Afgespeeld
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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/elizabeth-is-missing/) also provides a deft exploration of dementia and the strains that it places on family life. Glenda plays Maud who, while in the early stages of dementia, sets out to find her missing friend Elizabeth and in so doing solves a 70-year-old murder mystery.
The actress and I chat about why she took on the role; how we as a society can no longer ignore dementia; the financial, emotional and practical challenges facing those who live with it and their families and the role that the state plays in all this.
We also talk about ageing, which Glenda believes fractures and frays the gender boundaries – a fascinating idea which I’ve not previously encountered. And the way in which an ideal society has parallels with one of those magical pieces of theatre that completely captures its audience – both are bigger than the sum of their parts, require everyone involved to play their role and generate a positive, reciprocal energy.
The daughter of a bricklayer and a cleaner, the girl from the Wirral has come a long way and never lost touch with her roots, her work ethic or her humour.
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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 left their home in Faversham, Kent for art school at 16, since when her life had been busy, revolving around her demanding film work and bringing up her children.
Over the next decade, as Mary’s dementia progressed, a newfound bond developed between them. “We learnt a new, more grown-up confidence with one another”, says Sarah. “And learnt how to laugh at our shortcomings”. Sarah and her siblings supported their parents as best they could but their father struggled to cope and in 2000 Mary moved into a care home.
Sarah soon realised that while kindly and well-meaning, the staff had little or no communication training – and her frustration developed into a passion to try to help carers provide better care. Over the course of the next few years, as her dad died and her mum was forced to move care homes, twice, Sarah’s knowledge of dementia grew and with it a belief that staff couldn’t hope to develop a relationship with their charges if they didn’t know anything about them, and in order to find out about them they needed to be able to communicate with them. Sarah decided to act.
At a personal level she compiled an album of photographs from her mother’s early childhood right through to her years as a great grandmother. When Mary saw the album she glowed with pleasure – although confused by the present, her mum was brought alive by the past.
And thus the idea for Sarah’s award-winning Many Happy Returns Chatterbox Cards was conceived. Painstaking research into not just dementia, but compassion, philosophy and reminiscence therapy, led to cards skilfully designed to prompt conversations with older people. Two thousand cards based around the 1940s were launched in 2008. The sets sold out in three months. Today, some 9,000 sets – of 1940s and ‘50s cards – can be found in care settings, libraries, schools and private homes around the UK.
Sarah went on to develop interactive communication workshops to help care staff communicate more meaningfully with residents. She believes that “Good communication sits at both the heart and pinnacle of good care”.
Mary died in 2009, aged 92. Dementia may have taken her mum from her, but Sarah tells me that it also, in a way, gave back. “Caring for a loved one helps teach you a love you did not know was possible”, she says. “It’s a feeling of understanding, forgiveness and, eventually, closure”.
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