Living with dementia and memory problems

Can you walk out from here or do you walk in the lanes?

Up, up and down, right to the far end down there, because there’s a lot going on and a lot of people I know now and they know me [laughs]. So, you know, it’s a nice, it’s a nice area actually for people to talk to you, you know, it’s not the, in any way, you know, we have a natter, which is good, going, it keeps me going.

Oh, that’s nice. So, if you just walk down to the corner here, there’s people will say hello and you…

Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah all around, you know. See something and all the, you’ll have another chat about it and all the rest and it’s quite nice, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It’s good to get out and about, isn’t it?

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Yes, I often walk round there, and he’s very friendly, and the older lady in the bread shop’s very friendly. Yes, I had a good chat to [proprietor] as well one day, because my mum and I had a cake shop, a bit bigger than that with a bakery, little bakery at the back, and I was telling him all about it, because he’s been there a long time.

It seems like a, a community round here rather than.

Well, it is, but there again, like the village, I suppose I’ve come in and I’m the new one; there is a WhatsApp group. You know, that’s on here and they say different things, you know.

So, you’re part of that are you? 

I am, yes, but I’ve not been involved yet because there seem to be three or four that are just on it all the time about nothing in particular [laughs] you know, so you can’t respond to that at all. I’ve tried on one or two occasions.

That must be quite helpful though, or reassuring to know that. 

Oh yes, well there was one instance, I think that was after Christmas, and I just, and I thought I’m going to put on it, and I’ve got a log burner and there were logs in the car, and I just put “not feeling so well today, could somebody lift the logs out of the car for me?” And within five/ten minutes a young man came.

He’s just round the corner, and he came up and lifted the logs out for me, and he was just charming and so friendly.

Daughter: You’d have liked it round here, wouldn’t you, dad, you’d have liked to work here?

Lawrence: Oh, it would be, yeah. Look at this house, we’ve just, what we’ve got now was well we’ve had, well we’ve still got, what’s it still, Rachel’s [Daughter] got that place, not, just round the corner.

Daughter: Ten minutes away. Five minutes/ten minutes’ walk.

Lawrence: Ten minutes. Yeah.

Interviewer: I was just wondering if, with you being, used to work in the Royal Mail, I just wondered, when the post workers come, if you ever have a chat with them.

Lawrence: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, of course, it’s, yeah, it’s really good.

Interviewer: A bit of reminiscing? 

Lawrence: Yeah, yeah, exactly, it is reminiscing.

Daughter: You tell them that they don’t know, they’ve got it easy here in the countryside. But your, your job in the, [city] was a lot harder.

Lawrence: Yeah, exactly, yeah, so.

Howard: What’s nice about it is the acceptance of it, and everybody knows in this place, they probably know that I have dementia but they’re not, they couldn’t care less, really. In a way they couldn’t care a damn and they just treat me as normal, and I can’t remember their names at all [laughs] occasionally I get them right, but it doesn’t matter.

Yeah. So, it’s a good community that you’ve, you’ve come to?

Howard: Yes.

Trish: Yeah, very much so.

Howard: Ooh absolutely, absolutely.

Trish: It, it’s the best thing we’ve ever, ever done and it’s something that went into the planning a few years ago. But in here, everybody’s in here for a reason probably, or well or just because they’re maybe getting old, they’re in their nineties. You can come in from age fifty-five. So, we have a twenty-four-hour concierge, everything, everybody is aware, the concierge, the staff know all our Christian names, it’s phenomenal, and everybody’s aware of who- that is the one criteria of anybody working here within the retirement village has to be, empathise with old, older people, and that definitely works. And we also have younger people, it’s open to all the community to come in, and lots and lots of young people use our Pizza Café and things like that, so we’re constantly mixing with young people. And Howard can wander off and go somewhere. If I was in our own home before-

Howard: I know where I am.

Trish: I’d be worried. I’d have been worried but I’m not here at all, I’m totally relaxed and that gives Howard independence as well.

Howard: So, I don’t, you know, I don’t get arrested [laughter]. It’d be, “Hi Howard.” “Yeah, alright?”

Barbara: So yes, we can drive here. But the [later life] project wasn’t in existence when we came and that’s what’s made the big difference to us. But there are still more things. There’s more places we can walk to, we can go, there’s cafés we can go to, we can walk and we can go and have a scone, walking along the river, you know, there’s quite a, we live. We were on about here and [town], in fact our friends that live at [village] wish they’d got a [later life] project in [town], which they haven’t obviously. Because there’s [venue] as well, because Wedneday there’s a film in the morning, then you can have your lunch, then you can do a craft activity in the afternoon and, you know, it’s anybody. We’ve, we’ve, because it’s table tennis, because we come back for table tennis so we don’t ever do the craft activity but, you know, that’s something else. And they’ve got a warm hub on a Tueday now, I can’t remember what the times were with them, we’ve not felt the need to go to it, but, you know, it’s somewhere else people can go and meet other people.

Yeah, that sounds really.

Barbara: Yeah, it, it is actually, I think it’s, I would never imagine we’d have had all this, to be honest, but it has made so, such a big difference to us.

And did you say that you walked to some of these groups, Ray?

Ray: Mm hmm.

Do you go on your own?

Ray: Yeah, yesterday I was walking.

Barbara: Well normally I would be there.

Ray: To go and play table.

Barbara: And then [name] next door gave him a lift, but.

Ray: Oh yes, actually yes, and obviously the, I came out of the front and I was just, I’d only just stepped over to the other side and this car stopped and told me to get in [laughter].

Barbara: But you walk back by yourself don’t you?

Ray: Yeah, yeah, so.

So, I gather the church is very important to you and part of your community?

Very, very spiritual. Spiritual, physical, mentally, it is very, it’s another support network, you know, it’s another support network. The Bible said when two or three gathered in my name, I’m there also. And so, I think when you’re going through things and you’re sharing, you are so surprised, because if I phone, if anybody phones or if I put it on the chat that I’m not feeling well, I’m bombarded, people bring food, soup, everything.

Oh, that’s good.

You know, so sometimes you have to be quiet about [laughs].

Gets too much?

No, yeah. So, it is good, people will visit, people will call, people will send messages. So, I think the church is very, very important.

I go to a Benedictine Monastery; sounds all lovely, doesn’t it?

It does.

It’s [laughs] so I, they do everything in Gregorian, it’s very beautiful, I can go to Compline and Vespers if I want to, but I’ve been going for six years and I don’t know a single person [laughs].

OK, that was my next question.

Community [laughs] no. But I think, to be fair to them, it’s me. I want to go to Mass, I want to come home, I haven’t got it in me to have coffee and socialise. And there’s only little old ladies to socialise with anyway, which are very sweet, and the monks are sort of quite, they’re all quite lovely, but I don’t know what to say to them. I don’t know what [laughs] I just- so that’s it I’ve lost my social skills. I literally sweat. So, they say, “Ooh, are you going to come for coffee?” And they, somehow, they’ve collared me and I am literally sweating; I don’t have coffee with anyone at the moment [laughs].