RIVER CITY STARS TEAM UP WITH

BARBARA Rafferty spent 20 years watching her mum cope with dementia and has never forgotten just how difficult it was.

And former River City co-star Stephen Purdon experienced the stress it can bring when his wife’s gran fell ill with it.

So when their Shieldinch director friend Stuart Davids asked for help making a film about the illness, the stars were delighted to help.

Stuart has been a producer and director for years but took time out of his job four years ago to help look after mum Margaret when she was hit with dementia.

He vowed then to do whatever he could to help others facing the same journey.

Tomorrow, Stuart will launch We Need to Talk About Dementia. The short film stars Barbara as a woman who is doing up a new house after being forced to downsize following her husband’s admission to a dementia care home and who explains the illness to Stephen’s decorator character.

Stuart, whose experiences have helped shape the BBC soap’s dementia storylines, said he wanted to make the kind of film that would have helped him BY BRIAN McIVER when his late mum was diagnosed with the Lewy Body form of the illness in 2013.

He teamed up with dementia expert Professor June Andrews to create the film and a website.

Stuart said: “As a resource, this is something I’d have loved to have and we have tried to tailor it with the things I wish I’d known, even the way the experts describe and explain dementia.”

“My mother Betty passed away with it as well a couple of years ago. She died in the same care home as Stuart’s mother. It’s so important for people to know what is going on.

“We suspected she had dementia when she was 67 and she poo-pooed that, but she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She died, aged 87.

“She was gorgeous and passionate, she was a councillor and a justice of the peace and then did her Highers at 45 and became a teacher.”

Stephen added: “I have known Stuart for a long time and I know