‘He’s still my dad’
She has ‘hero-worshipped’ her dad since childhood, and insists he is ‘as charming as ever’, but TV host Davina McCall, 50, has also spoken honestly about the signs she picked up on that led to her dad, Andrew, being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years ago. ‘ When he started using the wrong vocabulary, things like, “Call me when your work is less explosive,” it didn’t take long for us to raise concerns,’ she admitted, adding poignantly that she ‘grieved the loss of my old dad’. But the ever-positive star added, ‘ We are forging a new relationship, a different one – one where perhaps he might need me more. Our dynamic has changed, but he’s still my dad.’ Ironically, Davina admitted that she worried more about her stepmother, Gaby, due to the stress of caring for her 75-year-old father. Davina has also expressed her own fears that she too could eventually be a sufferer, as the disease has also affected her grandmother, Pippy. ‘I have called my doctor twice in floods of tears, saying, “I’ve definitely got it.” To which he replies, “If you had Alzheimer’s, you wouldn’t be calling me about it.”’ The This Time Next Year host has come a long way since battling drugs and alcohol in her 20s and losing her sister Caroline to cancer in 2012 – living proof of the old adage, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But after everything she’s been through, having this cruel disease hanging over her head is a weight she doesn’t deserve.