Q and A: Peter McArdle

What’s changed most since your diagnosis?

Other people are more aware of dementia than they were five or six years ago, it’s more talked about. People who don’t have to know anything about it do know a bit now, and that’s really helpful.

How has Alzheimer’s Society helped you?

There’s always somebody who’ll take or return your call and who’ll listen to you. And the volunteers at cafés etc can’t do too much for you – they really do want to help people like myself.

What song or tune sums up your life so far?

The one and only would be Meatloaf’s Bat out of hell. I can relate to him, because he’s always been at the forefront.

I’ve always liked to know what’s happening, the worst and best that could happen – I suppose to have some kind of control. More so with dementia, I read everything there was to do with it, and I’ve used it to try to help others in the same situation.

If you could go back in time, where would you go?

I’m a great believer that the past is done. But if I had to, then I’d say 1910 to 1914, around the time of the Titanic.

I’d want insight into how people really lived then, not what history tells us, to see how people managed. It was just approaching the First World War and the social gap was unbelievable – it would be very interesting.