Any Other Business: Missing the Point-on

I had the pleasure of speaking at length to Barbara Pointon this week. She is the wife of the late Malcolm Pointon, a former Cambridge University lecturer who fought a long running battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Mr Pointon’s plight was filmed in the famous documentary Malcolm and Barbara: A True Love Story in 1999. An updated version of this is being aired next week featuring the months leading up to his death earlier this year. You will probably have seen the furore in the press this regarding whether or not the actual moment of Mr Pointon’s death is screened or not.

As ever our wonderful tabloids, stirred up by the helpful Mary Whitehouse-wannabes from mediawatch, are totally missing the point. The Pointon’s wanted these documentaries to go ahead to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease, not to break some kind of televisual taboo. This is not a Big Brother style programme employing shock tactics in a bid for ratings.

Alzheimer’s does not share the kind of high profile which is afforded to cancer or heart disease, despite the fact it is now the second highest killer in the UK. Care provision for Alzheimer’s patients who want to stay in their own homes is also woefully insufficient, another point Mrs Pointon is keen to bring to the attention of the public at large.

Unfortunately this moving attempt at highlighting these problems seems to have now been hi-jacked by newspapers wanting to stick the boot in on ITV, and the holier-than-thou mediawatch bods intent on getting some publicity for their own cause.

We live in a world of 24-hour news coverage, where we are faced with images of death every day, many of which pass everyone by without a second thought. It is then perhaps a sad indictment on our society that these 30 seconds of footage have already created far more column inches than the much bigger issues which feature in the other 89 minutes of the programme ever will.

- Malcolm and Barbara: Love’s Farewell, is screened on Wednesday August 8. It starts at 9pm on ITV1.