Lucinda Holdforth

I'll just have a heart attack.

And actually lots of them did.

It was very sudden.

Well, I was in a very lucky position, really.

Two adult stepdaughters, no kids to bring up.

I work as a speechwriter, so I can manage my own time.

But my parents lived an hour's drive away...

And once the sort of decline began, it was really crisis after crisis.

It was as if your nerve endings were always alert.

My phone had to be on all the time.

And it got to the point where Dad had so many things wrong with him that when I wheeled him into the doctor one time, the doctor was so shocked because Dad said, you know, I've always been well.

I'm a very fit man.

And the doctor turned around with three folders of dad's medical record.

So dad had this kind of denial about what was going on, but mum had her own denial.

So one time she rang me and she said, darling, your father's on the floor.

And I said, okay, is he okay?

She said, I don't know.

I said, where is he?

She said, he's in the bathroom, his head's wedged in the door.

So I said, Mum, have you rung the ambulance?