Fiona Phillips was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2023
Fiona Phillips was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2023(Image: Daily Mirror)
Fiona Phillips has poignantly likened the struggles with Alzheimer’s to “like trying to chase a £5 note that’s fallen out of your purse on a gusty day” in a heartfelt piece.
The journalist, who received her diagnosis at 61 in 2023, shared an emotional reflection on her experience, saying every time “she thinks she had caught the £5 note, it whips away again”.
The mum-of-two revealed how she was oblivious to the fact that she kept repeating herself and would sometimes forget her actions or destinations shortly after being diagnosed.
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Now at 64, the veteran broadcaster is navigating life with Alzheimer’s, with her husband Martin Frizell, the former editor of This Morning who stepped down last year anticipating a shift in “family priorities to [soon] change”, providing much of her care. Fiona, bolstered by Martin’s support, has penned a memoir titled Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer’s, set for release later this month, with adapted excerpts making their way into the press today.
In these extracts, Fiona, known for her 15-year stint on GMTV, expressed: “Everywhere I look there are memories. I know they are there. And yet so many of them feel out of my reach now.”
She continued: “It’s like I stretch out to touch them, but then just as I’m about to grasp it, the memory skips away from me. And I can’t catch up with it. Like trying to chase a £5 note that’s fallen out of your purse on a gusty day. Each time I think I’ve caught it, it whips away again.”, reports the Mirror.
“I couldn’t be writing this at all without my husband Martin and my closest friends, who are helping me articulate more clearly the thoughts I once had that are now harder for me to reach.”
Fiona, who also pens columns for the Mirror, shared: “Nowadays, I can find talking about my life agonisingly difficult. Sometimes I get halfway through a sentence and I can’t remember where I was heading with it or the word I was looking for. It feels awful.
“Gradually, Martin and I thought maybe I should start telling more people. Martin felt that if more people knew what was happening to me then they wouldn’t judge me if I did ever start behaving unusually – not that I thought I did. It was hardly like I was going down the street half-clothed, yelling at people.
“But he and the doctors, who I was constantly backwards and forwards to see, would say that I kept repeating myself and that sometimes I forgot what I was doing or where I was going. The strange thing was I had no awareness of that.”
In 2023, the Mirror reported how the celebrity, hailing from Canterbury, Kent, was participating in trials for a groundbreaking new medication which researchers believe could decelerate or even halt the progression of the disease for millions of sufferers in future years.
However, for Fiona, it’s too little too late, leading Martin to express in the extracts his wish that his wife of 28 years had been diagnosed with cancer instead. He added: “Being brutally honest, I wish Fiona had contracted cancer instead. It’s a shocking thing to say, but at least then she might have had a chance of a cure, and certainly would have had a treatment pathway and an array of support and care packages.
“But that’s not there for Alzheimer’s. Just like there are no funny or inspiring TikTok videos or fashion shoots with smiling, healthy, in-remission survivors.
“After someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, they are pretty much left to their own devices. There is nothing more that can be done and you are left to cope alone.”
The couple strive to maintain a positive outlook but, similar to The Mirror’s recent case study Janet Allen and her daughter Emily, Martin and Fiona ultimately find it challenging to remain hopeful. Emily shared with us that it was “the scariest thing” to discover her mum, from Reading, Berkshire, had developed Alzheimer’s, which has left her requiring care from loved ones as well.