BBC presenter Justin Webb reveals guilt at choosing career over caring for dying mum

BBC Presenter Justin Webb has revealed how guilty he felt about being in America focusing on himself while his mother became old and ill.

The 58-year-old admits he thought his career and children were more worthy of his ‘time and attention’ when his mother Gloria started showing signs of dementia.

He said: ‘Mum said she wanted to taste champagne again before she died. “Good plan,” I responded. But I was busy.

‘I was living abroad and had young children who seemed more urgently in need of my time and attention.

‘We did buy the bottle, but ended up drinking it with her best friend after we had scattered her ashes in a field near where she lived.’

His mum had gone from a life of merry independency while Justin focused on growing his career in America at the BBC.

However, she later slowed down and ended up having primary biliary cirrhosis, an auto-immune disease that slowly destroys the liver.

‘Now, years later, as I look ahead to later life myself, I think back to those months and wish it had been different for her and for me,’ Justin continued.

It took no longer caring about his career and his achievements to realise that severity of her dementia and old age.

The presenter explained: ‘I was her main reason for living. But one morning in the summer that she died, I came back to her flat and found that the radio had not been moved to be near her ear in the morning.

‘She had stopped caring about the show and about me, the thing she had cared about more than anything else.

‘Let me be blunt. This should have been the moment she died. Better for her and better for her family.’

His mother died in 2006.

‘I should not have been in America when Mum was ill,’ Justin said. ‘I should have come home. Did she not tailor her life to care for me when I was young? Of course she did, yet when her time came, I did not.’