Forth Valley poet invited to join AlzAuthors this Burns Night

His dad, also called Pat, was originally brought up in Letham and latterly Kincardine. All author royalties from the book go to Alzheimers Research UK and Pat also donated ten copies of the book to the newly opened Alzheimer Scotland Brain health and Dementia Resource Centre in Alloa.

Since then the book has sold throughout the UK as well as in the US Canada and France.This Burns Night, Pat will also receive the accolade of being invited to join AlzAuthors, an elite class of authors writing about one of the most important diseases of our generation. They are a community of bestselling, award-winning authors, who came together because their lives have been impacted by Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Marianne Sciucco, one of the founders of AlzAuthors, said: “We are delighted to have Pat join our collaboration of authors. His heartfelt poems will make an excellent addition to our collection of books on Alzheimer's and dementia written from personal experience. We are honoured to help him raise funds for Alzheimer's Research UK.”

Pat said: “I am delighted to be invited to join AlzAuthors. It is a wonderful organization who are renowned worldwide for their collection of literature and the work they do sharing Alzheimer’s and dementia stories to light the way for others and striving to eliminate the stigma surrounding the most important disease of our generation affecting an estimated 47 million people worldwide and forecast to reach 150 million by 2050.

“As someone who only recently started writing poetry, to be invited to join AlzAuthors on January 25, the day set aside to honour Scotland’s greatest ever poet, Robert Burns, makes it even more pleasing.

“It took a lot of thought by my family before deciding to share a very personal story of our dementia journey with others and we are so pleased the book seems to be helping others on the same journey. The support and response we received after publishing it was really humbling.”

Amazingly, prior to writing the book, Pat had never written any poetry before:

He said: “As a carer for dad I know how difficult both physically and emotionally dementia can be for both the person who has it and close family particularly those who are carers day to day.

“Often books can be quite long and time to research on the other hand very short. It was only by chance that I saw on-line some quotes and a few poems about dementia and these really hit the mark with me.

“Having never written a poem in my life before suddenly I started writing poems. I found that they helped me by putting down on paper how I was feeling including my emotions and helped me better reflect on and better understand certain situations. Being a carer I find to be a constant process of learning and trying to do things better.

“Over time as I wrote more poems, I started to think that perhaps some of the things I learned from our dementia journey may be of some small help to others on the same journey or who are about to start it. Poetry seemed to me to be a good way to provide it with fairly short poems, easy to read and often with a simple message. I hope the messages and advice in the poems will help others avoid some of the heartache and emotional stresses that dementia can bring.”

On February 20, to celebrate his dad’s birthday, Pat is publishing another book titled “Poems for People Who Care”. The focus of this book is all those who are carers for loved ones.

He said: “It occurred to me in writing the first book that caring for loved ones, no matter what illness or condition they have, is a similar journey for all carers certainly from an emotional perspective. This second book therefore is a collection of poems about caring for loved ones. It is dedicated to Carers Worldwide for the love and compassion they show and their dedication in caring for those they love. Again Author Royalties go to Alzheimers Research UK.”

Both books “Our Dementia Journey” and “Poems for People Who Care” are available on Amazon.