Full disclosure, today’s guest Wendy Mitchell is one of my all-time favourite people. She is positive, witty, resilient, genuine and wise. She is the author of Somebody I Used To Know, a ground-breaking memoir that was selected as Radio 4’s Book of the Week, chosen as one of the Times’ newspaper’s books of the year, and made it onto the Sunday Times best-seller list. She is also living with dementia. Seven years ago at the age of 58 Wendy, a former NHS manager, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. In...
Nov 03, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Karen Penny is a powerhouse, a force of nature, a walking Wonder Woman. Over the last two and a half years she’s covered ten and a half thousand miles, got through ten pairs of boots, ten hats, one thousand custard creams, three birthdays and two wedding anniversaries. And single-handedly raised £126,000 – and counting – for Alzheimer’s Research UK. I’m not sure which is the more staggering really – the ten and half thousand mile trek or the £126,000 she’s raised. Either way, it’s an extraordina...
Oct 27, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 26
In this bonus episode I talk to Jorg Roth who, in My Life Films, has created something very special for people with dementia and their families. As with all the best ideas, it’s simple yet effective. Jorg has come to dementia not as a carer or medic, or a professional from the social care world, but as a successful film maker with a wealth of experience. He’s a creative with a commercial approach to dementia. But don’t switch off at the sound of what he himself calls the “C word”. Commercialism,...
May 11, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 25
This week’s guests are three highly creative, very successful men who are on a mission to help those with dementia lead happier, easier, more fulfilled lives. Their latest collaboration is a colourful one with a powerful past that stretches back to the 18th century when trades unions were illegal and women’s votes were a long way off. They are: the Bard of Barnsley aka Ian McMillan, a man with so many titles it’s difficult to know which to choose, but I’ve plumped for poet, comic & broadcast...
Apr 20, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Lenny White, the world’s first dementia-friendly barber, lives in Northern Ireland where, at the time of recording, the date for the reopening of salons and spas had yet to be announced but it will surely be very soon. Before the pandemic hit, Lenny took his skills – and all the trappings of his cut-throat profession – around the UK and as far afield as America and Canada, setting up shop in two care homes in New York and cutting, pampering and wet shaving Auschwitz survivors in Montreal. Lenny’...
Apr 13, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 23
For the past 12 years, since her mum was diagnosed with, first mild cognitive impairment and then Alzheimer’s, Rosanne Corcoran has been her main carer, and in 2015 her mum moved in with her and her family. For Rosanne is also a wife and a mother to two daughters. Before she had to give it up, her career was in real estate. For this week’s podcast she spoke to me from her home, three and a half thousand miles away, in Philadelphia, USA. To put it bluntly, in her own words, she says she’s a full-...
Apr 06, 2021•52 min•Season 1Ep. 22
George Coxon is the owner and director of two small care homes in Devon. Pottles Court, which has to have the best care home name EVER, and Summercourt, both of which live by the philosophy of homely homes for life. When my guest and I talked he told me, in no uncertain terms, that people who come to live in Pottles Court and Summercourt do just that: they arrive and move in. They’re not admitted, a word more suited to hospitals. How very refreshing. In fact George Coxon seems altogether refresh...
Mar 30, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Costa-award-winning author Keggie Carew and I chat about her dad and his dementia, about the twists and turns of family life, about forgiveness and about that strange, intangible thing called love. All themes that are skilfully woven into Dadland as its mesmerising narrative flits about in time. Dadland tells the story of Keggie’s father, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Carew, a dashing maverick and daredevil hero of the second world war who was awarded both the Distinguished Service Medal and the Croix ...
Mar 23, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 20
My mum adored Nobby Stiles. She didn’t watch much football, but she loved the cheeky chappy with his famous gap-toothed grin who, having played every minute of England’s victorious 1966 World Cup, celebrated his team’s 4-2 win over Germany by dancing a jig on the Wembley pitch with the trophy in one hand and his false teeth in the other. His son John, my guest in this episode, says that when his dad was living with dementia he used to drive from Doncaster to visit him with knots in his stomach. ...
