In a heartbreaking health update, Alastair Stewart has revealed he is now unable to tie his own shoelaces.
It comes after the broadcasting legend, 72, was diagnosed with dementia in 2019.
Stewart retired in 2023 following an epic career spanning 50 years. He served three years with Channel 4 News before spending 35 years helming ITV News, making him the longest-serving male newsreader on British television.
Since stepping back from the silver screen, Stewart has continued to share an insight into living with dementia, including how his deteriorating condition now prevents him from carrying out everyday tasks.
In a new interview, he told The Telegraph: ‘I’ve covered the Gulf War and run the very first television Leaders’ debate, but now I can’t tie my own shoelaces or choose my own shirt.’
Insistent on keeping his spirits up, he added: ‘But there’s no point feeling self-indulgent about it. I won’t condemn myself to an awful life in the short term.’
Stewart also shared how his family is helping to keep him going.
‘After I was diagnosed, the psychologist told me, “When you go to bed at night, try to think back on your day and find three things that have made you happy.”
‘And for me, they always involve being with my grandchildren. They are like my medicine.’
The veteran journalist began his career at ITV’s Southern Television in Southampton in 1976 and went on to cover some of history’s biggest events, including the wedding of Charles and Diana, Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, and King Charles III’s coronation, the latter of which he covered on GB News.
It was on the channel that he shared his diagnosis in September 2023, announcing during an interview that he had early-onset vascular dementia, a common type of dementia caused by reduced blood flow to the brain that affects around 180,000 people in the UK.
He shared that, in the lead-up to being officially diagnosed, he had suffered a ‘series of strokes’ and began to feel ‘discombobulated’ when performing mundane tasks around the house.
Having previously smoked up to 40 cigarettes a day—a habit he took up as a teenager—Stewart stopped smoking completely after being diagnosed.
He also now goes on ‘longer dog walks’ and tries to keep his brain ‘active’ with puzzles.
Speaking last year, Stewart revealed the impact the disease has had on his wife, Sally Ann Jung, whom he married in 1978.
Dad-of-four Stewart admitted that he ‘can’t be trusted’ to get himself ready for the day, having already confessed that the most ‘difficult’ part of it all was how his other half had been affected.
He continued to the Daily Mail: ‘I find it depressing that she is reduced to the diary-checker, the carer.
‘I mean, before we went out last night, she had to check I had the right shoes on the right feet. I can’t just jump in the car and go to the corner shop.
‘Depression is the bigger challenge than fear.’
Stewart’s wife was the first to notice something wasn’t right when he was unable to reset the kitchen clock.
‘I couldn’t conceptualise what the hands signified, and I could no longer glance up and say it was ten past 11,’ he explained.
However, he remains defiant and wants to ‘continue to be visible’ and make it clear to people that dementia is ‘not a cliff edge’, having previously been showered with praise by charities for sharing his story and raising awareness.
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