Bill and Judith, pictured on their 50th wedding anniversary, had been together since they were teenagers When Bill Gates realised his brain was failing, he implored his wife Judith to make him a promise. "It's too late for me," he told her, "but do everything you can to stop this happening to others." The former-Middlesbrough and England youth defender had not headed a ball since he retired from football a day before his 30th birthday in 1974.
Judith Gates reckons her husband Bill (wearing number five) headed a football thousands of times before the age of 30 But, decades later, the effect of all those impacts revealed itself as the footballer-turned-businessman succumbed to a neuro-degenerative disease. It is hard to say exactly when the symptoms first started. Different people have different accounts of noticing things not being quite right with Bill.
For Judith, it was in about 2010 when Bill was in his mid-60s and she was making plans with him, only for him to ask again soon afterwards where they were going and when. "Those things are nothing when they are a one-off, but it just escalated from that," she says. Seeing this picture of a young Bill motivates Judith to stop other youths getting his illness By 2014, Bill was unable to remember what he had done even two hours before and a memory clinic in London diagnosed him with amnesic mild cognitive impairment.
Judith can remember leaving that meeting with some hope for her husband, doctors having told her there was still a.
