Frances Culling, 76, has seen her family wiped out by Huntington’s Disease since her late husband Alan was struck down by the condition in the 1960s.
The heroic great-grandmother is now looking after her fading daughter Julie, 46, a mother-of-two, who needs round-the-clock care.
Mrs Culling said it had been devastating to see her husband and then all of her children targeted by the rare hereditary illness which destroys nerve cells in the brain.
Julie has two children who could also have inherited the faulty chromosome that triggers Huntington’s Disease.
“She enjoys life in her own way,” Mrs Culling said. “She is happy watching TV and loves her cat and her dog.”
Mrs Culling’s husband died in 1975. The killer disease had been passed down through his mother’s family.
Originally from London, she moved to Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, after her eldest daughter Lynn was admitted to a nursing home there. Lynn died in August 1996, aged 38. Three months later her brother Tyrone died the day before his 37th birthday. Mrs Culling’s son Perry was just 39 when he died in 2001. His sister Deborah died in 2006 aged 45.
“It’s something you never get over,” Mrs Culling said. “They say time is a great healer. But the grief never leaves.”