A LUDLOW man is set to be honoured by a memory walk in October.

Doug Jackson, who was born on Mill Street, suffered from both Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer’s disease before his death in 2021.

On October 8, the second anniversary of his death, Mr Jackson's daughter, Kay Brearley and her husband Lee will be hosting a 2.5 mile walk through Ludlow to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Society.

The family hope it will build on a successful walk in Worcester last year which had about 50 people involved and raised a total of £2,656 for the fight against Alzheimer’s.

The event will start at 10am on Sunday, October 8 at McConnel Ltd car park and will take walkers Ludlow town centre as well as Ludlow Castle and The Readers House.

Mr Jackson worked as a costing engineer for McConnel Ltd, an agricultural machinery manufacturer in Ludlow, for over 40 years. The company started off the fundraising for the walk with a donation of £500 via the 'Memory Walk Ludlow' page on justgiving.com.

His family said: "Doug began to realise something was wrong, he became confused and forgetful and for a man who had used his brain all his life, this was very frustrating for him and he was frightened.

"He declined quite rapidly after diagnosis both physically and mentally and we managed to get Doug and Molly moved to Worcester so we could look after him and support Molly more closely.

"In relation to the effect of Doug’s illness on our family, it meant that Molly became his full time carer and he soon became unable to carry out the simplest of tasks and began hallucinating and shaking.

"He eventually was admitted to hospital on September 19, 2021 and was transferred to Latimer Court Care Home on October 7 and passed away the following day.

"The effect of Doug’s illness on the family was extensive and still is.

"Initially we felt scared and isolated upon first his diagnosis. None of us had experienced this illness before. There were mixed emotions of sadness, anger and frustration.

"The hardest thing was seeing Doug sat in the chair but it wasn’t really him. It is terrible to watch this disease slowly destroy a person both physically and mentally. The person we knew was quickly vanishing and we were powerless to do anything about it.

"The medications he was prescribed adversely affected him and overall we felt very lonely however the Early Intervention Dementia Team at Kidderminster were amazing and gave us lots of support and direction."