Years ago, while working for a magazine, I interviewed actors Prunella Scales and her husband Timothy West. They lived just round the corner from me and I popped a note through their letterbox asking if they’d be up for chatting.
The mag was one of those freebies filled with glossy property adverts, and I loved plodding around the area to find articles, semi-stalking celebs who I’d seen out and about (Mark Owen, from Take That, was another of my scalps – he was lovely, if a bit offbeat, but that’s another story).
Anyway, Tim and Pru were wonderful – it was (I think) around 2011, a few years before they went public about her having The A Word.
But having read subsequent interviews, I realise they knew something was up a good decade before that.
Isn’t it funny – We were probably both sitting together in her living room, with some early stage of dementia, neither of us knowing the other had it
My husband Chris, who’s a photographer, came with me when I did the interview to take pictures and Pru kept asking us if we wanted some wine.
I think we said yes to the first one, but Tim told her off after the third or fourth time. It was lunchtime, after all.
I wasn’t massively surprised when I read, in 2014, that she’d been diagnosed. But at the time I couldn’t have known I’d be getting the exact same diagnosis – mild Alzheimer’s – a few years later.
I was told in late 2017 but, like Pru, I’d not been myself for years. Isn’t it funny – we were probably both sitting together in her living room, with some early stage of dementia, neither of us knowing the other had it.
I just thought she was a bit dotty. But then again, I still don’t think you’d know, on meeting me, there was anything much the matter. And that’s the point about dementia: it’s not like you drop off a cliff.
When people find out I have The A Word, they’ll often say ‘I’m so sorry.’ But there’s not much to be sorry about, and life goes on.
After ‘coming out’ about Pru’s illness, she and Tim set about making Great Canal Journeys, an award-winning set of travel documentaries, which ran for ten series. I loved them, for the stunning landscapes and for revealing hidden treasures of the British countryside – and further afield.
More pertinently, the films also show what having this illness is really like. There are moments for both Tim and Pru that show the frustration: she forgets things, causes minor accidents, and repeats herself, which is annoying for both of them.
After ‘coming out’ about Pru’s illness, she and Tim set about making Great Canal Journeys, an award-winning set of travel documentaries, which ran for ten series
‘Things are a bit harder for me these days…’ is the way she sums it up at one point. Tim finishes her sentence: ‘But we get by.’
In one episode, Pru says: ‘I still have that sense of adventure and possibility and discovery…’
I relate to all of this, obviously.
Because, yes there are tears and laughter and love and a sense of urgency to make the most of life.
But mostly you just chug along.
It was sad news last month that Monty Python star Terry Jones had died – another fellow A Word sufferer. He once quipped: ‘My frontal lobe has absconded!’
Again, I know what he means.
Mine hasn’t totally absconded, it’s just half way out of the door.
It was sad news last month that Monty Python star Terry Jones had died – another fellow A Word sufferer. He once quipped: ‘My frontal lobe has absconded!’
Obviously, when I read about someone dying of dementia, I think about how much time I have. But I hope I keep on seeing the funny side of it all, like Terry.
Coincidentally, Pru and Tim’s last series of Canal Journeys took them to Vietnam – where Chris and I are just about to head off to on holiday.
Weirdly, while planning the trip, I dug out an old DVD of Good Morning, Vietnam, which was one of Robin Williams’s most famous films.
He was just 63 when he died a few years back: it turned out he’d been suffering from Lewy body dementia, a rare and really horrible form of the disease that causes hallucinations, among other things. He ended up taking his own life.
Now, I know I go on about the positives of life with this disease.
I suppose I just count my blessings. I’m glad I don’t have Lewy body dementia, I’m glad I’m still only slightly dotty and I’m really looking forward to my trip to Vietnam.
And I’m looking forward to telling you all about it.
