Dear DEEPers,
I just wanted to share the very sad news about the death of our good friend and supporter Tony Husband.
Tony was a cartoonist I met about 10 years ago. Stephen Fry had posted a cartoon by Tony on twitter about his Dad with dementia. The cartoon eventually turned in to the book ‘Take Care, son’. I contacted Tony to ask him if he would do a couple of drawings for me for a booklet I was doing at the time for a campaign called ‘The Carers Call to Action’. He kindly and generously obliged (no charge).
That was the beginning of working with Tony over the years. You may recognise his work from all our DEEP materials which we return to again and again because they so powerfully and sensitively absolutely sum up what DEEP stands for.
Most recently we published ‘Knowledge is Power England’ where his images again balance serious and factual stuff with emotional and human connections. I had just put in an envelope a copy to send to him when I get the news of his sudden death.
He was DEEPly committed to giving whatever he could to services supporting people with dementia and the people who support/care for them.
Ironically I am reviewing some books for the Reading on Prescription for Dementia booklist – on my list is the book ‘United. Caring for Loved ones with dementia’ which he illustrated and wrote with his good friend Gina Awad.
We will continue to use his images and I am so grateful for his legacy.
He was a great guy.
You can see Tony’s cartoons in all their glory here:
Go gently DEEPers, Rachel x
