My mum, Peggy, was one of the toughest people I knew. She grew up in Liverpool in the 1920s and as was the case for so many, life was hard.
Mum learned shorthand and typing when she left school and worked in an auctioneer’s in Liverpool, cataloguing sales. At 19, she joined the Women’s Royal Army Corps serving as a pay clerk from 1942-45. She then worked as a Credit Controller for a construction company, where she also won equal pay for female controllers.
I was always so close to Mum. We used to go for coffees and day trips. I helped out in the home and garden, and we even went on holiday together to Bruges – the first time she had ever been abroad.
I first noticed something wasn’t right when Mum couldn’t work out how to operate her new vacuum cleaner. She kept taking it to bits and cleaning it but couldn’t get it working. Mum was always so organised and used to keep my books for me immaculately, but she started to ask me for help with paperwork. And then one day, she was out riding her bike and lost her bearings completely. It started to pour with rain and she didn’t know where she was.
Mum was referred by her GP to a mental health clinic, where she did a memory test. Following this, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. It was 2009 and she was 86 years old.
Mum was in denial about her diagnosis for some time afterward. She was fiercely independent, and it took some convincing for her to move nearer me so I could care for her from a closer distance.
I didn’t find out about Dementia UK and its dementia specialist Admiral Nurses until we were at a routine six-monthly appointment with Mum’s Mental Health Team, where one of the mental health nurses saw how much she was reliant on me. Mum kept saying, “There’s nothing wrong with me,” and, “I’m alright, I’ve got my Richard.” But the nurse quietly said to me, “It’s not your mum I’m worried about, Richard, it’s you.” She gave me a card with Dementia UK’s contact details on it. I called the Helpline and spoke to an Admiral Nurse who was incredibly helpful. He gave me guidance around choosing a residential care home, explaining the financial options and fees along the way. Navigating dementia on your own is so confusing and time-consuming, so his advice and support were invaluable.
If I had been able to make regular contact with an Admiral Nurse earlier, so many stressful points along Mum’s journey could have been made easier. I wouldn’t have felt so alone in trying to understand what was happening, and what was coming next. My advice to anyone else facing dementia is don’t do things the hard way. Get on the phone and make things easier for yourself and your loved one.
Mum died on 25th July 2019, a year before Covid struck. In a way, I’m glad she didn’t have to undergo the horrible experience of isolation. As hard as her last years were, the love we had for each other just grew stronger as she became more dependent and it remains as strong in my memory today. I recognise now what great sacrifices she made for me in my life. It was a privilege to pay some of that back.
After Mum passed away, I decided to leave a gift in my Will to Dementia UK. I wanted to be able to do something during my lifetime that provides a benefit beyond my own experience. I have fundraised for Dementia UK before, and I felt that leaving this gift in my Will was a natural progression of what I had already been doing.
If you are considering making a Will, I would say, why not guide and direct any wealth you leave in this life to where you would most like it to go? I’ll never know the people that my legacy will support, but I know the good that it will do because of my trust and belief in the work of Dementia UK.
