Book description
Earlier this year John Suchet revealed that his beautiful 67-year-old
wife Bonnie, the love of his life, is suffering from Dementia. During
the past three years he has gone from lover to carer. And he has found
that exceptionally tough. In this moving, and bitterly honest account,
the newsreader reveals his loneliness and his despair.
For John it was love at first sight. For many years he had admired
Bonnie from afar, hoping and dreaming one day she would feel the same
way. Nearly a decade after they first met, their passionate and romantic
love affair began. They married in 1985 - head over heels in love - and
have enjoyed over 20 years of love and laughter; both had been married
before (she had two children and he had three) but both felt, the day
they married, they finally joined their other half.
In March 2004 John began to notice strange quirks in Bonnie's
behaviour. She underwent her first set of neurological tests in March
2005, which brought back no definite results. Then, in February 2006,
following a second set of tests, she was diagnosed with Dementia.
For three years John personally cared for his beloved wife, keeping her
condition secret from all but family and close friends. But in the
middle of September this year, over 26 years after his life with Bonnie
began, John made the agonising decision to move his wife to a full-time
care home.
Written in passionate and vivid prose, that captures both the warmth of
the good times and the utter despair of the bad times, John weaves
together a series of moving and heartfelt stories. In this combination
of present day descriptions of life with Bonnie, as her carer, and
memories of the romantic years they shared together, John gives a unique
- and at times stark - insight into the pain of witnessing a loved one
lose their memory.
This is a story of pain and despair, and anger and guilt. But above all
that it is a story of love; a story of devotion and dedication, and the
pleasure that those little moments of recognition, those glimmers of
joy, can give - even in the hardest times. John Suchet is a British
newsreader and television presenter. Most famous for being a newsreader
for ITV News, John worked for the channel for 32 years, between 1972 and 2004.
He retired from ITN in 2004, but made a welcome return to TV news in
2006, presenting Five News.
In February 2009 John appeared on BBC Breakfast to talk about Bonnie's
dementia and to raise awareness for the disease and the charities
supporting it.
He is now the patron of For Dementia.
