‘I wasn’t shocked by my Alastair’s dementia diagnosis’

Sally has told how she had noticed the signs in their day-to-day life together (Image: Getty) She said: ‘The first signs at home were him not being able to reset an old-fashioned clock we have in the kitchen. ‘So I would say, ‘The clock stopped, can you set it please?’ And then he would set it to completely different and random times.’ Alastair, 71, left his GB News viewers shattered when he dropped the bombshell about his early-onset vascular dementia diagnosis a week ago. The presenter, once known to millions as the face of ITN, said he had been feeling ‘discombobulated’ and sought his GP’s advice after a series of mini-strokes. Now Sally has told GB News how the diagnosis has only confirmed the suspicions she already had. Together… Alastair and his wife Sally (Image: Getty) She said: ‘He was forgetting things. He would forget days of the week, what month it was, that sort of thing. ‘And if he had something on the next day, he would go to bed stressed and get up in the middle of the night.’ Asked about receiving Alastair’s diagnosis, she said: ‘I wasn’t shocked because I’d already guessed. I prepared myself for it. ‘But we didn’t get the diagnosis for some time afterwards because we had to see various other people and by the time we got the proper diagnosis, I wasn’t at all surprised or shocked.’ Asked about the impact on their marriage and children, Sally added: ‘We first got our suspicions because he had an accident in the car, not a big accident but enough to cause concern. ‘So I made that decision that he shouldn’t drive and he accepted that very easily, which surprised me. Other things that he would normally have done on his own, I now have to take him or do it instead of him.’ Alistair was diagnosed with dementia last week (Image: Getty) Asked how it could affect the family, Sally continued: ‘I really worry about the impact on the children and, although they’re spread over quite a big age gap, I do worry about the implications for them. ‘And our middle son, his girlfriend has somebody very close to her who’s got it very badly and the two younger sons have seen what it can do. ‘That worries them and makes them feel quite frightened for the future. But I think we know we’re a long way away from that yet.’ Sally said it was a relief that Alastair has stepped down from live broadcasting because she feared his condition could mean that ‘something might go wrong’. Looking ahead to the future, supportive Sally continued: ‘Obviously it is going to get worse. I know it is going to be a gradual process and it’s going to get worse, but you have to take each day as it comes.’