My mum Mary was always a bright, confident and fiercely independent lady.

I'm very good at being out of work.

I've been going to Bamburgh for holidays since I was a child.

You can't converse with Alzheimer's sufferers in the way you do with others; the dialogue tends to go round in circles.

From the time you are a tiny baby, a parent's love is usually unconditional. Whatever you do, your parents think you are the tops, but when their memory goes, you stop recouping the love you've put in.

Dementia is often regarded as an embarrassing condition that should be hushed up and not spoken about. But I feel passionately that more needs to be done to raise awareness, which is why I became an ambassador for the Alzheimer's Society.

Before my mother's diagnosis with Alzheimer's, I had heard of the disease, but hadn't known anyone who had suffered from it.