Kate Garraway gets emotional as as she shares last conversation with Fiona Phillips

Kate Garraway opened up on how she was overcome with emotion following her last conversation with Fiona Phillips.

TV presenter Fiona, 62, this week revealed she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease last year after suffering from brain fog and anxiety – which had left her feeling a ‘shadow of herself’. The former GMTV star at first thought the symptoms she was experiencing were down to the menopause – but further tests discovered that she was suffering from the heartbreaking condition.

Now Kate, 56, has been reflecting on the last conversation she had with Fiona a few weeks ago – which focussed on Kate’s husband Derek Draper. Derek, 55, spent 13 months in hospital fighting for his life after contracting Covid-19 in 2020 and still needs round-the-clock care.

Speaking on Thursday's Good Morning Britain, Kate said: "The last conversation I had with her, which was only a few weeks ago, what she was doing was talking to me about Derek – full of love for Derek, very close to Derek – and thinking about me dealing with Derek.

"Of course, I now think that she must have had in her mind that she would come to a place where Martin and her sons were going to be taking care of her."

She added: "It makes me feel emotional thinking about [how] that must have been going through her mind and still is."

Earlier this week, Fiona opened up on her diagnosis in an interview with The Mirror, where she works as a columnist. She said she was “more angry than anything else” and it was something she thought she might get at the age of 80 – not 61.

She added: “This disease has already impacted my life in so many ways; my poor mum was crippled with it, then my dad, my grandparents, my uncle. It just keeps coming back for us."

Fiona also discussed how she initially chose to hide the diagnosis from her sons Nat, 24, and Mackenzie, 21. She said her boys may have started to see changes in her but she didn’t want to “make a big thing out of it” and have them “sit down as a family” for an announcement.

She was also “worried” her sons would be “embarrassed in front of their friends” or treat her “in a different way”.

Her husband since 1997, This Morning boss Martin Frizell, also opened up on how he felt about the diagnosis – saying his only “frustration” was he just wanted her to “get better”. He went on to say he wanted her to remember things, he wanted her apathy to go and he wanted the person back who was “vibrant and interested in things and eager to do new things”.

“But she’s not there at the moment,” he said.

The couple also revealed that Fiona was taking part in a drug trial at University College Hospital (UCH) in London – which aims to produce medication that could slow the progression of the disease or even reverse it. However, it is not known if Fiona is actually taking the trial drug – as half of those involved are just taking a placebo.

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