By The Telegraph (World News) | Created at 2024-11-20 06:05:10 | Updated at 2024-11-20 08:42:07
2 hours ago
Peter Almond, 78, is compiling his memoirs. A retired journalist, he writes in the conservatory at his family home in Esher, Surrey. As we speak on the phone he describes his desk as “a terrible mess”. He laughs. “I move things around and sort of know where I’ve put them. But that’s nothing new, I’ve always been like that.” His long and successful career began with an apprenticeship in 1964 at the Northern Echo in Darlington and took him to newspapers in Cleveland, Ohio, and Washington D.C. Later, around the turn of the century, he worked for five years as a defence correspondent for The Telegraph.
He retired in 2011 “simply because I had turned 65”, he says, “and I was ready”. He was looking forward to spending more time with his wife, Anna, a retired nurse, and enjoying the things he loved: running, cycling, golfing and walking with their beloved springer spaniel, Henry. Over time, Anna noticed that Peter was becoming slightly forgetful. However, it didn’t seem to be of particular concern until one day, when Peter was cutting branches from a tree in their garden. “It was such a stupid thing,” he recalls. “I was standing on a ladder with a chainsaw 15ft off the ground. I leaned forward to cut a branch and fell off the ladder and down onto the ground, banging my head against a concrete bird bath and knocking it in two.”
With a badly cut head, Peter was rushed straight to A&E. Thankfully, he recovered well. However, as he had briefly lost consciousness, he was given a precautionary MRI scan. Further tests followed until, in 2018, Peter’s GP referred him to his local community mental health team for older adults, which led to a consultation with a neurologist. By then Peter had noticed that he was forgetting small everyday things, like where he had put his glasses or keys. Or Anna would ask him to do a task, like wash up or mow the lawn, and he would become distracted and forget to do it.
‘They wanted to reach people who had the earliest signs of dementia’
This time another MRI scan showed physiological changes in his brain, resulting in a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). “At the time, a treatment centre in Guildford was trialling new drug treatments for dementia,” Peter says. MCI is sometimes – although not always – an early sign of Alzheimer’s. “They wanted to reach people who had the earliest signs of dementia,” he explains.
He was keen to take part because, as he puts it, “anything that has ever been done to me medically, like my hip replacement in 2011, has always improved my life”. The first trial lasted for 18 months and involved monthly IV infusions at the centre, as well as regular MRI and PET scans at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup, Kent. “I’m pretty sure it was a placebo but I don’t know for certain,” Peter says. “I asked the doctor and he said, ‘I’m sorry but I can’t tell you.’”
A second 18-month trial followed. “This time they said, ‘This is donanemab.’ So we knew this for sure.” Although donanemab cannot cure dementia, it has been shown in clinical trials to slow the decline in memory and thinking by around a third compared to those not taking the treatment. Again, Peter had to go for monthly infusions. There were no side effects that he noticed, and throughout the entire three-year period he felt that “it kept me steady. I definitely wasn’t getting any worse. I was still able to do everything I wanted to.”
He is still active and fit, and this summer he took part in the London to Brighton charity cycle ride, raising funds and awareness for Alzheimer’s Research UK. Having previously run several marathons, he has also recently started jogging again, joining the throngs at the weekly 5k Parkrun at Bushy Park. However, now the donanemab trial has finished, Peter doesn’t know what to expect. “It ended in September and I am not allowed to continue on anything for at least six months,” he explains. “So now I’m in limbo.”
He still feels extremely fortunate to have been able to take part in the trial when so many are unable to be given the drug, as currently donanemab is not available on the NHS. “Without it I’m pretty sure I would have carried on deteriorating, slowly, all the time,” he says. “I understand why Nice [National Institute for Health Care Excellence] is unable to accept the drug because they say the significant cost it takes to deliver the treatment outweighs its modest benefits. But the Government has to pay millions of pounds to support people in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s disease.” He is awaiting contact from a Nice representative, “as they want to talk to me about my experience of the trial. All I can say is that it’s been very positive for me.”
Meanwhile, Peter and his family are hopeful for the future as “new drugs are coming along all the time”. Some years ago, Peter and Anna extended their family home, and now their grown-up sons Nick and Jeff, plus Jeff’s wife and their two children, all live with them. Henry, the springer spaniel who accompanied Peter on a 1,215-mile charity walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats, is sadly no longer with them. They now have another spaniel, Bella, who runs, barking excitedly, when a delivery man comes to the door.
Born in Northampton into an RAF family, Peter loved his life as a journalist, which spanned nearly five decades. “It was an incredibly exciting time,” he says. He reported on the Cold War and travelled to Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. He has written two books on aviation and flown in F-16 and Tornado fighter jets (“in the back seat,” he clarifies). Now, as he writes his memoirs, he delves into the filing cabinets that he had shipped over from the newspaper he worked on in Cleveland.
Before they emigrated, he and Anna had just got married. “We had one day’s honeymoon in London and then spent the second day at the US embassy getting a visa for Anna so she could join me. This was 1969 – one of the biggest years of the century,” he says.
Peter says he still feels as fit and able “as any 78-year-old can be”. With his running, walking, writing and living in a busy household of seven, his life is full. “The only thing I find tricky is focusing hard on something fairly complicated, like finances or filling in lengthy forms. That can be a bit of a headache.” However, he is still thankful to be one of the few to benefit from a donanemab trial. “Feeling that I am remaining stable and not deteriorating – for me, that is a success.”
And now that the trial has finished? “The thought of Alzheimer’s disease is scary to say the least,” he says. “I just have to stay hopeful and focus on taking one day at a time.”
Alzheimer’s Research UK is one of four charities supported by this year’s Telegraph Christmas Charity Appeal. The others are Humanity & Inclusion, Teenage Cancer Trust and Army Benevolent Fund. To make a donation, please visit telegraph.co.uk/2024appeal or call 0151 317 5247
