A royal opening of new hub

BY KELLY WICKHAM (kelly.wickham@sussexpost.co.uk)

VISITORS to a brand new dementia hub in Chichester were invited to a special opening ceremony on Tuesday.

HRH Countess of Wessex officially opened charity, Dementia Support's Sage House in Tangmere.

Her Royal Highness was accompanied by Susan Pyper, Lord Lieutenant of West Sussex, and greeted on arrival by several guests including Chichester MP Gillian Keegan.

Mrs Keegan said: "Once again, Chichester is the leader in this kind of service and it makes you very proud to be part of the community.

"Every single one of us has had somebody that we know that has been affected by dementia.

"In my case, it was both of my grandmothers who have been diagnosed with dementia and one just recently died, in January this year.

"This kind of support for my parents, both of whom had a parent who suffered from dementia, would have been fabulous.

"I can only imagine how much help this is going to be for any family that have anybody who is touched by dementia which, let's face it, most of us will be at some point.

"I'm also looking forward, very much to the education in the community to try and make this more of a dementiafriendly city. That is something to aspire to. Somewhere where all of us understand how to help people with dementia for longer in the community, I would be very supportive of that."

Unique dementia centre given the royal seal of approval at opening

HER ROYAL Highness Countess of Wessex was greeted at the Tangmere Dementia Hub by Mrs Caroline Nicholls, High Sheriff of West Sussex, Cllr Elizabeth Hamilton, Chairman of Chichester District Council and Mr Anthony Wickens, Dementia Support Chairman and founder.

Her Royal highness was accompanied by Dementia Support chief executive Sally Tabbner and Anthony Wickens to see the various dementia support services and to meet customers, carers, volunteers, members of staff and trustees.

Her Royal Highness arrives in Tangmere

The visit started in the Memory Assessment and Information Zone where the Countess of Wessex was talked through the memory assessment process with a psychiatrist and retired GP.

Her Royal Highness was then shown the Care and Activities Zone where the charity runs its dementia wellbeing activities and day care services.

After lunch, the Countess concluded her visit by unveiling a plaque to officially open Sage House where she gave a speech.

Her Royal Highness said: "Thank you very much for inviting me to do this. I am really pleased to be here and to see the work that you have put into it.

"Clearly it is going to serve your community, so very well. And, as you say, hopefully provide the framework and models for elsewhere in the country.

"On behalf of the individuals and the families that you are here to serve, thank you and all your colleagues and associates for what you have done.

"You will be serving well in the future and I wish you every success."

The Countess was presented with a posy by Edward Page, aged nine and his six-year-old sister, Bella Page. The siblings both chose the name 'Daisy's Cafe' for Sage House's community cafe, in honour of their great-grandmother Daisy who had dementia.

A specially made Dementia Support bracelet was given to Her Royal Highness by Iris Randell, aged ten who chose the name 'Forget-Me-Not Lane' for a corridor to the therapy rooms.

Maria Mant from Eastergate takes her husband Roger, pictured right, to the support hub after he was diagnosed in 2016 with the illness.

Roger gave the thumbs up when asked how he felt to meet Her Royal Highness.

The couple have used the day activities since the hub opened. Mrs Mant said: "At the moment we use the day activities. We might look in to day care, maybe I can go off out. But at the moment it's the activities which we come to and do together."

The couple previously lived in Fontwell, where Roger was the head groundsman at the racecourse. He said: "Oh, I do like coming here. It's good here."

Tony Caffyn also uses the day activities with his wife of 60 years, Hilary.

Mrs Caffyn said: "It was really lovely to meet Her Royal Highness today. We have been coming here ever since it opened

and we come very regularly.

"We do art here which we enjoy and sometimes others either in the afternoon or the morning. They have been running a wellbeing class which is really rather good. We might go on to do the day care.

"This service is wonderful, it really is. I amazed at what they have done."

Mr Caffyn said: "I do like coming here. I don't know how many activities we have done so far but I enjoy them.

Chief Executive, Sally Tabbner was privileged to have The Countess of Wessex opening he hub.

She said: "For someone of this stature to take an interest and come to a local charity is lovely, we are really honoured to have her here. It is more than we could ever have hoped for.

Her Royal Highness enters Sage House with Sally Tabbner

"We have been open but not really told anyone, just to make sure all snags were ironed out. But tomorrow is the really exciting bit for me, it's where our customers come through the door and we are open for business as usual.

City MP Gillian Keegan

"I do think we will be incredibly busy and there is a bit of the building we haven't renovated yet.

"I am expecting quite soon to be saying to our trustees: 'shall we just knock that through that wall and turn that bit into another bit of the dementia hub. That's what I am really hoping for.

Iris Randell with Edward and Bella Page

"We have got 5,500 people across our geographic patch living with dementia and we are here to support each and every one of them."