Hi I’m Ian, you know my job was as a dentist.
The walking’s great, I think it is, I like to say to people it’s about two and a half miles.
It bloody well never is.
I’m Derek, I’m over 70, I’ve retired.
I’ve been involved in the green community in one way and another for a number of years.
I’m Stan Mark, the garden’s always been important to us two.
My name is Roy. I’m 64 years old. Music is important, to me anyway.
It reminds me of good times, it reminds me of bad times.
Hello, my name’s Judith, all my friends call me Jude.
I love painting. I’m not really an artist, but I just love doing it.
Hello, my name’s Harry. Well I would say I love photography,
I love walking and I have frontal lobe dementia.
This, this little thing here is a little painting.
And it’s a bit of a joke, well I think it’s a bit of a joke, the others, most of the family don’t,
but I’ve never been able to do anything like that.
But I found quite quickly, I found, that I could just slap things around.
I can disappear and just mess about and I don’t have to do anything
but I quite enjoy doing what I’m doing you know.
My camera, yes well, most definitely something new.
I really enjoy the camera, I really do.
It’s my window of what I see in the world and people.
It reminds me of where I’ve been, who was with me, it’s memories for me as well, that’s what I’m looking at.
I like to try and think I can remember them later on in time as it progresses.
just sort of like beginning to play our netball, our county netball, because we weren’t old enough then.
I can’t say all the names, but we’ve won everything in sight if you know what I mean.
That’s me…
We’re alright, and now of course we’re not so good.
Alright?
Yeah, yeah.
I try to do it if I can but if not I got to ask.
Otherwise, if you take a lot of time doing these things then you can start getting a bit irritated and
that can start you off like you were saying, for the day then, you know,
you get the feeling that you’re getting a little bit stroppy. Correct?
Yes
Alright, there we are.
At the beginning it was the anger.
You’re just annoyed with yourself and annoyed you’re not as you was.
This is – I’m no good with the names of the plants – but that’s the one that comes up,
that the butterflies like. It’s about that long – well, and the -
Buddleia
Stan: That’s it, you got it. Buddleia, and when it grows it’s up here, business like.
My – the state of mind was, I felt that I’d been hit by something but I couldn’t sort out what it was.
You’ve really just got to get on with it, a nd actually I think it’s quite easy to do that.
But you do need you need the backing of all these other people you know.
And I – my wife’s been away yesterday and overnight because she’s lecturing down in Southampton
and this morning very early, very early was just hell.
Because I’d got up and I realised that the time was wrong and I was thinking
now what am I going to eat – what am I going to wear, and yeah it was, it was a bit of a mess really.
It’s like being inside a balloon at times and you can’t break out of it.
You’re just stuck in there and you want your mind to think properly –
as normal, but you can’t break out of that position.
And that is how I feel at times.
So it makes me a bit angry that I can’t convey that to others
because it’s just not something that you can convey
that you feel locked in that area. But it does come.
Oh no! He missed his neighbours.
Know the person, know what – know everything, read up on their notes on that person.
Speak to that person, yeah, get to know them. You know like, someone will say;
“You’ve got a camera, you take photographs, I know a little, I do a little bit.”
You know, so it’s that sort of thing, trying to fall in with them
because my wife is, she accepts what I’ve got now, so she is trying to -
Which she tries to do and tries to understand. And it does get difficult for her and
I just sometimes wish that she would go away for a bit of respite and you know
sort of chill out and forget about me for a while, you know.
But trying to get through to her, no, it’s a woman’s thing.
I think talking is great and a lot of people – and actually talking perhaps,
well, just talking to people who you haven’t met before is er – it’s really difficult for some people,
you know, but I don’t have a problem. But at the same time
I know that my vocabulary is going and my – you know, and I know it, I know it’s going to get to a stage
where we might be guessing what we’re wanting to say and er well we all are in many ways.
I don’t get anybody from social services or anybody else coming in, see how I am or anything.
When I need it I’ll ask for it, until then I’ll support myself, I’ll do everything I can myself.
If I went down the road of asking for help, going to social services or all the official bodies,
I’d lose some of the power to be able to do it myself.
I wouldn’t have the motivation to do it myself, it would be, I’ll ask somebody to do it for me.
Well, why ask somebody to do it for you when you can, you might be able to do it for yourself.
If you can’t do it for yourself, get someone to help you, but other than that, do it yourself.
Mushrooms of some sort.
Something else that will catch when we’re out walking with the walking group,
I’ll stop and just see sort of so much out there in nature to look at, and think isn’t that beautiful,
I’ll sometimes get left behind because I’m looking at something.
I’ve had to stop and think perhaps more, instead of automatically going to do something
as I would’ve in the past, I have to stop and think now if it’s, is that practical bearing in mind the Alzheimer’s.
Yeah, probably eight times out of ten it still is practical, but you’ve got to take it into,
you’ve got to take it into account.
It’s hard to list the things that are a problem, because there’s so many things that aren’t a problem
that you can avoid the bits that are going to be problematic.
I couldn’t take it in at first. I found it hard to absorb –
the fact that all of a sudden, I’m not working, I’m not driving,
I think to myself why me, how did it happen?
Because I really don’t know how it happens, one minute you’re ok and the next you’ve been diagnosed.
But it took me a little while to
realise that I had the problem, but it took me a little bit longer to accept it.
Because I was very bitter because I couldn’t work, I couldn’t drive and
I felt as if everything I’d worked for had been taken away from me.
I try not to dwell on that, too much, because
life’s too short, so I like to keep on chivvying along.
You’ve got to continue with the life as it was
before dementia put its head above the water so to speak.
And you’ve just got to carry on as if you were that same person
as you were before the dementia hit you.
You find when you’re getting older and especially with the problems you can’t do as you used to do
so you’ve got to find a compromise to do the job.
That’s the point, to do any job, you’ve got to change it,
otherwise we won’t get anywhere.
I think people ought to know that the condition I’ve got,
although it’s not reversible, life still goes on and there’s no need to be really down about it.
For a short while, yes, kick the cat, whatever, slam a few doors, but get on with life
because life is short and make the most of it.
And that’s what I’m going to try and do.
Come on ducks.
Now, my mind is clear. Mind the water.
What’s important to me is that I’m treated as a normal person
and hopefully that comes across to most people.
If they find that difficult then I explain, not fully, but I explain just to say, I’m sorry,
but I’ve got a memory problem could you repeat that please. And they do, so that’s ok.
That was a good joke, thank you.
Another joke.
But that was a dirty one.
I laugh, I try and laugh, I cry, but not very often now, I’m not so frightened of it now.
But I do laugh a lot, yeah, definitely.
I’ve got an illness but I’m still a person.
I can still think, I can talk, I can hear, I can breathe.
Just treat them normally.
Just holding someone’s hand is pretty damn good actually.
I’ve always - I was brought up with five kids in my family and you know, we liked cuddles then and
I feel the same really. But some people don’t like that at all.
You know, it’s a shock when it comes, but eventually you get over it.
Or I did and er -
I think most of the people at the centre have got used to it, got over it.
I suppose it’s three gets isn’t it, get over it, get on with it,
there are the three gets, I forgot the third one.
Yeah, get on with life.
My message I think would to be treat me like a human being and
perhaps make allowances for any in – in – I’ve lost the word now,
oh, begins with an ‘i’ and it’s got ‘syncrany’ on the end. Er…
Idiosyncrasies?
That’s the word. Just make allowances for any indio – what you said – idiosyncrasies that I have. 1:02:49.130,1193:02:47.295 This is the county netball that we played in, that was when we were under –