Timothy West's heartbreaking fear for Prunella Scales home after tragic death
Late actor Timothy West prevously shared his fears about what would happen to his house, and his ill wife Prunella Scales, when he died.
Timothy West: Stage and screen actor dead aged 90
Late actor Timothy West had a heartbreaking fear for his home with his wife Prunella Scales after his death. He passed away aged 90 last November. He left behind his beloved wife Prunella, who sadly passed away on October 28 2025. She has suffered from Alzheimer’s for over 20 years.
In his final years, West looked after Scales in their south-west London house. She wanted to stay at the property until she dies but West previously said the idea of being forced to sell his home to pay for care fees left him appalled.
He said: “I quite see how, in the state social services are in, it’s a solution, but I would hate it," before poignantly adding: "I don’t want to go to my grave thinking, 'What’s happening to the house?'
"I don’t want it going to somebody who’s going to say, ‘Oh, get rid of all this silly Morris wallpaper and those mouldings can all come out and we can use that front garden as space for an extra car’.
“In theory it’s silly, I know it’s only a house, but it’s a part of us.”
The couple, who shared two sons and seven grandchildren alongside West’s daughter from a previous marriage, lived in the house for over 50 years before his death on November 12.
He revealed that the future of their house depended on who died first. He said: “Pru loves the house and especially the garden. She wants to stay here until the end.
“If I go first, the services that we don’t use at the moment will probably look after her, but on my own, I don’t think I’d want to stay.”
West admitted these thoughts have been preying on him recently as his wife’s condition, has deteriorated.
“What’s sad is you can now measure the scale of her decline,” he said.
“It had been going on for so long, I thought, ‘If it’s just going to continue at this pace we’re going to be able to cope’, but it speeds up with time and now I’m just beginning to realise, ‘Oh we can’t do that’, ‘Oh I shall have to go and help her with this’.”
The Daily Express led the fight against the scandal which has seen many tens of thousands of pensioners afflicted by dementia forced to sell their homes to pay care fees.
If they suffered from cancer, for example, the cost of their care would be paid for by the NHS.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s were the primary cause of death in England and Wales in 2019, with almost one in eight people dying from the condition.
