five grandchildren, aged between eight and two, with gardening, arts and crafts, and numbers. Birch, who is 59 and lives in Hartlepool, has also been keeping up her own work as a safeguarding consultant for a commercial company and a crime author, often working until 10pm.

“I’m absolutely exhausted. I’m so stressed with it all,” she says. “I do an inordinate amount of childcare . My grandmother looked after me a lot and it’s a valuable relationship. But it’s also hard work and my husband hasn’t got the best health so I do a lot of it.”

Two of her three children are parents; her daughter Sam is a social worker, her son-in-law does shift work at a warehouse, and her son Matthew, who is separated,

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