Movers and Shakers: John Stapleton

A broadcasting legend on life with Parkinson's

We are joined on this week’s episode of Movers and Shakers by someone whose face will be familiar to millions of television viewers. As a reporter and presenter John Stapleton has had a long and distinguished career, presenting just about every breakfast TV programme you can think of, and battling for consumer rights on programmes such as Nationwide and Watchdog.

But the reason that we were eager for him to join us in the pub was that last autumn he revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. It was on the BBC’s Morning Live programme that he broke the news in a film made by his son Nick, himself an award-winning investigative reporter on the BBC series Scam Interceptors.

The film, which you can see here, features a moving conversation between father and son about what happens when John is unable to carry on living alone in the family home, and it made a huge impact.

“It was picked up by no fewer than 200 different media outlets, both national and regional,” John tells us. “I got literally hundreds and hundreds of calls and messages from people, and Parkinson's UK, to my delight, had an increase in inquiries and an increase in subscriptions as well.” Indeed, the charity refers to what happened as the Stapleton Effect.

John Stapleton with Mark Mardell (l) and Nick Mostyn (r) in the pub

Like many of us, he says he found the experience of telling the world about his diagnosis a liberating one. Lots of old friends had got in touch and neighbours had been very supportive “There are lots of nice people out there. I find people are incredibly helpful.”

It was three years ago that he first went to see a neurologist about a tremor - “it’s going like the clappers right now” he jokes as we interrogate him. He was told it was what’s called a benign essential tremor and not to worry about it unless it got worse. “Of course, it did get worse, and I developed other symptoms too. Difficulty swallowing, my handwriting went to pot as well. And of course, the voice went as well. So I went back to him. He said, this time around, ‘Yes, it is Parkinson's’.”

Like Mark Mardell, another great broadcaster, John Stapleton finds the impact on the voice which has been his most vital professional tool an extremely distressing symptom. But at 78 he is just getting on with life: “I try to think as positively about it as I can. I'm taking all the tablets. I've engaged a speech therapist. I've got a keep fit lady who knackers me, and every time she comes, I'm exhausted after an hour, but I can't do any more.”

He takes inspiration from his late wife Lynn Faulds Wood, a campaigning consumer journalist who fought a very public battle against bowel cancer at a time when the subject was deemed too sensitive to talk about by many editors. She beat the cancer, but died after a stroke five years ago. “Lynn said why worry about something you can't change, just get on with it. Make the most of it, which is what I’ve been doing.”

But there is one subject he knows he may have to worry about one day. John lives in the large West London house he and Lynn bought many years ago, and admits life alone is getting tougher: “Getting dressed these days is quite an operation, getting my socks on that kind of stuff. My limbs are stiff , my joints are stiff. Just getting dressed, going in and out of the shower - I don't get in the bath anymore because I know damn well I'll never get out.”

For now, he is determined to stay in the home, enjoying a bit of solitude and being in charge, while knowing that Nick and his wife Lisa are nearby if he needs help. But he knows that in the longer term his son will have to ask him some difficult questions: “Will you need help? Will you need permanent care in the house? Will you need a stair lift one day? Can you carry on living in this enormous household on your own?”

As ever when journalists and broadcasters get together - five of the Movers and Shakers worked at the BBC - there is plenty of gossip and reminiscence about times past. We learn that John’s career began on the Eccles and Patricroft Journal aged 17, from where he advanced up through local newspapers to Fleet Street and the BBC without ever attending university. He says he is very grateful to his first employer for the grounding in journalism they gave him: “They taught me, when you got on a story, who did what, when, where, how and why - you answered all those questions, you've got a story.”

John Stapleton remains a great storyteller and he brought to our conversation in the pub just what we aspire to give listeners to our podcast, both light and shade in our discussions of life with Parkinson’s. He told us how a friend had called him and told him he should prepare for losing his faculties by giving his son lasting power of attorney:

“So I rang Nick, and I said, ‘Nick, our friend said I should give you a lasting power of attorney’. He said, ‘Dad, you already have done. The fact you can't remember is the perfect illustration of why we did it.’ ”

So thank you, John, for sharing your Parkinson’s journey with us - and for inspiring us with your positive message about just getting on with life.