‘I waited a brutal 18 months to find out dad had dementia – no one else should have to’

Michael Fethon with his dad Jim in 2011 (Picture: Michael Fethon) Everyone will have a different story about when that gnawing sense of dread began. For Michael Fethon, it was during the mundane act of tiling his kitchen over lockdown in 2020. His dad Jim, a ‘typical Yorkshire person’, insisted he would do the work, telling him with classic paternal swagger: ‘You’re not paying somebody else to do it.’ But it wasn’t long before it became clear that something was wrong. Michael told Metro: ‘When he came to doing the tiles, he said, “My head’s telling me I can’t do it.” ‘He’d say, “I don’t know what to do next,” when he was putting sort of the spaces in between tiles, or he’d forget to put some adhesive down, or forget a bit of grouting.’ Sign up for all of the latest stories Start your day i