"The charity [Dementia UK] warned me it might create a certain amount of interest and I said, no, it wouldn't. I'm a journalist. I know what's a story," he said.

"It was a tsunami. I received hundreds of thousand of e-mails and letters from all across the world, all from carers saying that's what we're going through. Thank you for talking about it."

The reaction made him feel he had done the right thing in speaking out, despite doubts which linger to this day.

One-way ticket

The story of Bonnie Suchet, 68, of course, did not end with speaking out in a round of media interviews. Since going public, Suchet, 66, has gone through the trauma of placing her in a home.

"Bon went into full-time care last September and to say it was the most difficult decision I've ever had to take is a pathetic understatement," he says at the offices of his publishers.

He describes the day in detail: leaving their shared home in London for the last time together; the one-way rail ticket he brought for her; the single room with the single bed that awaited Bonnie in the care home.

"It's the little things that break you up," he said.

In the end, she made it as easy for him as she could have done, never questioning him then or since.

"She's never asked me a single question about where I have been, what I've been up to. Given what happened, she could have made it a nightmare for me, but that wouldn't be my Bon."

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