ECB chair Richard Thompson opens up on losing his parents to dementia as he recalls the Test Match his dad's illness 'hit me like a train'

It was a moment, says Richard Thompson, that 'hit me like a train'. In 2013, he and his dad, Eric, were watching an Ashes Test at The Oval, at a time when Thompson – now chair of the England and Wales Cricket Board – was in charge at Surrey. Except Eric thought he was watching something else.'God, look at this,' he told his son. 'It's amazing how Surrey can get the crowds these days.' Thompson was stunned: 'Dad, it's a Test match against Australia. This isn't Surrey, Dad. This is England.'Thompson tried to make a joke out of it, deploying the black humour familiar to carers of dementia sufferers. But there was no escaping the significance of what had just happened. 'I remember the moment,' says Thompson, who is backing the Daily Mail's Dementia Carers Together appeal with Alzheimer's Society, which aims to raise millions of pounds for nationwide six-week courses for friends and family of people living with the disease. 'I remember the day. I remember everything. And it just hit me like a train.'Eric's deterioration was profoundly unpleasant, and not just for him. Not long after, he was walking back from the newsagent – he insisted on picking up the morning paper himself – when he tripped, fell, and injured a shoulder. He then suffered a stroke, and died the following year, in 2017, by which time his wife, Barbara had borne much of the burden of looking after him.Thompson says: 'Dad called her "Babs", but it got to the point where he got confused about Barbara and Babs. He'd say: "Where's Babs? This is Barbara." And then he'd say: "I want to go home."'Dad was big – 6ft 3in. He fell so often, and a couple of times he fell on mum. She broke her back, and had some horrific injuries as a result of it. But they'd been married for 50 years, and she said to me: "Richard, when I said for better or worse, for richer or poorer, I meant it." ECB chair Richard Thompson with his mum Barbara and dad Eric, who sadly both passed away after suffering with dementia Richard with his sister Suzanne and mum Barbara, who made it to 93, before dying in August Her devotion meant Eric stayed out of a care home until near the end, but it took its toll, to the extent that she herself eventually succumbed to what Thompson calls 'carer's dementia'.He explains: 'When you care for somebody with dementia, you find their lives become very closed, and it just becomes about them and the person they're caring for. So then they start to lack stimulation in their life, and they start to go into early decline, because you need to be using your brain.'Barbara made it to 93, before dying in August – a member of what the undertaker called 'the 3 per cent club', said to be the proportion of people in the UK who die at home in their sleep. For that at least, Thompson was grateful. And by that stage he and his older sister, Suzanne, had learned from what had happened with their dad.They used family photo albums to keep their mum stimulated, because – as Thompson puts it – 'nothing could tell a story more than a picture'. And they had to be patient, sometimes fielding the same query 10 times in five minutes.'You learn the hard way,' he says. 'You start to understand that dementia can manifest itself in lots of ways, and try so hard not to get angry.'In 2020, Thompson founded Sport United Against Dementia, which has since raised millions for the Alzheimer's Society, and is a passionate advocate for the idea of what he calls 'sport as the great convenor'. He recently walked 100 laps of Lord's in a fundraising scheme that he hopes will become a fixture on the cricket calendar – and not just in the UK. It raised over £400,000.And he stresses the importance of early diagnosis: 'There is a saying that if you think you've got dementia, you don't want to know. If you think you've got cancer, you do. As a country, we're appalling at this.'But the diagnosis of his dad meant he could take a drug called Aricept, which slows Alzheimer's progress. 'It gave us two or three years of Dad, and gave him a better quality of life. Also, it bought us time to get enduring power of attorney, get some cameras fitted into the house – just start preparing, because you don't know how rapidly this can go.' Richard and Suzanne used family photo albums to keep their mum stimulated, because – as Thompson puts it – 'nothing could tell a story more than a picture' Eric and Barbara Thompson were married for 50 years with the latter looking after her husband Dementia Carers Together Dementia Carers Together is raising money to fund new courses across the UK to give tens of thousands of struggling unpaid dementia carers vital emotional and practical support. For further information, visit dailymail.com/dementiaHow you can donateOnline: Visit justgiving.com/campaign/mailforceBy Text: To donate £10, text CARER to 70115. To donate £20, text LOVE to 70115. To donate £30, text HEART to 70115. Texts will cost your donation amount plus your network charge.By phone: Call 0300 1234577. Standard charges may apply.By cheque: Send cheques made payable to Mail Force Charity to:Dementia Carers Together, 42 Phoenix Court, Hawkins Road, Colchester CO2 8JY Thompson himself recently turned 60, and is conscious of the need to keep his body and mind active.'I've had two parents who have died of Alzheimer's, and I don't want to get it,' he says. 'I might have the test, but I'm doing everything from a lifestyle perspective to ensure I don't get it.'I have definitely lost weight: I don't eat as much rubbish any more. I'm quite good at crosswords, and I'm pretty good at table tennis. And though I haven't got round to it, I'm determined to learn Spanish and the piano, which will help ensure your cognition remains as active as possible.'Thompson speaks with pride about his parents. Eric scored 42,000 runs for Carshalton cricket club, playing with his son for several years. And, after working in the City, he went into advertising, mainly working with tourism brands.One of his clients was the Romania tourist board. Creating advertising campaigns to promote holidays there during the reign of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was not easy, until he concluded that the country was best known as the home of Count Dracula, and focused on creating interest in Transylvania.Either side of raising her two children, Barbara worked for the fashion store C&A and later made artisan lampshades.Two talented, loving people, laid low by a cruel disease. And now Thompson faces his first Christmas without either of them.'We had Christmas early last year because I had to go to Australia for the Ashes, but it was really tough to get mum in a position where she could eat properly, and I would carry her everywhere. She was so frail in the end, and I think she wasn't really enjoying it.'But it will be really weird this year because our parents made Christmas so special. It's sad that my parents' generation has learned the hard lessons of Alzheimer's, and I hope the next generation won't have to go through the same thing.'Dementia Carers Together is an appeal run by Mail Force in association with Alzheimer's Society, delivering vital support to the UK's unpaid dementia carers. To donate, visit the Dementia Carers Together fundraising page