Mar 16, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Peter Berry and Deb Bunt met by chance – through the spin of the wheel one might say – in Sax Velo, a cycling shop in Suffolk in 2018. Deb (together with husband Martin) had recently retired and moved to the market town of Saxmundham. Peter, a Suffolk man through and through, took over his father’s timber business; for him the trees and woods of his county are as familiar as old friends and family. Peter is also a keen cyclist and, aged just 50, he was diagnosed with dementia. Deb knew no one in...
Mar 09, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 18
International soprano Lesley Garrett has delighted the world’s biggest audiences for over 40 years – from London’s Royal Opera House to America’s Hollywood Bowl. She’s performed with every leading orchestra as well as with the likes of Bryan Ferry and the Eurythmics, with whom she sang on the eve of the millennium, and has produced over a dozen best-selling albums. She’s also a familiar face on our television screens, presenting and appearing in countless shows. Lesley encountered dementia when ...
Mar 02, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Sarah Reed was an award-winning creative producer and single mother of two, when two events shattered her world. The first was a brush with death when a burst appendix left her unconscious for nine hours in A & E, followed by a four-day stint in intensive care. Four weeks later her dad called to say that her mum, Mary, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Sarah describes this as one of the worst days of her life. Before the diagnosis she and her mum hadn’t been that close; Sarah had ...
Dec 15, 2020•51 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Mike Parish has been with his partner Tom Hughes for 45 years. Theirs is a love story, and I’ve found researching their lives, witnessing the tenderness, concern and pride that flows between them – very moving. And a reminder of the beauty to be found in us flawed human beings. But their story also has an ugly side. For much of their lives these two individuals have been the victims of prejudice, rejection, violence even. One of them still bears the visible scars. The unseen, emotional cuts run ...
Dec 08, 2020•47 min•Season 1Ep. 15
My guest this week is the chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, Kate Lee. As well as being a CEO, Kate’s a wife, mother and daughter. Her 80-year-old mum’s vascular dementia is now so advanced that she lives in a nursing home and can’t talk; the only way Barbara can show her daughter that she loves her is to hold her hand. At the moment, of course, along with thousands of others, these two can’t hold hands, or meet, or hug or be together in any meaningful way, at all. A few weeks ago Barba...
Dec 01, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Author, journalist and campaigner Nicci Gerrard is a pocket dynamo of warmth and energy. She speaks quickly, her lyrical, thought-provoking words tumbling out of her mouth, compelling us to see things in new and different ways. In 2014 she co-founded John’s Campaign with Julia Jones. Its aim is simple: “that the carers of those with dementia should have the same rights as the parents of sick children to accompany them to hospital” and its inspiration came from her late father, the doctor and sci...
Nov 24, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Dr Jennifer Bute regards the dementia with which she was diagnosed in 2009 not as a life-shattering disaster but a gift – to use her words, “a glorious opportunity”. She is a remarkable individual who, despite facing many adversities, and supported by her strong Christian Faith, remains brimming with hope and gratitude. It is a sign of her fortitude and determination that she was the first woman in Hampshire to become a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners – and this when she was...
Nov 17, 2020•47 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Professor Sube Banerjee is that rare beast: an esteemed clinician and academic with a tremendous way with words and bucketloads of empathy. Last year he was appointed Executive Dean of Plymouth University’s cross-disciplinary Health Faculty, where along with his many other responsibilities, he jointly heads up Radio Me, a ground-breaking project that uses artificial intelligence to tailor live radio to an individual’s needs. Previously, while Professor of Dementia and Associate Dean at Brighton ...
Nov 10, 2020•39 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Jenni Dutton’s Dementia Darnings comprise a series of large works formed with running stitch that explore the effect of the condition on both her mother and herself. Jenni says the Darnings became the constant thread binding her life together and stopping it from falling apart. “How will I unpick my life from my mum’s life?”, she asks as the years pass. The Somerset-based, multi-media artist wanted to evoke the sense of disjointedness and abstraction, of displacement and insecurity that her mum’...
