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THE REASON BEHIND RAS

Racing Awareness Scotland was born from an extremely sad situation which will affect 1 in 3 families and friends. Dementia.

 

Such a scary word and rightly so. Sheila Milne, Alex’s late wife, died from Dementia.

 

Alex’s life was turned upside down trying to care for Sheila and described his experience: ‘Imagine 2 people who love each other and have lived their best lives together suddenly being held hostage in a dark room. One of them is being tortured, the other has to watch this nightmare unfold, both powerless to end it. No ransom will pay out of this’.

 

This was reality for Alex trying to keep Sheila safe, he would be awake all night in case she wanted to go out in the middle of the night (this happened). This is reality for thousands of people. The only way Alex could get to work was to have a companion for Sheila. This companion is a professional carer, Fiona, also an artist who was running Art classes for Dementia sufferers, clicked with Sheila immediately.

 

There were moments of fun for Fiona and Sheila, they did include dance, art, word games until the torturer which was dementia took her from her family and friends. Alex is a campaigner. We want change, lots of change. We took action. We teamed up with Alzheimer’s Scotland, Race against Dementia, Support In Mind Scotland (for the carer) Alex lobbied the Government to have the law changed so on diagnosis the carer is treated as a patient with needs and support.

 

Alex is an advocate for people without hope, scared, diagnosed and left to get on with it! Fiona has worked with families to support and has used her experience to help people caring for a loved one as well as supporting the primary carer. Racing Awareness Scotland wants to raise awareness and offer hope, direct people to our fabulous charities and their services.

 

We are passionate about our cause and want to use our platform to help others. No-one should go through this life changing time without professional support. Of course we need a cure, we need treatment, we need help.

 

Thank you for your time reading this.

 

We are now trying to set an example of living in the solution so that means doing our part for research and support through our charities. Our fabulous sponsors help us to achieve this. We hope you will follow our motorsport mission, we try to have fun so use humour as a tool.

 

Sheila’s final resting place is, not so restful, Knockhill Racing Circuit. We race mainly there so she is with us when we fly over the first corner.

 

Sheila was the driving force behind Alex getting into the sport when she was well. She still is. She always will be.

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