Obituary: She never knew she was famous

“Retired TV producer, 80, slams monstrous Covid restrictions that left Alzheimer’s stricken wife isolating for seven weeks” trumpeted The Sun. 

Her husband Michael was interviewed seven times, mostly at the peak 8.10 slot, and confronted the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, and Minister for Social Care, Helen Whateley. 

Tricia herself had no idea that she was a national talking point, and when she died on October 7, was unaware of her fame. She had studied Architecture at Sheffield University and London's Bartlett School of Architecture and was later a designer of TV scenery, including the first Dr Who and Dr Findlay's Casebook.

Tricia met Michael Blakstad in North Yorkshire where they were married in 1965. Michael was a trainee TV director, and suggested she apply for a holiday relief job at the BBC's Design Department; she was successful and was soon confirmed in a staff job. They had three children in quick succession, at a time when the BBC did not operate maternity leave; she was a founding member of the Company of Women in Architecture and subsequently retrained as a computer programmer. In 1980, Michael became Director of Programmes in Television South, the consortium which won the ITV contract from Southern Television. 

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The family moved to East Meon in Hampshire and the children went to Bedales School. In her 50s, Tricia took a Fine Arts degree at SIAD in Farnham. For forty years she was a key figure in the life of the historic village, co-writing East Meon's Village Design Statement and Parish Plan. She was a director of the Beatrice Royal Art Gallery in Eastleigh.

When she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in April 2019, Michael already had Parkinson’s. The couple decided to move to the Anchor retirement village in Bishopstoke, just before the start of the pandemic. Tricia went to her first care home in July that year, and Michael accompanied her into the home for the first month, worried by the effect that isolation would have on her dementia. He took with him his devices and laptop, and played her favourite tv programmes and music videos; she was particularly fond of ‘You'll Never Walk Alone’, sung by Michael Ball and the centenarian Capt Tom Moore, with the NHS choir. When Michael left, the television set in her room only played a free satellite service, which offered dozens of channels designed to entertain international hotel guests but had no facility to view 'favourites'. It was operated by a remote control well beyond her already diminished cognitive abilities. 

In the year which followed, Tricia was isolated in her room half a dozen times: when she arrived, when she fell and was taken to hospital, and when the care home had cases of Covid. She was confined to her room for seventeen weeks in all, with no visitors beyond masked carers bringing meals and medication. 

During this time she had no access to media. Her son Matthew bought her a digital picture frame with dozens of family photos on it but the internet connection to her room was poor and none of the carers possessed the IT skills to connect the frame; it languished for months until Matthew was allowed into the room. Unsurprisingly, Tricia's Alzheimer's worsened at an unusually rapid rate until the first care home asked the family to move her to one which specialised in dementia care. Her health improved in the new home but her cognitive powers continued to decline; it offered the same satellite TV service and when Michael went into respite care to be with her for a while, he decided to explore the reasons why even good care homes offered no access to media which might entertain, however briefly, and even provide stimulus to residents of care homes like Tricia.

A year later, Michael hosted a seminar at the Hotel du Vin in Winchester of some of the UK's leading researchers into neurodegenerative conditions, the BBC's archive, producers, technical entrepreneurs and care providers. The conclusion was unanimous: a service could and should be provided of media which research had established did stimulate hidden cognitive powers, and that the technology of accessing the programmes should be simplified to enable residents to access and control the content. Tricia was given the opportunity to test equipment and programmes provided by the BBC, and to travel via virtual reality to Austrian mountain pastures and the Australian bush. Momentarily, memories came back to her, despite the fact that her Alzheimer's was now at the most advanced stage. 
Four weeks after her trial of the virtual reality headset, her Alzheimer's blocked her intake first of food and then of liquids.

She lost the struggle with the monster on Friday October 7, and Michael is more determined than ever determined to continue the campaign Media versus Dementia, which plans to launch three pilot schemes in early 2023.