Why Vicky McClure's Dementia Choir is so important for our loved one's fighting this terrible disease, says Christa Ackroyd

Many have dad’s beautiful handwriting on the back explaining who they are of, or where they were taken. Because he was right. Long after his passing more than 20 years ago now, some of the people on them I wouldn’t recognise. And some of them are of places treasured by them, but never visited by me.

But I can’t throw them away, because they were special to my parents, both gone now. And so they are special to me.

Dad was a keen photographer. Many a time he would simply stop the car on our Sunday run out to capture a view with his treasured Nikon camera his most prized possession.

Each photograph was slowly and carefully taken after complicated lenses and light metres were brought into play. And they are lovely and deserve to be on a wall not in a tin. I love them, especially those of mum in younger days, happy and smiling for the man she absolutely adored. Even though I do remember her often saying “Come on Maurice, just take it.”

No point and click for dad. Dad was never a man to be rushed. But I haven’t opened those tins for years.

Some of the photographs are still in slide form. Do you remember those?

Often on a Saturday night various aunties and uncles, who weren’t really aunties and uncles, but close friends, would come for supper.

Mum would do a buffet of open sandwiches, decorated with triangles of cucumber or tiny pieces of tomato, with scones and home made cakes, while dad unfurled the screen and switched on the projector to show his latest collection.

My brother and I would be sent to bed while the grown ups chatted, though often I would sneak down and sit on the stairs listening to their easy conversation peppered with the laughter of friendships made over many years, until my mum came out to the kitchen to refill the teapot and saw me there. No expensive dinners out. No complicated or elaborate food, nor even bottles of wine, just a simple supper, the odd cream sherry and dad’s photographs, which still reside all labelled in their slide boxes in the back bedroom.

It’s funny isn’t it how photographs, like music, jog a memory you hadn’t even though of for years ? The photograph sent to me by my friend did just that this week. Tears rolled down my face as I looked on the photo she had snapped of mum and me. I remember exactly when it was taken for a fundraiser for my lovely friends the Calendar Girls at Maxine’s clothes shop in Pudsey more than 20years ago.

Mum looked so smart in her navy blazer with her gold brooch now residing in my jewellery box. Even though I am adopted, our natural genuine smiles mirrored each other’s, making us look as one. It is quite simply the best photograph I have ever seen of us together. Me with my arm round her and her with her arm around me. So why did it make the tears flow? They came and wouldn’t stop because that photograph was taken before the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s cruelly robbed mum and me of her final decade.

Even though she was able to stay in her own home for much of that time it, was a period of confusion and worry for both of us, until neither could cope any longer and I was forced to do what I swore I would never do and find somewhere that could manage her deterioration better than we were doing. And I will live with that guilt forever.

Most of us will at some time in our life experience the loss of a person they love to that awful disease, where slowly day by day and often frightened, they are taken from us long before they die. It is heartbreaking and leaves terrible memories of confusion and worry.

But that photograph, that single snap brought the happy times sharply back into focus. And that is what we must concentrate on . Alzheimer’s and Dementia must never be allowed to cloud our memories. They do not define the sufferer and our relationship with them. But sometimes it seems they do.

This week because of that photograph I forced myself to watch Vicky McClure’s latest documentary detailing the ongoing story of her Dementia Choir. Yes it was heartbreaking but it was also joyful. That she is highlighting the plight of those often left without help is also vital.

Alzheimer’s is this country’s biggest killer. There are upwards of a million people living with it, yet although it is a disease of the brain, often the families of those suffering are left to cope alone. And that can be a lonely and scary place for both them and the sufferer. To put it bluntly, as one of those caring for a relative did, if their loved one had cancer they would be entitled to better care. And it is wrong. Very wrong.

Also worrying is news from the Alzheimer’s Society that the number of diagnoses is down because of the pandemic and still down in the year after it ended. And that is worrying too.

This week came the news that new tests could diagnose Alztheimer’s some nine years before the disease takes hold. But I completely understand why people would not go to seek help when so little help is available. I applaud Vicky’s campaign and also remember the part music played in mum’s life after diagnosis. In fact listening to music together brought us both joy and calm. Indeed as she eventually slipped away we held hands as we played one of the pieces we had shared together and the fog seemed to lift as she smiled and me and clutched my hand to her heart. It was a beautiful and peaceful passing for which I am forever grateful.

But this week in that photograph my mind was cleared of the struggle we both went through as I looked at us together on that happy occasion. So often photographs remain hidden in our phones or in boxes. They need to be rediscovered and if necessary printed out and placed among us. They make us smile. And they make us focus on happy times.

So mum in the next few weeks that photograph will be placed along with so many others on top of the piano. It may not be sleek interior design. It may add to the clutter. But it will also be a reminder of a life well lived, the smiles and laughter we shared and a promise to remember that in life there are always more good times than bad.

Our Dementia Choir with Vicky McClure is available on BBC iPlayer