How dementia fear inspired Riot Women

WRITER Sally Wainwright has revealed that she came up with the idea for Riot Women after fearing that she was developing dementia.

- BY SUE CRAWFORD

The Happy Valley and Gentleman Jack creator said she started to forget people's names and struggled to process information.

But she says it was only later that she realised she was experiencing symptoms of the menopause, though at the time had feared much worse.

"You do worry that there's some thing wrong with you and that your brain isn't working properly any more," she said.

"When you lose those hormones - for me it was quite low mood - and then that makes you irritable, because you don't know why you've got a low mood.

"I started to worry that I was getting dementia.

"I was worried that I just couldn't process information any more, which is obviously a worry when you're trying to write a script, because you use your brain a million times a second."

Speaking to Kaye Adams on her How to be 60 podcast, Sally added: "I assumed it was any number of other things.

"I assumed I was getting old before my time.

"I started to feel physically less vigorous and I was making mistakes, like forgetting people's names, or my sons correcting me about how to use the television remote properly.