Alys Williams

My writing life for the past forty years has been very different from when I was winning poetry and short story competitions at school and college. Yes, I'm another old person doing some writing in retirement....

My job as Director of Education and Health Studies at an Adult Education College was exciting, creative and ground breaking, but it required me to write course syllabi and submissions, reports, strategies, grant applications and lectures in spare bullet point style. Research for an MA thesis in the area of Women and Sport, entitled 'And the Women Will Make the Tea,' a book on 'Circuit Training' and inumerable magazine and journal articles have been my only attempts at authorship.

Sport and Exercise have filled my life. I was an international and county tennis, netball player and athlete and I still keep very fit. I have a daughter and three grand children and have a fulfilling, happy. busy life with my husband in London.

My Mum developed Dementia with Lewy bodies. I wanted to describe the battle I had to get treatment for her and to believe that her life in her head was not as wretched as the reality I observed. One in 20 over 65's and 1 in 5 of over 80's develop some form of dementia - we must learn how to communicate and how best to treat people with this disease. All profits will go to the Alzheimer's Society.