Nov 03, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 10
I couldn’t have hoped for a more wonderful guest to launch my second series of Well I Know Now than the international star of stage, screen and television, Glenda Jackson. The actress has added a BAFTA to her glittering array of awards (two Oscars, two BAFTAs, one Tony, one Golden Globe, two Emmys …. ) for her portrayal of Maud in the BBC film of Elizabeth is Missing. This intriguing whodunnit, based on the excellent novel by Emma Healey which I reviewed here https://pippakelly.co.uk/2014/08/eli...
Oct 28, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 9
For my series finale I chat to Sally Magnusson, distinguished broadcaster, journalist, author and founder of the music and dementia charity Playlist for Life. When her mother Mamie Baird developed the condition Sally started writing about her in an attempt to hold onto the wonderful woman she loved so much. The result is a tender letter from a daughter to a mother. It is also a reporter’s investigation into one of the most feared conditions of our time. In Where Memories Go, Sally explores demen...
Jul 28, 2020•52 min•Season 1Ep. 8
When her husband Geoff went to live in a care home several years after he developed dementia Zoe Harris soon realised that his lack of verbal communication was not only impacting on his quality of life but severely compromising his health. Because Geoff couldn’t tell his carers that he liked his coffee black they made it white, he didn’t drink it and in the space of two days became dangerously dehydrated. Never one to sit and moan, Zoe took matters into her own hands. Nothing radical. She just j...
Jul 21, 2020•48 min•Season 1Ep. 7
When her own life hit a rough patch and she was brought very low, actor, writer and television producer Susanna Howard quite literally wrote her way out of it. She let her words flow onto paper, never letting her pen stop and not allowing herself to think too much. The results surprised her. “I was reconnecting to myself,” she says. Realising she was onto something, she decided to share the idea and help others who, like her, had found themselves in a dark place, for whatever reason. Susanna bel...
Jul 14, 2020•42 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Creative from the tip of his head to his northern roots – he was born in Blackpool – cartoonist Tony Husband shows no sign of letting up as he approaches his seventies. His spare, witty drawings have appeared in virtually all of our national newspapers and magazines, and following the death of his dad Ron in 2011 Tony has turned his considerable wit and skill to raising awareness of dementia. Ron lived with vascular dementia for his last few years and in this podcast Tony tells me what his dad’s...
Jul 08, 2020•46 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Young mum Suzy Webster is quietly very strong. She has a softness about her that belies her courage and determination. Not many of us possess the generosity of spirit or wells of emotional, physical and mental strength to invite our elderly parents come and live with us, particularly when one of them has dementia. This young mum from Chepstow, ably and wisely supported by her husband Andrew, does. She never shouts about it, or judges others against the way she lives her life, she simply gets on ...
Jul 01, 2020•39 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Sally Knocker works tirelessly to enhance the lives of older people and those with dementia. I doubt she even sees it as work because she is so naturally compassionate and empathetic. For her – as with other guests to whom I’ve spoken for this podcast – there is no them (those we are caring for or those with dementia) and us. There is just us. This ethos lies at the heart of all that Sally does. She is generous of both her time and her emotions and she is genuinely interested in other people. Al...
Jun 24, 2020•40 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Chris Roberts has the most fantastic attitude to life. “Take it by the danglies,” he cajoles us all. “And run with it!” This enviably positive approach might be because of – or despite of – his dementia, which he began to develop a decade ago when he was just 50 years old. It’s a view that is undoubtedly strengthened by the deep love and support of Jayne, his wife of 26 years. It was a joy to talk to the couple down the line from their home in Rhuddlan, North Wales during Covid lockdown. I’ve lo...
Jun 08, 2020•40 min•Season 1Ep. 2
In my first podcast I meet the acclaimed interior designer Nula Suchet whose late husband began to develop Pick’s disease, a rare form of dementia, when he was just 57. This warm, passionate Irish woman tells me that she didn’t even know what dementia was when James first started to show symptoms. She describes how isolating it was as she struggled to look after him and her shock at the lack of support. We hear how her extraordinary love for James remained undiminished even as dementia stole him...
Jun 08, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 1
