Radio with Robin Ince – a journey into dementia on Radio 4’s Book of the Week

Not that long ago, it was a commonly held belief that dementia was the result of not using your mind enough in old age. Keep doing crosswords and your mind will be just fine. The chronicling of Iris Murdoch’s decline due to Alzheimer’s put paid to that old tale. Her last work, Jackson’s Dilemma, was studied to find out if there were clues to her Alzheimer’s and the researchers observed a reduction in vocabulary and a simplification of language. Jackson’s Dilemma was not written by someone aware of their dementia. Somebody I Used to Know is.

Serialised as Radio 4’s Book of the Week, it is the first memoir about Alzheimer’s by someone with it. Wendy Mitchell (pictured above), an NHS worker and single mother, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 58.

It’s the loss of knowledge that has been taken for granted for decades being stripped away that makes this so stark at times. A lifetime of baking must suddenly end. Having regularly made cakes for a local hospice, Wendy takes the mix from the oven and finds it inedible. Only the week before, she had confused teaspoons for tablespoons. “I feel a visceral grief at saying goodbye, this time to baking, something I’ve done my whole life.”

Having brought up her two daughters alone, she is horrified when she realises that, for the first time in 34 years, she has forgotten one of their birthdays.

The Alzheimer’s Society send Wendy to review the early-onset Alzheimer’s drama, Still Alice.

She watches this fictional account and marvels at Julianne Moore’s portrayal of her own condition. Seeing Alice losing recognition of her loved ones, Wendy wonders where the love goes: “[It] must stay trapped inside instead.”

Having brought up her two daughters alone, she is horrified when she realises that, for the first time in 34 years, she has forgotten one of their birthdays

Wendy writes a blog to ensure her present life is not lost. She is able to observe some changes as positive. She can no longer watch thrillers as she forgets the clues and details that lead to the final-act revelations, but she sees that a progressive illness can focus the mind in other ways. She now reads poetry, its brevity offering something beautiful and intriguing that is accessible to her.

She used to be fearful of animals like cats, but now she explains that “this softening in my brain means I have made time to sit and stare and watch”, and as she sits and watches, she empathises with those animals that worried her as they do the same. She finds she is not afraid any more “of cats or of the dark or of the disease”.

The rewards we gain from access to clean water, vaccination and other innovations have led to us meeting other illnesses with increased regularity. Most of us will know someone who has dementia, some of us will be the person diagnosed with it too. It is hard to imagine the picking away of memory. Beautifully read by Tessa Gallagher, this memoir, written without despair, created an evocative window into the changing life and mind of Wendy.

I should also briefly note that Bridget Christie, one of the most brilliant stand-ups currently working, is back on Radio 4 and talking about auto-erotic asphyxiation.