The former ITN newsreader remarried in 2016 (Picture: Can Nguyen/REX/Shutterstock)
After decades of a loving and devoted marriage, John Suchet and wife Bonnie were in their 60s and planning an idyllic retirement together.
‘In 1989 in a moment of madness I bought an old French farmhouse,’ the broadcaster recalls.
‘The plan was that we would live there full-time and I would write lots of books no one would read.’ He pauses, and adds: ‘Bonnie always wanted to learn French.’
Fate had other ideas. ‘A cab driver once said to me, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans,”’ says John, 79.
Their nightmare began when Bonnie passed out in a restaurant in Atlanta, during a trip to America in 2005. She was referred for tests and diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. It was 2006, she was just 64. Nearly four years later, instead of moving to the farmhouse the couple both loved, Bonnie went into care.
‘She was gentle, beautiful and easy to live with,’ says John. ‘It was a very happy marriage until dementia got in the way.’
He admits he had spotted signs that something was not right. ‘The symptoms had been there much earlier, at least for two or three years, probably more. She would forget putting something somewhere, or say something twice.’
But the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s brought John’s world crashing down.
Bonnie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2006 (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)
‘That was the first time I heard the word applied to what had been happening – it suddenly and dramatically brought it to a head,’ he says. ‘Even after the diagnosis, I put my arm round Bonnie and said, “Everything will be fine”, and she looked at me and smiled. But I didn’t know what I was going to do.’
John was put in touch with Alzheimer’s Society and a specialist Admiral nurse, who paid regular visits to their home to offer support. He finds some small comfort in the fact that Bonnie never realised she had Alzheimer’s.
‘We watched a documentary on Terry Pratchett after Bonnie was diagnosed, and she said “Poor chap has Alzheimer’s.” She didn’t suffer from the knowledge that she had it.’
Putting on a brave face as he read the TV news to millions daily, behind the scenes, John was struggling to take care of Bonnie. He recalls: ‘I am useless in the kitchen – our meals were going downhill – and we were surviving on microwave boxes. Then there was her incontinence and not sleeping.’
Finally, he was persuaded to take Bonnie to a care home. His memory of that moment is heart-wrenching. ‘I’ll never forget closing the door on the flat we had lived in for 20 years, with a suitcase, and saying, “We are going to a lovely hotel.”’
John told Bonnie the care home she was moving to was a ‘lovely hotel’ (Picture: Supplied)
A lack of awareness of dementia increased John’s isolation. People would console him by saying an elderly grandparent had also succumbed to dementia.
‘It’s not the same with your spouse,’ he says. ‘There were a lot of things in my situation I couldn’t share with anyone else.’
He visited their beloved French farmhouse alone, but recalls: ‘When Bonnie was in care, I was there alone and tried to talk to her on the phone, and she didn’t understand.
‘I didn’t want to be there without her, so I more or less gave one of the neighbours the house.’
Bonnie and John were together for 30 years before her death in 2015 (Picture: Brian Rasic/Getty Images)
But then, incredibly, in the last place he ever imagined to find romance, John met Nula – at a lunch organised at the care home for those with a spouse in care. Nula’s husband, documentary film producer James Black, had been diagnosed with Pick’s disease, an early-onset and aggressive form of dementia. James moved into a room two doors from Bonnie.
‘You cannot talk to a loved one with dementia – that is one of the cruellest things about it,’ says John. ‘That’s why when I met Nula we couldn’t stop talking. We were saying the same thing to each other – “Yes, that happened to me too” – at last someone understood what I was going through. Both of us had had a difficult first marriage, then found the love of our lives, and then had lost them.’
By now Bonnie had lost the power of speech – and her devoted husband would play Abba through her headphones, knowing the songs made her happy.
Meanwhile John and Nula fell in love. ‘We both had enormous guilt over putting our partners into care,’ he says. But there was more guilt. John and Nula had found each other at a time when their partners were still there. Again the Admiral nurse helped.
‘Initially I thought I’m being unfaithful to someone while they are still alive, but we got to know each other’s spouses and rationalised it by saying there are four of us in this relationship. We still talk about them a lot now. The Admiral nurse said, “What would you want for them if it was the other way round?”’
John’s current wife Nula knows what it’s like to have a loved one with dementia (Picture: Mike Marsland/WireImage)
John and Bonnie had been together 30 years when she died aged 73 in April, 2015. In 2016, John and Nula married and they are now both ambassadors for Alzheimer’s Society.
‘The biggest positive of all was meeting Nula,’ he says. ‘So many stories about dementia end sadly. At least there is a happy ending to our story, which was the last thing we expected.’
One in three people born today are expected to get a dementia diagnosis in their lives. John says: ‘It is important to raise awareness and make people not afraid of it. Diagnosis is so critical.’
Diagnosis rates are said to have reached a five-year low during the pandemic. This means that tens of thousands are facing dementia alone, without access to the vital care and support that a diagnosis can bring. Early diagnosis is crucial to manage symptoms and avoid crisis.
Events such as Dementia Action Week (until Sunday) aim to improve the public’s understanding of dementia. Two charities are also set to deliver a project that aims to revolutionise early diagnosis. Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK recently formed a partnership to enable the introduction of a simple blood test in the NHS that will help diagnosis.
John hopes that dementia will be something we all will feel more comfortable talking about in the future. ‘Nula’s phrase is “dementia is the outcast of diseases as it’s the one we don’t want to talk about” – but we have got to start talking about it.
‘I would like to think that the children of today could see it cured and prevented in their lifetime.’
If you’re worried about yourself or someone close to you visit alzheimers.org.uk.
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The broadcaster remarried in 2016.
