Alastair Stewart: 'Like all people with dementia, I worry about scams and feel vulnerable'

Our table was made up of old and new friends which was terrific. I asked Sal’s co-patron, Lady Alison Wakeham, who was on our table, how her husband John was and she said “not too bad”.

He had recently spoken in the House of Lords to some effect on reform of the Lords. I told Alison I remembered the work

John had done decades ago in a cross-party effort at reform, with the Labour MP Gerald Kaufman. I’d also studied it for my British Constitution A-Level. She laughed and said: “Your memory is in frighteningly good form." Though, as always, Sal had to do my buttons, braces and tie my tie before we went out.

Rose Rawle, whose husband and sons run the brilliant Rawles Classic Cars business in the village, brought her mum as husband Bill was away on business with their sons. But she also brought the sons’ girlfriends so we did even better on the age spread which proved important on things like music and TV programmes.

We played our joker to score double points on history and banked a lovely big total.

On Wednesday, Sal went to see an old friend in Kent who she’d worked with at Southern ITV and TVS, the local ITV franchises where I also started. Two other girlfriends, who were also former co-workers, joined her on the trip.

Sal had made splendid leek and potato soup for my lunch and had invited our eldest son Alex to drop by which is always a joy.

He and his wife live in Winchester so we are lucky to see a lot of them. He is very helpful with ‘information technology’ and will often sort out online problems I have, which are multiple and varied given my dementia.

I’m always worried about scams and feel vulnerable, as do all people with dementia. His sound advice was not to buy online or to get him to do it and pay him back. He checked my laptop thoroughly and said he felt it all looked secure.

Alex was a Winchester College Scholar and is one of the cleverest people I know and although his Oxford First and his Master’s were in English, his interests are almost limitless.

After lunch I put GB News on, only to hear the Defence Secretary John Healey announce the decommissioning of several warships as part of a mini-defence review. I suspect it won’t play well as Labour remains vulnerable on defence.

But they have opened a new front with the Budget and their changes to inheritance tax for farmers. This dominated the conversation with two dear old friends who took me out for lunch on Wednesday, something they’ve done regularly since my diagnosis.

I’ve known them both for years but they prove the truth of that line, "when you’re down and troubled you need friends”.

Khalid is a former presenter of regional news in the south for ITV and the North for the BBC. He now makes a good living as a communications consultant to businesses and voluntary groups. He is also a hard-working supporter of many good causes and a deputy Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire. He, like me, feared the tax changes would harm family farming.

My other friend at lunch, Bob, made a fortune in convenience retailing and is now in commercial property. He argued that many enterprises were vital to our way of life and our prosperity, and deserved support and even protection.

He felt the farmer had had it ‘good’ for decades and tax exemption was illogical, and unfair on others. I said I also feared it showed Labour’s true colours - a disdain for land ownership. Bob also argued bigger farms could be more efficient and put more cheaper food on our tables.

The week ended with another totally joyful visit when Clive Jones came down from London and took Sally and me out for lunch.

He had employed Sal when she was a Production Assistant at TVS and me when he and Greg Dyke created the London News Network for LWT and Carlton TV, which Clive went on to become the Chief Executive of.

He also co-ran ITV for a time. He is a close and loyal friend to us both and Godfather to our Freddie and to his son Harry. In times of trouble he is the ultimate go to man. Another close friend of his is John Stapleton, recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, who he had seen recently.

Those of us troubled by serious health problems are blessed to be able to count people like Clive as friends and confidantes.

The morning Clive arrived, it had been announced John Prescott had died following a battle with Alzheimer’s. I knew he was an acquaintance of Clive’s who is a boy of the Welsh valleys and Labour to his bones. He is definitely more old Labour than New.

He said he’d got to know John through their mutual friend, Rodney Bickerastaffe, a former colossus of the trade union movement.

MORE FROM LIVING WITH DEMENTIA:

• Alastair Stewart: One of the great lessons I've learned is life depends on an ability to move on seamlessly
• Alastair Stewart: How my beloved animals are helping me live with dementia
• Dementia is upsetting, challenging and difficult - but it's not the end of the world

I really enjoyed my days as an industrial correspondent with Charles Rae, Richard Littlejohn, Julia Somerville, and others - they were good friends and good people. The union leaders in the main were impressive people too who had real beliefs.

Thatcher taking them on was intellectual chess as much as Industrial Relations. Today the left and right seems intellectually barren by comparison. I think the Budget was anti wealth creation and ownership, which the traditional old left loathe. I think destroying family farms fits with all that and I also think they believe it is an effective and valid attack on privilege to put VAT on private school fees. In truth, it is short-sighted spin and an attack on choice that will backfire.

I recently got an email from Dementia UK asking me to complete a questionnaire about the NHS which would be submitted to the Government enquiry. The IT system wouldn’t accept my submission because it said I hadn’t got the postcode right. I had, and Sally had checked, so I phoned them and they agreed that what I’d put in was correct. It was the same postcode they had in their records for me.

You know it, doesn’t get any easier!