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Prunella Scales’s devoted husband Timothy West gave a moving interview about his wife’s dementia in an episode of Piers Morgan ’s Life Stories, which has resurfaced in the wake of the actress's tragic death today (October 28). Acting great Timothy, who died last November aged 90, said on the ITV show: “The sad thing is that you just watch the gradual disappearance of the person that you knew and loved and were very close to. “It is when you start thinking of the past and you think, ‘oh, what a shame she can't do that anymore, or you can't talk about this anymore.’ Then it is sad. As the story got around, not a lot of people rushed to employ her.” Diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2013, Prunella and Timothy continued to speak openly about her condition for over a decade, notably on their TV travel series Great Canal Journeys and in West’s 2023 memoir Pru and Me. But on Life Stories in 2015, Timothy said: “It stunned everybody that it developed so slowly, mercifully. It was a play that Pru was in, it was at Greenwich in London. I thought, ‘it is not that Pru has forgotten her lines or is not saying her lines properly, it's just that I can see her thinking’. “She never delayed her responses, but it was just the difference from what she had always had been, being entirely inside the character, and then thinking ‘am I going to manage this?’ And I knew then something was wrong. But it took me a long time to realise what it was.” The couple went public to help others. “To not do it would be dishonest,” said Timothy. “Enough people know about the condition to say, ‘why are they not mentioning this?’ “It was my decision. I just thought it was unfair, stupid and dishonest not to mention it and not to keep people abreast of it.” Of his own sense of loss, he said: “Communication is the hardest part. Perhaps we have been to a concert, a play or a film and there is not very much we can say about it afterwards, because Pru will have a fairly hazy memory of it. “She would have enjoyed her evening and she will perhaps talk about the acting. But talking about what the play is saying, she can't. I should think it is very frustrating for Pru. It is frustrating for me, of course.” The couple married in 1963 after Timothy’s first marriage ended, having met in the play She Died Young. Of her importance to his life, Timothy said: “She has been absolutely vital, yes. Because we do spend a lot of our lives apart, we are always very happy to see each other.” Recalling his proposal, he continued: “We were in the car going up to Cambridge and my divorce had just come through from my first marriage and I seized the moment. I was driving and I was at a red light and I thought, ‘yes, we could do it now, really’. I just said, ‘will you marry me?’ And there was a, ‘yes’. “We loved and respected each other on all sorts of levels, like the way we thought and valued things and our general attitudes about life. I loved her family. We just thought it was going to work and it has.” He even bought her clothes, explaining: “I love shopping for ladies’ garments. I am very interested in ladies’ fashion. Pru does not find it weird .” Meanwhile Pru said of Timothy: “Tim is just a lovely person. I continue to find him challenging, attractive and wise.”
