ACTOR Timothy West has told of his heartbreak at watching wife Prunella
Scales “disappear” before his eyes as she slowly succumbs to dementia.
In a remarkably candid interview, the veteran star — who found a new audience
playing EastEnders’ Stan Carter last year — praised her for battling the
disease and spoke of his enduring love for the Fawlty Towers icon.
Timothy, 81, said: “The sad thing is, you just watch the gradual disappearance
of the person you knew and loved and were very close to.
“A lot of her has left, but we still enjoy life and there’s still a lot Pru is
able to enjoy and we are able to do together.”
Prunella, 83 — who played Sybil Fawlty opposite John Cleese’s Basil in classic
1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers — has been increasingly affected by dementia over
a number of years.
Timothy first realised something was wrong when he watched her performing
on stage more than 15 years ago.
He said: “It has stunned everyone that it’s developed so slowly. It was a play
that Pru was in at Greenwich.
“It wasn’t that Pru had forgotten her lines or didn’t say them properly, it
was that I could see her thinking.
“I knew there was something wrong — for quite a long time we didn’t know what
it was.”
Today, despite the condition’s worsening effects, Prunella continues to work
on projects including radio scripts.
The couple recently won praise for their 2014 Channel 4 travelogue Great Canal
Journeys, which besides celebrating their love of Britain’s waterways, shone
a light on living with dementia.
Timothy said: “It’s not Alzheimer’s, it’s a related kind of dementia. It
develops very gradually.
“If you live from day to day then it’s manageable, but it’s when you start
thinking about the past — What a shame she can’t do that any more, or she
can’t appreciate that any more or we can’t talk about that any more — then
it’s sad.
“We have been so lucky, and we are still so lucky to do things like the
canal series — that we can still do things which are contributing to each
other.”
Timothy is full of praise for how Prunella has met her illness head-on,
refusing to give in and remaining active. He said: “She is somebody who
realises that to keep going is tremendously important.
“She values an awful lot of things about our life — our house and our garden,
she’s a very good gardener. And our family — we have such a big family now.
I became a great-grandfather the other day.”
The couple have been married for 52 years and are parents to Joseph and
actor Samuel.
Speaking on ITV’s Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, with Prunella looking on from
the audience, Timothy said: “She’s been absolutely vital to my life.
“I think we loved and respected each other on all sorts of different levels —
the way we worked, the way we thought, the way we were.
“We just felt that it was going to work, and it has. Pru hasn’t got a temper,
I don’t think. If she has, then she keeps it very much under control. I do
flare up occasionally.”
The couple never considered keeping her illness a secret, but Timothy admits
that bravely speaking out has cost Prunella a number of acting jobs which
she is still capable of taking on.
He said: “In a way it’s courageous but in another way not to do it would be
dishonest, especially if we are going to appear on television together.
READ MORE:
EastEnders
set to be transformed in long-awaited £15m revamp
EastEnders
actress Gillian Taylforth rushes to daughter’s bedside after she collapses
One
EastEnders character will DIE on Christmas Day … but who will it be?
“Enough people know about the condition to think, ‘Why aren’t they mentioning
it?’
“I just thought it was unfair, stupid and dishonest not to mention it and keep
people abreast of it.”
Timothy said it is the simple things that he misses most about his old
relationship with his wife.
He added: “It’s communication really. When we have been to a concert or to see
a film, there’s not much we can say of it afterwards because Pru will have a
fairly hazy memory of it. She’ll have enjoyed her evening and will talk
about the acting, but if we were talking about what the actual play was
saying, she is not able to cope with that.
“I should think it’s very frustrating for Pru but she’s very kind and doesn’t
let on about it.
“It’s frustrating for me. I think we need each other very much, I am very
conscious of it.”
Prunella has previously spoken of her battle with dementia.
She said: “I’m very grateful that nowadays things are diagnosed and named and
you are taught how to deal with them.
“I’m a reasonably intelligent person and one makes adjustments. We are coping
with it.”
Earlier this year, their son Samuel said: “Her memory is very good until about
30 years ago and pretty useless for anything that happened this morning. We
just have to accept that.
“It doesn’t mean we can’t love each other, be pleased to see each other and
have fun in the moment.”
Timothy revealed that one reason the couple bonded was his surprise talent
for buying women’s clothes.
With Prunella nodding from her seat in the ITV studio audience, he said: “I
like shopping for ladies’ garments, which will instantly give you the wrong
impression, but I do.”
And when show host Piers asked: “Prunella doesn’t mind this weird obsession?”
Timothy jokingly replied: “She doesn’t seem to, no. I buy them for her too.”
Like Prunella, Timothy is a highly respected actor, more used to doing
Shakespeare than soaps.
However, in 2013 he briefly played Gloria Price’s love interest Eric Babbage
in Coronation Street, and has since spent more than a year as EastEnders’
Stan Carter.
Though both characters died, Timothy would not rule out returning to soaps and
said of his time in Corrie and EastEnders: “I’ve loved working on them.
“It’s like a huge engine that works against all the odds to turn out amazing
stuff. The snobbery is completely unjustifiable. There is some wonderful
acting going on.”
And he added: “I would be tempted to go back.”
It is a sign that even at 81, Timothy has no plans to put his feet up. He
said: “I can’t imagine retiring. I don’t want to keel over on stage — I
don’t want to keel over at all — but it’s messy doing it on stage.
“I want to be remembered as somebody who kept trying to get it right. I
think I achieved that.”
— See the full interview on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories: Timothy West on
ITV at 9pm tomorrow.
Illness wrecks the mind
PEOPLE with dementia suffer with memory loss, confusion and mood swings and
can have problems with speaking and problem-solving.
Victims often also experience hallucinations.
The condition can be difficult to spot at first, because those who develop it
may just seem to be forgetful rather than suffering from anything more
serious.
But the symptoms gradually get worse and worse as the condition progresses.
Genetic links
THOSE who are in the end stages of the disease can experience problems with
swallowing, so eating and drinking becomes a struggle, and they often cannot
recognise their nearest and dearest.
Dementia is caused by damage to the brain. This can occur as a result of a
stroke.
There are also some genetic links to the condition.
Poor lifestyle plays a large part.
Those whose diets are bad or who do not get enough exercise are more likely to
develop the disease.
At present there is no cure for dementia.
But there are some drugs available that can help to treat the symptoms.