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AWARD-WINNING STAGE AND SCREEN CHOREOGRAPHER
ARLENE PHILLIPS
TELLS THE HEARTBREAKING STORY OF HER FATHER’S
DESCENT INTO ALZHEIMER’S AND CALLS FOR MORE
RESEARCH TO GIVE OTHERS HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
Choreographer and former
Strictly Come Dancing judge
Arlene Phillips spent years
caring for her father
Abraham, who suffered from
Alzheimer’s disease. He
died aged 89 in 2000.
Arlene is a supporter of
Alzheimer’s Research UK
and presented BBC1’s
Lifeline Appeal on behalf of
the charity this month
I’m approached all the time,
whether I’m taking part in a
fundraiser, making a speech or
even just walking down the road, by
people who want to share their story
with me. There’s not a person I talk to
about Alzheimer’s who hasn’t known
a family member – a grandma, an
aunt, a parent – who has been affected
by it in some way.
For me it was my father, Abraham.
He was an extremely bright man. He
was forced to leave school at 14 so
never had a good education, but he
read avidly. We lived in North London
but he’d be in East London every day,
looking at second-hand bookstalls,
walking back home with bags full of
books. He was politically minded,
wanting everyone to understand
about poverty and the working classes
– quite table-thumping!
We were brought up in Manchester,
but eventually dad moved to a flat in
London near me, so I was in constant
contact with him, as was my older
daughter Alana. Over time, I began to
notice things about his behaviour.
He’d turn up at the house and not
remember why he’d come. Then he
started to get lost and I had to put my
phone number in every pocket of
every article of clothing he owned. I’d
visit his flat and he’d have a can of
baked beans on the hob, over a flame,
not even open. It could have
exploded. I don’t know what it was –
luck instinct – but I’d often arrive
just as a disaster was about to happen.
Things got worse. He became
accusatory – “Somebody’s been in the
flat and stolen money” – and I’d say:
“But I’m the only one who has keys.”
But he’d be insistent. It started to get
difficult because I’d argue with him –
terrible arguments about things going
missing, or there’d be a police car
outside and he’d be convinced they
were looking for him. Of course, now
I understand so much more that I
should have tried to deflect the
situation. When I think now about all
the things I lacked, more than
anything I lacked understanding.
What made things worse was that
Close-knit family (clockwise from above): Arlene with her daughters Abi and Alana at an event in 2012;
with her father Abraham; and during a winter stroll with her daughters and dad
‘When I think now about all the things I lacked,
more than anything I lacked understanding’
my father refused to go and see a
doctor – he thought people could
heal themselves – so whenever I tried
to take him he’d say: “There’s nothing
wrong with me.”
I was working ridiculous hours,
looking after my two daughters,
trying to organise my crazy life as it
was then, so got in touch with social
services to see if they could help.
They suggested Meals on Wheels, as
I’d been taking him food every day,
but he stopped letting anybody into
the flat except for me. They’d ring
the bell and he wouldn’t answer.
Eventually, after he’d been living with
the illness for about four or five years,
social services suggested that, for his
own safety, he should go into
residential care, where he could have
his own place but also someone to
look after him. I can’t tell the number
of calls I got from the home saying
he’d slipped the net and gone
missing. I would have to leave what I
was doing, jump in the car and drive
around, looking for him.
He was only there two years when
we were told he couldn’t stay because
it was clear he had Alzheimer’s and
he needed to be in a home with
nursing care. We were never given an
official diagnosis, only told he had
been assessed by one of their doctors.
We were given a month to move him.
That was my lowest point. I had to
face the fact that I couldn’t be a fulltime
carer. I had my work, my family,
and I couldn’t give up my own life.
But I still had the heartbreak of
feeling: “This is wrong.” Some people
are selfless and can care for others,
but there are also people like me who
can’t, but who are wracked with guilt
as a result. Dad eventually went to a
nursing home in Leeds, to be near my
sister Karen, where he stayed for the
next three and a half years.
It’s funny but the longer the
dementia went on, the more gentle
he became. My father was extremely
strict, so that gentleness inside him
was never something I’d experienced
as a child. In that way we grew closer.
There was a long time to die, a
gradual fading of everything. And in
his last year his hands were gnarled
and knotted, his feet were painful. He
was no longer speaking. I couldn’t
even read to him – he would turn his
head and close his eyes. When he
died one of the nurses said to me:
“He had a such a strong heart; and
that heart just kept on beating.”
There are more than 830,000
people in the UK living with
dementia, costing the country as
much as £26billion a year, which is
why I’m supporting the Lifeline
Appeal to raise money for research,
not only to find a cure but also a way
to postpone the onset of the disease.
Looking back, of course I wish
we’d had more help, but we were in
the wilderness – it just wasn’t really
talked about. I think it’s vital that the
illness is talked about, that there’s an
understanding in schools, in
communities.
I would like to see massive amounts
of research undertaken and reports
written that can give people hope,
because that is what we need. Hope
that the condition won’t always be an
extended death sentence, but an
illness one can live with. H
For further information about Alzheimer’s
Research UK or to make a donation to the BBC
Lifeline appeal, visit alzheimersresearchuk.org
or call 0300-111 5555.
AS TOLD TO ROSALIND POWELL. PHOTOS: ALLSTAR, ALPHA PRESS