Suchet calls dementia a "vile thief"

John Suchet has reportedly described dementia as "the vile unwanted thief" which stole his wife.

The newsreader, who married Bonnie in 1985, wrote in The Mail On Sunday that the disease started to manifest itself in 2004 - the year he retired from ITN.

"It was the beginning, the first sign that dementia, that vile unwanted thief, was slowly gripping Bonnie, robbing us of our future and our past." In 2006, a specialist confirmed that Bonnie was suffering from the degenerative brain disease. A year after diagnosis, cognitive tests showed it was progressing.

"This wretched disease appeared to have one redeeming quality. It was protecting Bonnie from understanding what was happening. When we got home I cried secretly in another room. I was losing my Bonnie, slowly but unstoppably," Suchet wrote.

As the condition worsened, Suchet was forced to take the decision to place his wife in full-time care. "I had committed the love of my life to a care home and she knew nothing about it. I couldn’t flick the guilt demon off my shoulder. He was too strong," he wrote.

However, he added he will never allow dementia to steal the memories he will always carry. "If I give in, succumb, wallow in self-pity, retreat into a shell, give up, then that vile thief will have notched up another victim. But it is not going to get me. I will live and laugh. Until my last breath, I will count myself the luckiest man in the world that that beautiful American East Coast blonde agreed to share my life."

My Bonnie, by John Suchet and published by HarperCollins, goes on sale on Tuesday.