Pals meet to help raise awareness of the ‘lost battle’
9:02am Monday 19th September 2011 in News
FORMER newsreader John Suchet’s friendship with a Bolton man led to him visiting the town to raise awareness of dementia.
Mr Suchet and 65-year-old Jim Swift became friends after they started emailing each other about their shared experiences, caring for wives with dementia.
So when Mr Swift asked the former TV news anchorman to join him in Bolton to help raise awareness of dementia, he jumped at the chance.
Mr Suchet, aged 67, whose wife Bonnie suffers from Alzheimer’s, said: “Jim and I became pen friends and we send each other emails and make each other laugh.
“Dementia is no respecter of age, sex, anything. Anyone can get it at any age and that’s the message.
“People think of it as a disease of the elderly, and it is, but it doesn’t have to be.
”More than anything, when you are going through this, you need to talk to other carers who are going through the same thing.
“Unlike other diseases, you can’t talk to the person who’s got it.
“Jim is a great support to me.”
Mr Suchet’s wife, now aged 70, was diagnosed with dementia six years ago.
He added: “It is a unique disease because if someone is diagnosed with cancer, they know about it, and it is tragic, but they can fight it, and often they do beat it.
“But my wife doesn’t know she has dementia. People can fight cancer together, but with dementia, you are fighting a losing battle, it’s a lost battle, really.”
Mr Swift, of Harwood, whose wife Janet was struck down by the illness aged just 58, helped organise Dementia Awareness Day in Bolton.
He said the disease arrived without warning and destroyed the couple’s plans for the future.
He added: “We were heading towards retirement and had all these plans and then it strikes.
It can happen to anyone, it is not a lifestyle disease. When your wife of 40 years is being aggressive, it can be so hard to take.
“Sometimes you lose patience and then the guilt kicks in and you feel terrible.
“The support we give each other is vital, because you are talking to someone who understands.”
The pair were also supporting a petition to support Admiral Nurses at the Market Place Shopping Centre on Saturday.
The mental health nurses specialise in dementia.
They work with family carers and people with dementia but Bolton’s nurses are to be axed.
Mr Swift saidthe work of the Admiral nurses had helped provide him with vital support and advice.
Mr Swift added: “If it wasn’t for the help of the Admiral nurses I don’t know where I’d be today.”
Dementia Awareness Day is now a worldwide event but was started by a former Astley Bridge man, Norman McNamara, who now lives in Devon.
Mr Suchet has written a bestselling book about his wife’s battle with dementia.
The book and subsequent television and press interviews have helped to raise greater awareness of the disease throughout the UK.
