Daily Mail, Monday, August 12, 2019 Page 17
T
HERE is a wonderful
moment in an early 2016
episode of Great Canal
Journeys — a surprise hit
for Channel 4, which stars
veteran British actors Timothy
West, now 84, and wife Prunella
Scales, 87 — when Pru emerges
from a Swedish sauna, all pink-
cheeked, tousled-haired and, it
appears, completely starkers.
Her husband asks: ‘So, do you feel like a
new woman?’
‘Why, d’you want one?’ she retorts, sparky,
glinting and with immaculate timing.
Of course not. He didn’t back then and
he doesn’t now. He just would like a few
more such magical flashes of his once
brilliant, funny and witty wife of 56 years.
For while their marriage has been one of
the most successful and enduring in
British showbusiness, it has been sorely
tested in the two decades since Pru —
best known as Sybil in Fawlty Towers —
was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.
Now Pru can’t remember the year they
were married. Or when their two sons,
Sam (also an actor) and Joseph (a trans-
lator who lives in France) were born.
She repeats herself and will often ask
the same question over and over until
Tim gently prompts her to stop.
‘The sad thing is that you just watch the
gradual disappearance of the person that
you knew and loved and were very close
to,’ is how Tim has put it.
Now, he faces another challenge. Given
their age, it would make sense to down-
size, and he is bracing himself to sell their
rambling Victorian home of more than
half a century in south-west London.
With its William Morris wallpaper, book-
lined rooms, collections of plays, prints,
family photographs, unusual ornaments,
vast battered leather sofa and baby grand
piano (bought from Wyndham Theatre’s
props department after it appeared in
David Pownall’s Master Class, in which
Tim played Stalin, back in the Eighties) —
the house is an extension of Tim and Pru.
Everywhere are reminders of their long
marriage, their illustrious careers and
their happy family of three children (Tim
has a daughter from his first marriage)
and seven grandchildren.
They moved in when Pru was pregnant
with Sam and raised both of their
boys here, and one of their granddaugh-
ters now lives with her two children in
their converted basement.
It has certainly focused his thoughts on
those who are forced to sell their homes
to pay for care home fees for a partner
with dementia. ‘I quite see how, in the
state social services are in, it’s a solution.
But I would hate it,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to go to my grave thinking:
“What’s happening to our house?” I don’t
want it going to somebody who’s going to
say: “Oh, let’s get rid of all this silly Morris
wallpaper and we can use that front
garden as space for an extra car.”
‘In theory, it’s silly — I know it’s only a
house — but it’s part of us.’M
ORE importantly, it is also
where Pru is happiest and
most herself. ‘Pru loves the
house and especially the
garden. She wants to stay here
until the end,’ he says.
It was Tim who first noticed
something was wrong, more than
20 years ago, while watching his
wife in a play. ‘I thought: “Hmm,
it’s not that Pru has forgotten her
lines or she’s not saying the lines
properly, it’s just that I can’t see
her thinking.” ’
‘She never delayed her responses
but it was just the difference
between what she already had
been — entirely within her
character — and her thinking: “Am
I going to manage this?”
‘I knew there was something
wrong, but for a long time I didn’t
realise what it was.’
Alzheimer’s Disease affects every
sufferer differently, but common
symptoms include short-termmemory loss, confusion, irritability,
mood swings, language difficulties
and long-term memory loss.
When Pru was diagnosed, instead
of letting their lives shrink behind
closed doors, they carried on as
normal. She continued acting for
another decade, but focused more
on voiceovers, with barely any
script to remember.
Tim, who over the years seam-
lessly juggled Shakespeare with
TV and film, veered more towards
TV roles with set filming times.
Until, in 2013, everything changed
when they set out on a nostalgic
canal trip to celebrate their Golden
Wedding anniversary, retracing the
routes of past family holidays
they’d taken with their sons. But
instead of the boys, they had afilm crew in tow, and Great Canal
Journeys was born. ‘We thought it
would be seen by some old ladies
on a wet Tuesday afternoon, but
somehow it caught on,’ Tim told
the Sunday Times yesterday.
