Arlene Phillips: Dementia bought out strict dad's gentle side

Arlene Phillips has revealed how her strict father\'s dementia bought out a "gentleness" in him.

The former \'Strictly Come Dancing\' judge never received affection from her dad, Abraham, until he started suffering with the illness and began hugging her for the first time.

She told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "My dad was a very strict dad, he was a shouter, he was tough and as his dementia began I saw this side of him, this cross, angry side come out. But gradually it changed to something I never ever remember from my dad, a gentleness, a touch, a hug.

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"My dad never hugged me when I was a kid, never. I remember him picking me up once, when he came in with a box of chocolates for us all - the three kids.

"And I remember it because he never picked me up and swirled me round. It makes you realise the importance of the human touch for people with dementia."

Abraham died in 2000 after battling the syndrome for over a decade, but Arlene was determined to make his final years count as she would often get him dancing to help spark his memory.

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She explained: "Any movement they can engage in, there\'s a unity to it and it feels like a giant hug because you\'ll all be reaching up or reaching out at the same time.

"My father loved to walk and I used to go and take him for a walk around the grounds of his care home where he was living. We\'d do a little bit of movement in his room and the most important thing I could do was get him out for a walk at some point every day.

"And walking, in a way, is the first step to dancing. For people with dementia or those who possibly have no understanding of the silence that is surrounding everything we do at the moment because of the pandemic, music and ­movement can also sometimes spark the memory."