My Dad was finding things difficult.. as a family we tried to help & support him.. finally we got Dad assessed in June 2018 . In August of that year we were given the results of Dad’s tests.. he had Mixed Dementia. 😞😢 We were all so sad & Dad bless him wasn’t really sure what was going on . Within 4 days of the results Dad was in hospital with sepsis.. Totally ill very soon & went down hill quickly.. in 2013 he was diagnosed with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma.. he never complained at all.. Went to his hospital for his Treatment.. Totally took it in his stride.
So in 2018 mixed dementia diagnosis & the lymphoma had also returned . We spent 10 weeks in hospital with him & 9 weeks in a care home.. Dad peacefully fell asleep in January 2019. We all miss him so much. ❤️

Our beloved step-dad was diagnosed with dementia a number of years ago, eventually we had to put him in a nursing home as it became too much for mum. It has certainly been the long goodbye. Sadly he passed on the 26th of April with us all holding his hands as he slipped away. He will be missed always but us now dementia free.

Bill Chenail: A Life of Extraordinary Chapters

Today, Bill has Parkinson’s disease and is living with a Dementia. In his bedroom at Gibraltar Nursing Home there are photographs that give people pause. In them, Bill is young, striking, and effortlessly confident - a successful model at a time when the fashion world was beginning to take risks and find its edge.

Bill was born in 1948 in Casablanca, Morocco, to a Scottish mother and a French father who had immigrated there during the Second World War. When he was four, the family moved to Kent, where Bill attended a Catholic boarding school.

He hated school, especially having to say ‘Thank-you Master’, and remembers being struck by his teachers as discipline. What Bill did enjoy was English; he read avidly and began writing poetry in his teenage years. When he was about sixteen, Bill decided he’d had enough and ran away from school.

Bill moved to London around this time, embarking on the first chapter of his adult life. He wound up sharing a flat with Mick Jagger’s brother and describes those years as ‘very blurry.’ His girlfriend at the time was a model and she introduced him to the industry. Modelling was never something Bill had considered; he simply fell into it. The industry was still young at the time, and the pay was modest – nothing like it is today.

He was quickly picked up by the English Boys modelling agency and worked frequently with designer Ossie Clark. During these years, when he was based in Chelsea, one of his nicknames was ‘The Prince of the King’s Road.’

Being a model gave Bill an open ticket to the vibrant London party scene. He attended a few Rolling Stones parties and rubbed shoulders with famous musicians and artists. Despite these famous connections, Bill remained modest about his writing. According to his son, he has always been shy about sharing his work. He attempted some novels but mostly wrote poetry. It is unclear whether any of his work was ever published or not, but the act of writing clearly mattered deeply to him.

One of Bill’s poems reads:
I like to be on quiet beaches,
Eating ripe peaches,
Listening to the waves lapping
Onto the shore.
Softly soothing,
Liquid lullaby:
“Shush,” the sea sings,
“Shush,” she whispers
Into my ears:
“Forget your fears,
Forget your tears,”
And, for a while,
I am at peace.
And the infernal, internal
Dialogue is
Then silenced in
Me, by the sea,
The sea saying
“Shush! Shush! Shush! Shush!”

To read the full story on Bill's life, please visit: https://www.gibraltarnursinghome.com/bill-chenail-a-life-of-extraordinary-chapters-monmouth-care-home/

My wife Carol was diagnosed with Alzheimer's 3yrs ago at the age of 54.
She also lost her mum to Vascular dementia 5yrs ago. A devastating disease that's affected the family twice.

Mum got Alzheimer’s at 80 it started with forgetting little things I would say don’t get stressed mum try to laugh about it. She was my mum and also my best friend. When the illness became too bad for her to stay at home we had to put her into a care home where she continually looked for her family even though we went to see her every day. She passed away thinking that no one visited her and couldn’t understand why we had done that to her. It was tragic and sad. Her last couple of months she was unconscious and we never got to say goodbye