‘The beautiful wife I’ve loved for 60 years is now slipping away because of dementia’ says Sir Jackie Stewart
F1 legend has set up charity, Race Against Dementia, in bid to find cure within his wife's lifetime
FORMULA One legend Sir Jackie Stewart has always been devoted to speed but moving quickly has never been as important to him as it is now.
His beloved wife Lady Helen is 75 and suffering from dementia, and 77-year-old Sir Jackie wants to find a cure before it is too late for her — or him.
The ace said: “I have watched Helen change before my very eyes for the last two years.
“Her razor-sharp mind was one of the things I immediately fell in love with, and it is her mind that is vanishing.
“But my logic is based on something John Lennon said — ‘There are no problems, only solutions.’ My mission is to find a solution.”
So Sir Jackie has set up a charity, Race Against Dementia, in which he has already invested £1million of his own money in a bid to find a cure within his wife’s lifetime.
And he believes he is better placed than anyone to ramp up the pace of progress towards a cure, because he knows very well that warp-speed breakthroughs are possible.
After all, he has seen them happen for decades in motorsport.
We got on a rocket ship from nothing to the stars
He explained: “Formula One has the fastest technology change of any business or industry or sport in the world.
“While the race is going on, someone is deciding what they need to change and then that part gets designed, manufactured and arrives in time for the next race — all within one week.
“The designers that are responsible for that are so creative and so fast.
“I want to find someone like that, but for dementia.
“I might not find them in the UK or America, but they’re out there.
“I won’t stop until I find them.”
It is no surprise Sir Jackie so desperately misses his wife of 54 years.
His childhood sweetheart was the original Formula One pit girl.
Beautiful and glamorous, she was the Flying Scot’s perfect sidekick.
She had fallen in love with Sir Jackie when he was a penniless mechanic in a local garage and the pair were catapulted together into F1’s ritzy jet-set world at the height of the Swinging Sixties.
They rubbed shoulders with celebrities and royalty, counting The Beatles, Cary Grant, Steve McQueen, Princess Anne and Princess Grace of Monaco among their friends.
Helen was right at his side as Sir Jackie won 27 races out of 99 starts and became world champion three times, making him the most successful British driver until Lewis Hamilton.
They were the golden couple of motorsport and for a long time it seemed like there was no race that together they could not win.
Then, two years ago during a routine medical check-up, Helen was diagnosed and since then her mind has steadily deteriorated.
Sir Jackie explained: “Her short-term memory is shot — that’s the most obvious sign.
“I have to learn not to say, ‘I told you five minutes ago,” or “I told you yesterday”, when she asks me the same thing over and over again.
“She has days where she is in denial about the fact she has dementia because she feels so bad about it.
“It must be very frustrating for her but she is dealing with it very well.”
He is clearly still as in love with her now as he was when they met 59 years ago.
They have two sons — Paul, 50, and Mark, 48 — and nine grandchildren.
He said with a smile: “We’ve had a wonderful life together — really it’s been a fairytale.
“And we’ve never lost that first connection.”
The couple met in their hometown Helensburgh, near Glasgow, when Jackie, then 17, was meant to be going on a blind date — with someone else.
But that girl took one look at the young mechanic and decided she didn’t want to go on a date with him after all.
He recalled: “I really had thought I was looking pretty good so that was a bit of a let down!
“We were in Dino’s Radio Cafe and my friend Jim, who had set us up, and his girlfriend Irene were sitting across the room.
“With them was this pretty 16-year-old who was Irene’s friend — that was Helen.
“I went over to them, down in the dumps, and Jim said, ‘Why don’t we go out anyway?’
“I asked Helen if she’d like to come and she said, “All right then.’ And that was that.”
He continued: “Helen fell in love with someone who had no money.
“We courted for five years before we married, then moved into a small apartment and lived very frugally.
“Then suddenly, I was driving a racing car and it was like we got on a rocket ship from nothing to the stars.”
Devoted Helen took it all in her stride and became Sir Jackie’s partner in success, watching each of his races from the pit lane and timing his laps within a millisecond with her trusty stopwatch.
He recalled: “That’s what the wives and girlfriends did in those days but she was brilliant at it — like a laser. She was my timekeeper, my professional stopwatch.”
So many people suffer – it’s an epidemic
Sir Jackie has now had their Buckinghamshire mansion specially adapted to suit Helen’s needs and has two live-in carers to help her.
With an estimated fortune of £42million, Sir Jackie is quick to acknowledge that they are very lucky to be able to afford such a high level of care.
But no amount of money can shield him from the anguish he shares with so many other Brits who live with a loved one slowly vanishing before their eyes.
He said “So many people are suffering — it is an epidemic.
“It is not just the person with dementia who suffers, but it can be very hard on the family as well.
“And it is an enormous financial burden in terms of social care — it costs the country more than it costs to treat heart disease, cancer and stroke combined.
“I know I am in a very privileged position, I can pay for carers in the house. But that is not what most people have.
“I know not everyone is as lucky as us and that’s why I’ve got to do this — we’ve got to find a solution that is both corrective and preventative.”
Currently the couple still have an extremely happy life together and Sir Jackie makes the most of it.
He revealed: “We are trying to have as normal a life as possible. We went to Wimbledon this week and Helen still loves going out for lunch or dinner.
“We’ve got two Norfolk terriers who are the most wonderful companions for Helen and we are a very close family with our sons and grandchildren who adore her all living nearby.
“That’s what she lives for.
“Helen’s long-term memory is still so sharp.
“She’s got albums from our racing days that are full of photographs of people we spent time with, pit passes, telegrams, menus, you name it.
“She can look through those and recall every name, every location, every date.
“So her long-term memory hasn’t gone and her appreciation of life hasn’t gone.
“I’m hoping that will continue.”
It has not been an easy decision to “come out of the closet”, as Sir Jackie calls it, about Helen’s condition.
Indeed before the launch of Race Against Dementia this week, only their closest friends and family knew about her diagnosis.
But Sir Jackie is determined that no stone should be left unturned in the fight for a cure, and that means telling their story to raise awareness and money for the charity’s research.
He said: “It’s been tough — Helen is a proud woman.
“But we need more people to see the reality of the problem.”
A man on a mission, Sir Jackie has already assembled a team of experts in medicine and pharmaceutical research.
For him, failure is not an option.
He said: “My lesson from racing was that to finish first, first you must finish.
“And that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
850,000 people in the UK have dementia
1 in 3 people over 65 predicted to get it
£26billion annual cost to the UK
1.34billion hours of unpaid work contributed by people caring for family or friends with dementia each year
You can donate to Sir Jackie’s charity at .