My mother wasn’t drunk – she had Parkinson’s | Jenni Murray

The rudeness my mother faced in public made her severely depressed. We need to raise awareness of the disease to stop the cruelty endured by sufferers like her

Imagine how distressing it would be to be laughed at in the street because a medical condition means you have to shuffle along slowly and sometimes fall over, your hands shake, and your speech is slurred. My mother, Win Bailey, was a bright, energetic, talkative women with a wicked sense of humour and a sharp tongue. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at the age of 70, and lived with the disease for 10 years before her death.

Her deterioration was rapid. She had a couple of falls, and quickly her smart, elegant gait became the shuffle of the severely disabled. Her active, expressive face lost all its energy. She was a blank, as though she’d overdosed on Botox. Her hands began to shake so badly and her grip became so weak she could no longer do the things she loved: cooking, baking, art and needlework.

Related: Michael J Fox: 'Nobody pities me and that's great. I couldn't stand it'

'Is she all right? Is she drunk?' I’d answer in fury: 'My mother has Parkinson’s'

Patience and just a warm smile would have made all the difference to the last, difficult years of my mother’s life

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