PAUL AND JIM’S STORY
PAUL Lyden was alone in the playground on his first day at a new school when Jim Higgins asked him if he wanted to play. Paul said: “I had never met this boy before. A seven-year-old version of the man he was to become– kind, caring and always helpful to anyone in need.” His friendship with “Higgy” was to endure more than six decades until Jim died aged 68, having suffered from dementia for several years. Paul, 69, a retired IT expert from Helensburgh, sits talking in the sunshine of an allotment in Dumbarton run by Alzheimer Scotland. He used to take Jim to the garden when he visited him at the Dumbarton care home where he lived when the disease overwhelmed him and his devoted wife Margaret. Paul continues to volunteer at the allotments and he cherishes the memories of his dear friend. He recalls as little boys being ordered to eat up in the school dining hall and him scoffing Jim’s. He said: “Jim was fussy and I had hollow legs. Two clean plates and we were allowed out to play.” When Paul went to Glasgow University, telephone engineer Jim even blagged a pass to the union bar, so they could socialise together. Paul left Scotland for a while to take a job in England but whenever he came home he would look up Jim.
Paul said: ”He was always friendly, funny and gentle. He knew everyone and after a couple of pints I was caught up. I never fell out with him. I don’t know of anyone who did.”
There were periods of losing touch and Paul didn’t know about Jim’s dementia until he met him walking in Duntocher in Dunbartonshire, near his family home, about six years ago.
He had been diagnosed with dementia and could not drive any more, so he and Margaret had become withdrawn from friends.
Paul said: “I was upset. I wish I had known earlier because I wanted to help when I could.”
When Jim moved in to a care home, 18 months before his death, Paul saw him every week, more than
He would tell the same story over and over but I just used to let him PAUL LYDEN
he had done for years. Jim didn’t refer to his disease as dementia but called it “this thing”.
Often Paul would see glimmers of the friend he knew before the illness, in a witty one-liner or a thumbs-up.
It did become harder to keep a conversation going but Paul carried on encouraging Jim to speak.
“He would tell you the same story over again but I used to let him. Underneath, he was still the friendly guy he had always been. ”
Although Jim didn’t like gardening, the allotment became a distraction for them.
For Paul it was also important because it gave Margaret a break.
When Jim died in November last year, Paul delivered a eulogy, which he considered a great honour.
In the end death separated the old friends, but Paul ensured that Jim’s disease did not.