It was an astounding success —
ten series stretching over more
than 30 episodes and one of
Channel 4’s top-five-watched pro-
grammes. They started on the
Kennet and Avon canal but were
soon happily chugging up canals
in India, Venice and Vietnam
at 4 mph.
It turned out canal boating was
perfect for Pru’s condition. ‘You
can just keep your mind vacant,
enjoy things as they happen. It’s
perfect for her,’ Tim said. Viewers
have loved the gorgeous views, thenuggets of local canal history and
the couple’s openness about
Pru’s illness.
But they were mainly drawn to
the pair’s warmth, their gentle
bickering, kindness, mutual
frustrations, Tim’s patience (and
occasional blasts of impatience)
and their extraordinary love and
strength — battling bravely on in
the face of utter heartbreak after
56 years of marriage.
Tim and Pru married in 1963
after meeting as stars of the period
TV drama She Died Young.
Both have had extraordinary
acting careers and they have
supported each other equally.
Latterly, the balance has become
skewed, but still they embrace
life. ‘We still like going to thetheatre and concerts,
and you’ve got to go on
doing that, because
either that, or you sit
watching daytime
television,’ said Tim.
While once they’d have
chatted all the way home,
dissecting every perform-
ance — they now travel
home in silence, their
once joyful banter gob-
bled up by Pru’s illness.
Also gone is her
memory, her spark and
much of her wit, leaving
Tim having to look ever
harder for glimpses of the
love of his life.
‘It’s hard. We used to
spark off each other, but
now Pru’s hearing has got
very selective,’ he told the
Sunday Times. They’ve
invested in endless
high-tech hearing devices, but he
suspects the problem is more her
not being able to answer, rather
than not hearing.
‘So we can’t talk about things,’
he says. ‘I miss it, and it’s not
good for me either — my own
reasoning is getting less good.’W
HEN in 2015, he
appeared on Piers
Morgan’s Life
Stories to talk
about living with Pru’s dementia,
she was in the audience. But 20
minutes later, she had no
recollection of the show at all.
Tim cares for Pru himself with
the help of a live-in housekeeper
and fills the gaping emotional hole
with work. ‘Work is so important.
You need other people to talk to.’
He has just finished working on
remakes of three 1969 episodes of
Dads’ Army with Kevin McNally
as Captain Mainwaring and Rob-
ert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson.
Tim plays Private Godfrey (origi-
nally played by Arnold Ridley).
And filming is due to start soon
on the latest series of the BBC
drama Last Tango In Halifax —
about love in later life — in which
he plays the brother of Sir Derek
Jacobi’s character, Alan.
Gone, sadly, are the days when
Pru could go with him when he
works. She hasn’t travelled with
him for years because she finds it
too confusing when he’s not there.
They still holiday together.
Earlier this summer they went on
a Baltic cruise where they were
feted by fans of their TV
programme. But there will be no
more canal boating.
‘Pru is finding it hard work — it’s
too much for both of us,’ says Tim,
‘and the whole idea is the journeys
shouldn’t feel like hard work.’
Today, Pru’s decline is tragically
gathering pace and the sale of
their home is looming. ‘I’m just
beginning to realise “Oh we can’t
do that”. “Oh, I will have to go and
help her with this”,’ says Tim.
In 2013, long after her diagnosis,
Pru said in an interview: ‘I’m
famous for playing unfortunate
wives, but I’ve been a very lucky
wife. We’ve both been incredibly
lucky.’ They have also been incred-
ibly brave; refusing to be cowed by
her illness, and showing people
how to live in the moment.
In the penultimate ever episode
of Great Canal Journeys, broad-
cast in June, they are seen drifting
down Vietnam’s Thu Bon river,
releasing lanterns in memory of
their parents, and Pru turns to
Tim. ‘Thank you for a lovely life,’
she says. ‘Oh, it’s a pleasure,’ he
replies, voice thick with emotion
and his eyes brimming. ‘So have I
had a lovely life.’It’ll break my
heart to sell
the home
where Pru
is happiest
Millions have watched Timothy West
caring for his dementia-stricken wife
Prunella Scales on their canal tours.
As the series nears its end, he says...
Adventurous:
Tim and Pru visit
Cambodia while
filming Great
Canal Journeysby Jane Fryer
Picture: CHANNEL 4