Love's Farewell

A tv programme this evening not to be missed:

Malcolm and Barbara

Love's Farewell

In 1999, after four year’s filming, ITV1's 'Malcolm and Barbara', A Love Story won critical acclaim for the moving account of Malcolm and Barbara Pointon who had their happy lives turned upside down when Malcolm, at only 51, developed Alzheimer's.

Paul Watson's original inspirational film told the story of how love sustains a relationship in even the most difficult of times. For four years, Paul became a new member of the family, filming alone with only a digital video camera. This touching documentary moved and inspired viewers and critics alike. Now, after spending a total of 11 years with the couple, this latest powerful and emotive film follows Malcolm as Alzheimer’s takes control of his body, mind and marriage.

The film shows Malcolm just after he was first diagnosed with the disease – aged 51. Malcolm agreed from the outset that his illness should be fully documented.

Extracts from his diary are featured – he wrote about the “silent buzzing in his head” that had started to affect his memory and concentration.

Very difficult to concentrate, memory is bad, Barbara gets exasperated with me and often I don’t know why. There is a silent physical buzzing in my head, is it depression or something worse?

Barbara, a music lecturer who had hosted a BBC radio music programme with Malcolm, describes the early days of the disease when Malcolm forgot simple things, like how to lay the table, before beginning to forget more worrying things, like where he was going in the car. She reveals how one day the police had to stop him after he drove the wrong way up a motorway.
Malcolm, a talented pianist who was once a composer, is reduced to a skeleton of his former self, unable to eat, speak or walk . . . an 11 year journey that eventually lead to Malcolm’s death in February this year.