Veteran broadcaster John Stapleton has spoken candidly about his battle with Parkinson’s, admitting the illness has forced a “downturn” in his lifestyle – but insisting he is doing everything possible to cope.
The 79-year-old journalist, who revealed his diagnosis last year in a BBC One Morning Live film, gave a deeply personal update during an appearance on GB News. “Lots of people live a normal life with Parkinson’s, so I’m aiming to do the same,” he said. “I’m taking the tablets. I’m doing the exercises my expert is telling me to do. I’m speaking as well as I can, because I need a speech therapist to talk more slowly and more clearly. I also have difficulty swallowing. And the latest thing is I’ve had difficulty with my balance, hence this stick I’ve got by my side all the time now.”
Despite the challenges, John stressed his determination to live fully: “The future is surviving, basically, and doing my best to cope with this downturn in my lifestyle. But as I say, I could be far worse off. I’ve got great mates, a lovely son and a lovely daughter-in-law. It’s not going to go away. All I can do is control it.”
Reflecting on the first signs, John recalled: “I recognised that something was not right about three years ago. My mother had it so I recognised that I’d got the old tremor. The tremor makes getting dressed difficult. I went to see this specialist, and he said, ‘It’s not Parkinson’s yet, it’s what we call a benign essential tremor’. It did, of course, get worse.”
John’s mother, June, battled Parkinson’s before her death in 2007 at nearly 85. “I watched my mother go,” he said. “She went from a lively, brilliant lady to a lady who was almost prisoner in her own home. I had all the classic symptoms she had. I just went for confirmation basically.”
The broadcaster also weighed in on the contentious debate over assisted dying laws. He admitted: “I take the view that if I’m suffering very badly you have my permission to take me across to Switzerland and do the business as long as it doesn’t get you in trouble. This new bill, in principle, I am for it, but it doesn’t really apply to Parkinson’s people because Parkinson’s doesn’t kill you. You can’t say ‘In six months you’re going to die from Parkinson’s’ – so at the moment it doesn’t really apply to me.”
