When Clare refers to not remembering her mother going into a psychiatric hospital when she was a child Vivien tells her that her husband had her 'sectioned'. Their story is set in 1975, and the term in use in the UK at that time would still have been 'committed'. The term 'sectioned' came into use as a result of the 1983 Mental health act, when people would be detained under sections 1 or 2 of the act.