Podcast: John Suchet and his wife Nula reveal how dementia brought them together

TV broadcaster and Classic FM presenter John Suchet met his wife Nula, interior designer and artist in the most ‘extraordinary way’. With both spouses fading away with dementia, John and Nula found friendship and comfort after meeting in a care home.

In 2006, John’s wife Bonnie was diagnosed with dementia and in 2009, John made the devastating decision to put Bonnie in a care home. Nula's husband James was diagnosed with Picks Disease in 2004 and five years later, James’ condition became too much for Nula to cope with and she too put him in a care home.

Both have written bestselling memoirs regarding their experiences. My Bonnie by John Suchet and The Longest Farewell by Nula Suchet. Nula is an ambassador for .

John and Nula speak candidly to the Let’s Talk About Care podcast about how dementia affected them individually and as a couple, how they coped putting their soul mates into a care home, their feelings of guilt, and the stress of looking after a loved one with dementia.

’What is impossible to banish is the ‘G’ word - guilt!’

In our interview, John told carehome.co.uk how he met Nula: “In the most extraordinary way, we both had spouses who had both been diagnosed with dementia and they happened to be both in the same care home, they happened to be in rooms almost next to each other and we happened to become aware of each other visiting them.

“The one thing about dementia is you cannot talk to your loved one who has it, so neither of us for years had been able to talk to our spouses about what was happening. Once we got together it was verbal diarrhoea, it just didn’t stop we just kept saying the same things.”

As their friendship progressed, Nula and John exchanged emails and agreed to meet. But their relationship did not blossom immediately. From miscommunications at an early dinner, a misperception during a weekend away to Vienna to a “disastrous” Greek holiday.

“The truth of it is looking back on it this relationship very nearly fell at very early hurdles. Once we got through this, we started saying to each other hang on a minute, dementia’s going to get us too,” said John.

Guilt is something that was creeping into their relationship too. John said: “What is impossible to banish is what we call the ‘G’ word - guilt!

“It’s like a parrot on your shoulder the whole time. I was very fortunate; I had an Admiral Nurse and he said to me, ‘you’re not hurting anyone by having this relationship. What would they want for you if they knew? What would you want for Bon and James if it was the other way around?

‘Whatever you do, try not to feel guilt over it because if you don’t get out there and get a life then dementia has got you too and it’s got two for the price of one. If Nulie doesn’t get out and get a life, then it’s got four for the price of two. The way to beat dementia is to carry on as far as you can living a normal life with normal relationships.’

Both John and Nula would like to see more support for carers and families. John wrote his book My Bonnie in 2010. In it he describes how his Admiral Nurse had supported him when he was caring for Bonnie whilst Nula had no help.

“There was no one I could ring up and say I need help, I’m desperate, I’m falling apart. My family weren’t supportive. They didn’t know what to do, they didn’t even know what to make of this. I would have loved to be able to have picked up the phone and talk to someone and say look I’m not coping, I’m falling apart,” Nula said.

At the time John published his book, there were 75 Admiral Nurses across the UK. In December 2019, Dementia UK confirmed the figure currently stands at 279. Yet there are currently over 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK and this number is set to rise.

’The wife had gone, and I became the carer’

John and Nula describe how they felt having to put a loved one in a care home. It was a family doctor who advised Nula that James should be in a care home: “I was on sleeping tablets and I would get two hours sleep because James would wake up and the bed would be soaking wet, so everything in life became a nightmare.”

It was Nula’s sister in law who found a care home for James in England. “For the last nine months I had lost so much weight, I was a nervous wreck, I wasn’t sleeping because he was up in the night. There were no carers coming in to help me, he was incontinent, he was aggressive. The wife had gone, and I became the carer."

When James moved into the care home, Nula moved into rented accommodation so she could be near him. “Losing him was like losing limbs. Handing him over was like betraying my child; I felt a total traitor.”

In John’s case, he didn’t think Bonnie was ready for care but sought advice from two GPs, a care home manager plus his Admiral Nurse who told him: “A person is always ready to go in sooner than you think because you’re making allowances over the years. You don’t realise how bad they’ve become.

“The day I took her, which is just the worst day of your life, I told her we were going to stay in a lovely hotel for a nice break. ‘Ooh lovely,’ she said. I thought this is just going to go so wrong. We walked in and I said, ‘here we are.’ We walked into her room which was about half the size of our double bedroom in the flat and I said, ‘isn’t this lovely.’ She said, ‘oh yes, this is lovely.’ She never looked back.”

John and Nula’s advice to families and loved ones caring for those with dementia is: “Don’t be afraid to talk about it. There’s no guilt attached to getting it. It’s not something to be ashamed of,” said John.