Mumford & Sons star Ted Dwane: My mother’s scary MS battle

Mumford and Sons bassist Ted Dwane
PA

Mumford & Sons bass player Ted Dwane today spoke about his mother’s “scary” battle with multiple sclerosis for the first time.

Dwane, 34, revealed that painter Sarah, 71, has been living with the disease that attacks the brain and spinal cord for 20 years. He also told how touring the world with the Grammy and Brit award-winning folk band meant that he wasn’t there for her and his “hero” father John, 74, in the way he wanted.

But the guitarist and his sister Hannah, 37, have now moved closer to their parents’ rural Sussex home. His father, a former shipbroker, is Sarah’s carer. Dwane said: “In the moment you hear ‘multiple sclerosis’, you drown in that news. It’s too much to bear almost. It was all very new to us and scary.

“It has taught us as a family the power of unity. My dad has led the charge and is unfaltering. He just said: ‘We’ll be fine and deal with this as a unit.’ It’s not become a total nightmare because dad is such a hero.” Dwane, right, was speaking ahead of a portrait exhibition highlighting the loneliness that affects six in 10 people with MS — 12 times the general population, according to research by the charity MS Society.

The family were living in Singapore in the late Nineties when they started to notice Sarah become less steady on her feet. But her condition went misdiagnosed for five years until they returned to the UK. Dwane added: “Mum was diagnosed at around the time I started touring, and my sister moved to Australia. It was a period of huge change for my parents and we weren’t there for them in the way we wanted to be.

“I’m still away a lot, but back then it was especially hard because my parents were just coming to terms with the diagnosis.” Dwane said he identified with the MS Society research on loneliness released today on International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

The MS Connection, an exhibition Dwane has curated at London Bridge with photographer Louis Browne, tells the stories of 19 people affected by MS. It launches tonight at The Sidings in Southwark, a venue owned by Dwane’s bandmate Ben Lovett.

Ed Holloway, of the MS Society, said: “To think 60 per cent of people with MS are lonely is shocking and we hope The MS Connection will encourage people to get in touch with us.”

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