‘Alzheimer’s makes caring for a loved one so much harder’
Following Dame Barbara Windsor’s death from the disease, Steve Acklam talks about looking after a beloved wife who is slipping away
Steve Acklam at his home near Cambridge
Credit: John Lawrence
When Steve Acklam first met his wife, Veronica, it was the late Sixties, and she was a brilliant PE teacher at a leading Cambridge secondary school. “She was very physically active, alert, highly intelligent,” he says.
Today, however, at 74, she is a shadow of her former self. “She’s had a variety of challenging illnesses,” says Steve, a retired charity sector worker, also 74. “She’s had brain surgery, she’s registered disabled because of a problem with her feet. But then six or seven years ago, suddenly she started to ask repeatedly ‘What time is it?’, or saying ‘I’ve forgotten how to count…’, both of which I now know can be early signs of Alzheimer’s.”
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Credit: David Rose
For more than a century,
The Telegraph has run charity appeals at Christmas, inviting readers to get into the festive spirit by helping those in need. One of the first such fundraising campaigns, during the First World War, helped supply troops with Christmas puddings.
Last year, readers dug deep to support three worthy causes that help vulnerable children, lonely older people and sufferers of leukaemia, raising just under £600,000, with an astonishing £101,000 donated on our annual phone-in day, when readers were able to call in to speak to Telegraph writers and editors and donate to our charities.
Call me this Sunday and support our Christmas charity appeal
The only plan I’m certain of sticking to this Yuletide is The Telegraph’s Christmas Charity Appeal Phone-in, this very Sunday
10 December 2020 • 7:00pm
Judith, along with the other Telegraph writers, will be waiting to take your call on Sunday
Credit: Rii Schroer
There was something unexpectedly reassuring about hearing the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge admit they didn’t know what they were doing for Christmas now HM the Queen has cancelled her annual gathering at Sandringham.
Same here, Kate and Wills. Want to hang out? Our grandma is shielding north of the border and just because we could visit her doesn’t mean we should, as we have been reminded. In fact, my spouse thinks we ought to forgo all festivities and just make merry together. I’m not sure we’ve done that since T’Pau were in the charts. Nor am I convinced by the resurgence of such uxoriousness after many months of 24/7 togetherness.