My Story: Robyn and Jean

"I remember my grandma, Jean, in her younger days as beautiful, kind, and sometimes a little strict! As a young woman she worked in Merthyr Tydfil Town Hall and was a keen amateur seamstress. After raising (and clothing!) her children, she returned to work, teaching dressmaking and volunteering for the Citizen's Advice Bureau.

Her and my grandpa, John, were life long partners, like the kind you see in films. After 65 years of marriage, grandpa still asked her to dance whenever we played Frank Sinatra’s ‘It Had To Be You’. Jean, being the prim and proper lady she was, would reluctantly fuss, before standing, taking his hand and lovingly dancing around the living room. And, of course, at the end of each day we spent in Merthyr, time was always reserved for the serious business of John and Jean having a 'cwtch' (or, as the English say, a cuddle) on the sofa.

Sadly, as grandma grew older she became more confused and lost, as memories of their life together faded. She moved into care in 2022, where she is cared for by a lovely team. However, her memory of her own life, her husband and her family, is now gone.

This story, while heartbreaking, is not unusual. Jean shares her condition with a million others in the UK alone. While drug trials are taking place, and blood tests to detect Alzheimer’s are just around the corner, we still have no cure. Dementia research is, on the whole, chronically underfunded, lagging 20 years behind the progress made in cancer research.”