This is a true no holds barred account of a family living with Dementia, frustration, love, heartbreak and a welfare system that let us down.

In a busy world it’s easy to miss the decline of cognitive function in an elderly person; easy to judge it as slight confusion; easier still to ignore it completely - until suddenly it explodes into your life. For my family that is exactly what happened; my parents 60 years of togetherness suddenly ended. Now we were dependent on others; relying on Britain’s welfare system.

What happened next was shocking and devastating.

Eighteen months of social services, doctors, hospitals care homes and frustration. No chance of a happy ending with this one; absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel.

Only darkness and injustice.

I was horrified by what happened to my parents, shocked by the lack of support for them


I really struggled to come to terms with a welfare system where pensioners can be forced to sell their homes to fund depressingly poor standards of care; while young men who’ve never worked a day in their lives, happily stand at a bar drinking their way through hundreds of pounds worth of benefits.

There are almost a million people living with Dementia in Britain today. That number will double within the next 20 years. Forty-two percent of the population are affected by this disease in one way or another, yet money allocated to its research accounts for only 2.5% of the funds available.

What has gone so wrong?

This is a dark story, told with the honesty of humour and the distress and turmoil of loss.