There is plenty about dementia that makes me choke. My dad died of it four years ago and it’s still raw enough to upset. I can’t watch any dementia-themed film, even if Julianne Moore is in it. But today I’ve choked up for a different reason.
Since my father’s death, my mother, Sheila Wainwright, has been a tenacious campaigner and fundraiser. She wants to ensure that people don’t have the same bewildering, inadequate “care” that we had.
She decided to raise funds for an Admiral nurse, best described as “like a Macmillan nurse but for dementia”.
She says that at the worst points of my dad’s Alzheimer’s, she phoned the Admiral nurse helpline and says it saved her life: an Admiral nurse can advise on our deliberately bewildering social care system, on benefits, on respite, on medication.
Since my dad’s death, I’ve spent time with an Admiral nurse in Huddersfield, and the difference one makes is astonishing. In Wakefield, where my mother lives, there wasn’t one. But now, with non-stop effort and fundraising, my mother – with support – has raised nearly £60,000 for Dementia UK’s Admiral nurse fund. The local health authorities have agreed to co-fund a nurse, and so here I am at my desk, choking up at a job advert for “Wakefield Admiral Nurse, Agenda for Change Band 6”, knowing that this dry text will mean a better life for countless people.
Allotment crazy
My mother has always been known for her stunning gardens. She spent so much time in her greenhouse (as well as being headteacher of the best primary school in town) that I called her Grub. She despaired that my interest in gardens consisted of lying in them.
Yesterday we went to a plant nursery, and she watched in wonder as I picked out peas, tomatoes and summer bulbs. That’s because, when my dad fell ill, I moved back up north from a London flat to a house with a garden. I got a cat and an allotment, and now delight in reading about chitting and pricking out and knowing when garden centres close. My allotment in Leeds is wonderful: a huge space, friendly people – and every Sunday, as our allotment association website says, there is tea, award-winning flapjack, and the opportunity “to get advice (wanted or unwanted)”.
I wonder sometimes whether this is all a replacement for child-bearing. But whatever your reproductive status, allotments are as good for the soul as the stomach. So why does Eric Pickles keep closing them? From 2007 to 2013 he turned down only four of 199 applications from councils to sell allotment sites to developers. About 3,000 plots have been destroyed since 2010. Farm Terrace allotment holders in Watford got a court decision to block development, but are now threatened again. Remember that on 7 May, along with everything else.
Great northern runners
Last year I ran the London marathon. It was my first marathon. I loved it: the sights, the non-stop supporters, the jelly beans and kindness, the drummers in the underpass at Canary Wharf, the Mall. But I’m in no hurry to do it again. I wanted to run the Manchester marathon this month, because my clubmates say it’s flat and friendly, but I’m injured. I will be running the Yorkshire marathon again this year because last year it was flat, foggy and friendly. I want to support my local marathons, but you’d never guess they exist from all the coverage they get nationally. I’ll be watching London, if only to salute the superb Paula Radcliffe on her swansong run. But would someone please tell the media that not every British marathon has the word “London” in front of it?
