TV broadcaster Alastair Stewart has revealed he can no longer tie as the 72-year-old battles dementia.
Mr Stewart announced he was diagnosed with early-onset vascular dementia in September 2023 and has since spoken of how the disease has affected him.
The longest-serving male newsreader on British television said that after seeing his GP a scan revealed he had had a series of ‘minor strokes that are called infarct strokes’, which led to his diagnosis.
He began his career at ITV‘s Southern Television in Southampton in 1976 and later joined ITN in 1980.
He left ITV in 2020 and the following year joined GB News, stepping away in early 2023 when he was diagnosed with dementia.
‘I’ve covered the Gulf War and run the very first television Leaders’ debate, but now I can’t tie my own shoelaces or choose my own shirt.
‘But there’s no point feeling self-indulgent about it. I won’t condemn myself to an awful life in the short term,’ he told The Telegraph.
Alastair Stewart announced he was diagnosed with early-onset vascular dementia in September 2023 and has since spoken of how the disease has affected him
It’s Mr Stewart’s reliance on his wife, Sally, both pictured, that he finds the hardest about the new stage of life, describing it as ‘demeaning’ and ‘soul-destroying’
The 72-year-old said following his diagnosis he was told by a psychologist to at the end of each day to think back and find three things that made him happy. He confesses this always involves being with his grandchildren, describing them as his ‘medicine’.
He spends most of his time now at home in Hampshire set on 26 acres of farmland with his wife Sally. With them are their two rescue dogs and outside are his ex ducks, four chickens, two donkeys, a tortoise, a cat a horse and a Shetland pony.
His career first started at Southern Television in Southampton where the two met, and where she was a production assistant. Mrs Stewart remembers him being ‘very cocky’ and he wore sweaters hand-knitted by his mother, white plastic shoes and flares.
With his career at ITN came long absences while he was away for work. Binge drinking led to a driving ban and a very unhealthy workplace culture at ITN.
Looking back at his career, his professional highs include covering the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first Gulf War, royal weddings, the late Queen’s funeral and King Charles’ coronation for GB News.
Mr Stewart had witnessed first hand the impact Alzheimer’s has on a person with his dad dying with the condition in a care home.
He had worried about the condition, with his wife describing him as a ‘panicker’ and a ‘fusser’. He had already gone to the GP about it five years later and was told not worry.
He said he first started feeling discombobulated in the latter part of 2022, when he couldn’t tie his laces or couldn’t knot his tie and his appearance started to become messy or not being able to tell the time on an analogue clock.
He suffered with high blood pressure, a smoker for more than 50 years and stressful periods with ITV News.
He spends most of his time now at home in Hampshire set on 26 acres of farmland with his wife Sally. With them are their two rescue dogs and outside are his ex ducks, four chickens, two donkeys, a tortoise, a cat a horse and a Shetland pony, pictured
An MRI scan revealed a series of small strokes, called infarct strokes, which had caused vascular dementia which he admits caused him ‘terror’.
But now he admits his wife, who herself was diagnosed with stage one breast cancer herself, has now become his career, saying: ‘Without Sal, I’d be finished.’
Fortunately for them, she has begun treatment and hopes this will be taken care of.
It’s his reliance on her that he finds the hardest about the new stage of life, describing it as ‘demeaning’ and ‘soul-destroying’ adding: ‘She is a beautiful, intelligent woman. I hate reducing her role in life to being my carer.’
Mrs Stewart said both of them had lost their independence but added: ‘But you have to keep going, don’t you? For him and also for our children.’
Since opening up about his condition, Mr Stewart has now been a spokesperson for the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK in his view ‘delusion is not a good medication’ and says they want to ‘give others the confidence to get through what we have had to go through together’.
He appealed: ‘Don’t ignore it. Go to your GP. And if you’ve got it, don’t be “Johnny-bollocks-brave” about it. Go and talk to somebody.’