I remember my grandma, Jean, in her younger days as beautiful, kind, and sometimes a little strict! As a young woman she worked in Merthyr Tydfil Town Hall and was a keen amateur seamstress. After raising (and clothing!) her children, she returned to work, teaching dressmaking and volunteering for the Citizen's Advice Bureau.

Her and my grandpa, John, were life long partners. After 65 years of marriage, grandpa still asked her to dance whenever we played Frank Sinatra’s ‘It Had To Be You’. Jean, being the prim and proper lady she was, would reluctantly fuss, before standing, taking his hand and lovingly dancing around the living room. And, of course, at the end of each day we spent in Merthyr, time was always reserved for the serious business of John and Jean having a 'cwtch' (or, as the English say, a cuddle) on the sofa.

Sadly, as grandma grew older she became more confused and lost, as memories of their life together faded. She moved into care in 2022, where she is cared for by a lovely team at Greenhill Manor Care Home. However, her memory of her own life, her husband and her family, is now gone.

This story, while heartbreaking, is not unusual. Jean shares her condition with a million others in the UK alone. While drug trials are taking place, and blood tests to detect Alzheimer’s are just around the corner, we still have no cure. Dementia research is, on the whole, chronically underfunded, lagging 20 years behind the progress made in cancer research.

Yet, it’s estimated one in three people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime.

So alongside the slightly daunting prospect of my first ever 26.2 mile run, I’m raising money for BRACE Dementia Research. BRACE funds world class clinical and laboratory studies into Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, with particular focus on researchers based in South Wales and the South West of England.

This marathon, and any money donated, is a tribute to my wonderful grandma Jean and to the many others living with dementia. Please donate what you can to find better treatments, achieve earlier diagnosis and, one day, find a cure. I’ve started us off with the first donation, now I better get training…