ECHO<\/a> about what John was like, Luke said: \u201cHe was a bit like the head of the family. He was a builder and really hard working.<\/p>\n\u201cHe built his own house and it was the hub for the family when everyone would go to. He\u2019d go to work, then get home, have his tea and then just work on the house all night.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was just a properly determined fella. They lived in a very small, very rural area called Brampton in the north of the Lake District. My nana was on the parish council.<\/p>\n
“When you were there as a kid staying with your nana and your granda, you felt a bit like a local celebrity. You\u2019d walk into town and everyone would be like, \u2018are you Connie? Hiya John, is this Luke?\u2019 Everyone seemed to know them.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Luke](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_Luke-Hodgson-and-grandad-John-Ridley-pic-2jpeg.jpg\")
Luke now lives in south Liverpool(Image: Luke Hodgson)<\/p>\n
This changed when John was diagnosed, but before that it was hard to see that something was wrong. Looking back on what the first signs were, Luke said: \u201cI think he was being little bit forgetful but you that can be put down to just getting older.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn’t up here as much as I got older because I\u2019d moved to Liverpool, but sometimes family members would be a bit like, \u2018we’ll keep an eye on him, he\u2019s probably just getting on a bit now\u2019 and things like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen it started to get a bit more serious. There\u2019s just being forgetful and forgetting what you did yesterday.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it’s when you start to forget faces, forget names or struggle to put on your jacket, the basic things that you\u2019ve done for many years – that\u2019s when you realise there’s a bit of a problem there and reach out for a bit of guidance. From there, he got diagnosed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luke says he began to see a different side to John as the years progressed. He said: \u201cObviously, I’d be up there less to see them. When you’d go up, you’d see a lot more differences in him than perhaps people that are going there more often.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was strange because you almost got to meet like a whole new person. Growing up, he was a very strong-willed, very hardworking sort of man.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen he got diagnosed and he became softer and he\u2019d have a bit of a laugh. It was like getting to meet someone new and he’d tell you stories about his childhood. He obviously started to deteriorate in the last year of his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Luke](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_Luke-Hodgson-and-grandad-John-Ridley-pic-3jpeg.jpg\")
Luke is running over 200Km to raise vital funds and awareness for Alzheimer\u2019s Society(Image: Luke Hodgson)<\/p>\n
John received backing during his grandad\u2019s illness from The Alzheimer’s Society and has been embarking on a challenge this week to raise money for them. Over the last few days he has been running from Liverpool to Brampton. The distance totals over 200km and over 2,100m elevation. It is the hardest physical and mental challenge he has ever undertaken.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the ECHO from Penrith yesterday, Luke said: \u201cSince I started on Monday, my donations have doubled. People have been getting behind me and there\u2019s been loads of messages of support which have been really lovely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been brutal, I’m going to be honest with you.But it’s something that it makes you think, he was hard working and determined, so I can get my head down and I can work just as hard doing this. So it has been good. Been, it’s been humbling, but it’s been a crazy experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m just excited to get to Brampton, see me nana and then spend a bit of time with the family. The donations have been doing quite well, so it\u2019s all worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can find out more about Luke\u2019s fundraiser here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Hodgson began to see a different side of John Ridley in his later yearsLuke Hodgson and his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,6513,179,21725,211,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-331564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-health-and-fitness","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-mossley-hill","14":"tag-nhs","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115001052772778986","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Luke](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_Luke-Hodgson-and-grandad-John-Ridley-pic-1jpeg.jpg\")
Luke Hodgson and his grandad John Ridley(Image: Luke Hodgson)<\/p>\n