‘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.”