Kate White speaking at Monday’s full council meeting with a picture of her husband John Southgate around her neck

A RETIRED psychotherapist who cared for her late partner through dementia wore a picture of him pinned around her neck as she spoke during Camden’s carers debate.

Kate White said it was important to realise how exhausting it was for people just trying to do their best.

Her husband John Southgate died in 2021 after 12 years of living with Alzheimer’s. They had lived together in Nassington Road, Hampstead, for 33 years.

She told councillors: “We are in a relationship with somebody that needs our support, who may be very frightened, young or old. We have exhaustion from disturbed sleep. We also feel frightened because we don’t know how things are going to turn out.”

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Ms White added: “We can’t get a shower or make a phone call because we’ve got to be with the person 24/7. And I have to say, there are three eight-hour shifts a day when you’re a carer, whether you’re there or not, you have to organise three eight-hour shifts.”

Mr Southgate was a talented jazz pianist and Ms White spoke at an event at Swiss Cottage Library last year in which she talked about how music could help lift the mood of people with dementia. In one poignant story, she recalled an evening when things might have otherwise become strained.

“He got a bit fed up being persuaded to get in the bath,” she said. “We had one of those hoist things. So I put Ella Fitzgerald on at full volume and that got us through it. We just sang away while having a bath.”

SEE ALSO ‘MY HUSBAND HAD DEMENTIA BUT HE LIT UP WHENEVER I PUT ON ELLA FITZGERALD’

On Monday, she praised the council for its work on a new action plan to support carers, which she helped advise on.

“The financial cost leads to a lot of planning and a lot of organising and I think this action plan is going to really help give access to the ways in which people can get the help they need,” she said. “Fragmentation was the thing I met, and that is the thing that I think this action plan begins to address.

“So finding your way around the system is going to be hopefully easier, both for those who are looking after and those being looked after.”

Ms White also praised the Camden Carers charity, adding: “They are life saving and I had counselling when I was at my wits end and not able to continue. They are doing a fantastic job.”