SAS World Free Project

In memory of Albert (1933-1990)
By Sue Sheppard

My family was totally unaware of Motor Neurone Disease until my father, Albert, was diagnosed in late 1988. Throughout his life, he had worked on and off as a delivery driver and for the last 15 years or so had been a milkman – a job which he loved as he preferred the great outdoors and meeting people and his round took him through some beautiful Sussex countryside.

His initial problems with the disease didn’t became apparent until he finally admitted that he was having difficulty gripping things but despite my mother asking him to go to the doctors, it was only after a little nagging from his eldest daughter (me) that he went to our family GP. A series of appointments ensued and an eventual visit to a neurologist confirmed he had MND.

I do remember shortly before his diagnosis that we all made a visit to, what was then, Redhill Hospital for a series of investigations. Just before we were about to leave, my dad, who always had a smile on his face, turned to a severe looking matron and asked if, after all the tests he’d had done, he would be able to play the harmonica. She replied with a confused look on her face that he would and my father said “That’s good because I couldn’t when I came in”. Awful joke I know but we all smiled because we knew he was afraid and just trying to hide his true feelings.

As the next 18 months flew by, he gradually deteriorated to the point where he was unable to drive - and therefore unable to work - and becoming more and more dependent on my mother, Angela.

Then, in September 1990, I was away on holiday with my husband in Cornwall. We had been on the beach all day enjoying the weather and when we got back to our cottage there was a note on the door asking my husband to ring home. The next few minutes were devastating as we were told the news that my father had been taken into hospital at five that morning and had passed away at 10am. That was his first and only visit to the hospital since his diagnosis and took us all by surprise; he had picked up a cold that had developed into pneumonia. He was only 57.

I remember at the time being grief-stricken about the fact that I wasn’t by my father’s side (and my mother’s too) when everything went wrong for him, and also by the fact that he would never know my children; my husband and I had already decided to try for a family and ironically I fell pregnant the next month with my first son. My sons are now 18 and 16 and young men but I will always feel sad that they never knew their grandfather.