Dora, Bill and Alzheimer's

Now the Brighton couple, who have been married nearly 60 years, have slightly different roles. Six years ago Bill developed Alzheimer's and Dora looks after him full time.

She spoke to reporter Rachel Pegg about how it feels to be a carer for someone you love.

Dora and Bill fell in love after a chance meeting in the street. They have been together through nearly six decades raising a family while all the time in the public eye, having successful stage and sports careers and running a hotel. They still live in Marine Parade, where they once owned the glamorous Claridges hotel.

Recently their health has begun to suffer, with Dora enduring eye problems this year and undergoing a major operation for a hernia and Bill suffering from Alzheimer's. But despite their advancing age and increasing needs, their relationship is as strong as ever.

Dora said: "87 is quite old but I don't think of him as 87.

I don't think of myself as 83.

We have been married for so long. It is a partnership. He looks after me and I look after him.

"I talk too much, he doesn't talk enough. He doesn't have time to talk because I am always in first.

That has always been the case. My mother used to say to me: Dora, give your brain a rest'.

"We met outside the toilets in Oldham. I was waiting for a bus and he was waiting for a bus. It was a case, I wouldn't say of love at first sight but I said oh-ah and he said oh-ah. He thought I was Doris Day and I thought he was Gregory Peck.

"He used his friend Eric to ask me whether I was going to the dance on the Saturday night on the big dance floor on top of the Co-op. It was during the war when the shows I was in were at the local repertory company. We had to finish at nine o'clock because of the air raids which gave me plenty of time to walk over the road to the Coop.

"He asked me to dance and he walked me home. It was like that every Saturday.

"We got married when I was about 27. I was doing very well in London by this time. He was a professional cricketer.

"We were married on a Sunday because he was working at a school in London coaching and I was working at the theatre. My dad said, It is about time you two got married.' "We settled in London but we always liked Brighton.

We used to come for the day, then we decided to live here.

We have been here 48 years.

We had a flat in London as well.

"Then Bill gave up cricket because we bought a small hotel. It got bigger and bigger.

Eventually we bought Claridges and turned it into flats and lost all our money.

"The Conservative Government and Mrs Thatcher said borrow as much as you want. The bank collapsed on us and we had to start again.

"We ran Claridges as a hotel. It was very popular because it was so cheap. It got so busy we had to move into it. Bill retired 20 years ago. Now I do personal appearances and charity concerts."

Dora first noticed there was something different about Bill when she became frustrated he could not remember people or their plans. She explained: "It is forgetfulness more than anything.

I went to the doctor about six years ago for something or other and the doctor said: How's Bill?'. I said: He is very forgetful. It drives me round the bend'. He said he'd make an appointment for him to see a specialist.

"So I went with him to see the specialist and he sent Bill out of the room and said: I am afraid he's got Alzheimer's'. Well, to me that was the end of the world.

"But it is only really old age, it isn't a disease as such.

"They call it a disease. I don't think it is. We are all getting old and we don't remember things.

"They started him on Aricept.

Then last year they took everyone off because it was too expensive - £2.50 a day.

Now he doesn't have any medication, just vitamin supplements.

"He is no different now because he used to forget to take the Aricept. Really it was a waste of the Government's money to pay for people to forget to take their medication."

Dora thinks people should not be afraid of an Alzheimer's diagnosis.

"Nobody should be frightened if the doctor tells them their husband has got Alzheimer's. I would say, so what? If he says your husband's getting older, I would say, I know.

"They shouldn't make films like Iris. I didn't see it but I read the book.

"It is enough to frighten you. I don't say you should be frightened with the detail of an illness. It is like saying, you have got rheumatism.

You think of someone all curled up. Anybody can have a bit of rheumatism or arthritis.

"Bill didn't have a conventional life at all in the business of being a professional sportsman, driving to Lancashire and back and getting home in the middle of the night.

"That helps because we never had the existence some people have, working nine to six with Saturday and Sunday off. Saturday has always been my busiest day.

"Sunday is my day to go to church. Also because I had three children, I had to give the nanny a day off so my Sunday was much busier than doing work. I would be knitting, doing tapestry or writing a book. It was completely different from ordinary people's lives."

On Friday, Bill has a carer so Dora can go out for four hours. She said: "I pay the Alzheimer's Society £17 a week. I am usually with him 24 hours a day. The rest of the time I get friends to pop in.

"I have got a friend who lives in the block. If I say I am going to London, it is a bit of company for her and him.

They have a cup of tea and watch the telly."

At this point, Bill remarks that it has been a "long time"

since he has had a cup of tea.

He has just finished his second in an hour.

His wife said: "He's forgotten.

He's had four, which means I am the tea lady. It isn't a bad life, having Alzheimer's. You get cups of tea, cake and a dinner in the evening.

"My sons do worry about Bill. They're frightened of things. I left the chip pan on the other day and went out.

Fortunately one walked in and switched it off. That could have been a bit of a worry.

"I did it earlier. I said to him, Didn't you smell it?'.

"He forgets to tell me when someone's phoned. I tell people, if Bill answers the phone, make certain that you phone back. He forgets who people are but I forget who people are.

"On his birthday, we had a little birthday party. When they were gone, he asked who all the people who had come for tea were?

"I said, so and so and so and so. He said: Why have they given me all these presents?' There were chocolates and bottles of Champagne.

Bill had a nice time.

He thought it was just a party.

"Recently I had a very bad eye and a strangulated hernia.

I spent three weeks in hospital. The boys looked after him. He came up to the hospital to see me every day.

"I opened the Neville Hospital for elderly medicine in Hove back in 2000, never dreaming that both of us would be going there."

Dora said not everyone knows how to react to someone with Alzheimer's.

"My grandsons are 12 and 13. They get on very well with Bill and love him dearly.

They don't notice the Alzheimer's. Adults shout at Bill as if he's deaf. When it was Pride weekend, some people came over from Bournemouth. They all came over to him saying: Are you all right, Bill?

"I said: He's not backward, there's nothing wrong with him.' "They said: He's a little bit deaf'. I said: You don't have to talk down to him'."