The Homestart Quiz Night I mentioned last week was a triumph in every way. We have raised hundreds of pounds for such a good cause, helping families with very young children. Our volunteers are a truly wonderful gift with their love, training, experience and patience.
Our table didn’t win but we did well and were in the top half. Despite my dementia, my memory was good for many questions.
Our table consisted of old and new friends which was great. I asked Sal’s co-godmother, Lady Alison Wakeham, who was at our table, how her husband John was doing and she replied ‘not too bad’.
He recently spoke in the House of Lords in favor of reform of the House of Lords. I told Alison I remembered the job
John did this decades ago as part of a cross-party reform effort, with Labor MP Gerald Kaufman. I had also studied it for my British Constitution A-Level. She laughed and said, “Your memory is awfully good. » But as always, Sal had to button my suspenders and tie my tie before going out.
Rose Rawle, whose husband and sons run the successful Rawles Classic Cars business in the village, brought her mother along while her husband Bill was on a business trip with their sons. But she also brought her sons’ girlfriends, which allowed us to further improve the age distribution, which proved important in areas like music and television programming.
We played our joker to score double points in history and collected a nice big total.
Alastair Stewart spoke about seeing his dear friends and family in this week’s Living With Dementia
NEWS FROM GB
On Wednesday Sal went to see an old friend in Kent who she had worked with at Southern ITV and TVS, the local ITV franchises where I also started. Two other friends, who were also former work colleagues, joined her on the trip.
Sal had made a splendid leek and potato soup for my lunch and invited our eldest son Alex to come over, which is always a joy.
He and his wife live in Winchester, so we get to see a lot. He is very helpful with “information technology” and will often solve my online problems, which are many and varied given my dementia.
I still worry about scams and feel vulnerable, like all people with dementia. Her sound advice was not to buy online or convince him to do so and refund him. He checked my laptop thoroughly and said he thought everything seemed secure.
Alex was a scholarship recipient at Winchester College and is one of the smartest people I know. Although his Oxford First and MA were in English, his interests are almost limitless.
After lunch I turned on GB News, only to hear Defense Secretary John Healey announce the decommissioning of several warships as part of a mini defense review. I suspect this won’t work well as Labor remains vulnerable in defence.
But they opened a new front with the budget and their changes to farmers’ inheritance tax. This dominated the conversation with two dear old friends who invited me to lunch on Wednesday, something they have done regularly since my diagnosis.
I’ve known them both for years, but they prove the truth of the phrase: “When you’re depressed and troubled, you need friends.”
Khalid is a former Southern regional news presenter for ITV and Northern regional news presenter for the BBC. He now earns a good living as a communications consultant for businesses and voluntary groups. He is also a keen supporter of many good causes and is Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire. Like me, he worried that the tax changes would harm family farming.
My other lunch friend, Bob, made his fortune in convenience retailing and now works in commercial real estate. He argued that many businesses were vital to our way of life and prosperity and deserved to be supported, even protected.
He believed that the farmer had “had it” for decades and that the tax exemption was illogical and unfair to others. I said I also feared it showed the true face of Labor – a contempt for land ownership. Bob also argued that larger farms could be more efficient and put more, cheaper food on our tables.
The week ended with another totally joyous visit when Clive Jones came down from London and took us to lunch with Sally.
He had employed Sal when she was a production assistant at TVS and me when he and Greg Dyke set up the London News Network for LWT and Carlton TV, of which Clive became managing director.
He also co-ran ITV for a time. He is a close and loyal friend to both of us and godfather to our Freddie and his son Harry. In difficult times, he is man’s last resort. Another close friend of his is John Stapleton, recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, whom he saw recently.
Those of us with serious health problems are fortunate to have people like Clive as friends and confidants.
On the morning of Clive’s arrival, it was announced that John Prescott had died following a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. I knew he was an acquaintance of Clive who is a Welsh valley boy and Labor to the core. He’s definitely more old Labor than new.
He said he got to know John through their mutual friend, Rodney Bickerastaffe, a former colossus of the labor movement.
MORE LIVING WITH DEMENTIA:
I really enjoyed my days as an industry correspondent to Charles Rae, Richard Littlejohn, Julia Somerville and others – they were good friends and good people. The union leaders, for the most part, were also impressive people who had real convictions.
Thatcher confronting them was as much an intellectual failure as it was an industrial relations failure. Today, the left and the right seem intellectually sterile in comparison. I think the budget was against wealth creation and home ownership, which the old traditional left hates. I think the destruction of family farms is part of all this and I also think they believe that imposing VAT on private school fees is an effective and valid attack on privilege. In truth, it is shortsightedness and an attack on choice that will backfire.
I recently received an email from Dementia UK asking me to complete a questionnaire about the NHS which would be submitted to the government inquiry. The computer system did not accept my submission because it indicated that I did not have the correct zip code. I had done it, and Sally had checked, so I phoned them and they agreed that what I had put in was correct. It was the same zip code they had on file for me.
You know, nothing could be simpler!