‘We Need To Stop Being Embarrassed About Dementia'

Pam Ferris watched her mother-in-law suffer from Alzheimer’s. To help others, she’s lending her voice to a new film about it.

- Gerry Gilbert

The first time actress Pam Ferris suspected that there was something not quite right with her mother-in-law, Elizabeth, was when she arrived uninvited at Pam and her husband Roger’s home as if they were expecting her.

‘Mum started to turn up at a really weird hour – 7.30 in the morning, or 11 at night – with bunches of flowers as if it were a planned visit,’ recalls Pam. ‘Roger and I would just raise our eyebrows at each other and go ‘that’s a bit strange... maybe she got the time wrong.

‘From there on, things got progressively worse, and the circular, repetitive conversations started,’ says Pam, who most recently played Sister Evangelina in Call The Midwife. ‘Then she began experiencing hallucinations, and she thought people were in her house or that she’d been burgled. She even set the house on fire a couple of times.