A MOTHER whose family has been devastated by Huntington's disease has spoken of the pain and heartache of living with the incurable genetic condition.

Peggy Dervey - who has lost her husband, son and three daughters to the incurable genetic condition - said: "I do get angry and think 'Why me, why have I lost all my family?' but you have to be strong and get on with life."

As well as nursing her family through the condition, Peggy has also raised her two teenage grandchildren after their mother Jayne was admitted to a Dorset nursing home four years ago.

Jayne, who completed her education in Christchurch and was a nurse at the town's hospital, is the last of Peggy's children to succumb to the disease. Her funeral was held last week at the Twynham Chapel in Barrack Road where Mrs Dervey has been a member for the past eight years.

She said: "I have always been a Christian and while my faith has been tested and it hasn't been easy, things like this make you stronger.

"All I seem to have done with my life is look after someone. People say to me 'I don't know how you do it' but when it is your family, you have to do it. You have to get on with your life."

Mrs Dervey, 83, was already widowed when she and her family moved from their native Hull to Christchurch shortly after her husband John's death in 1975.

A joiner by trade, he had been diagnosed with the then little-known condition Huntington's chorea and the family learned the odds were 50-50 that his children would have inherited the rogue gene.

But for Mrs Dervey and her family the odds have proved cruelly unfair and four of her five children have since been struck down and succumbed to the wasting and progressive disease, which affects the brain and nerve cells leading to gradual physical, mental and emotional breakdown.

Son John, who also had learning problems, died in the Fairmile House residential home in 1990 at the age of 41; daughter Susan died in 1997 aged 44 and the oldest sibling, Jacqueline died in 2001 aged 55.

Jayne, who was the youngest of the family, was 42 when she died at the Cerne Abbas Manor nursing home where she had been resident for the past four years.

Tragically, another daughter, Jennifer, was killed in a car crash in Hull while still a teenager and too young to exhibit the symptoms of Huntington's which normally strikes between the ages of 30 and 50.

And the spectre of Huntington's Disease still hangs over Mrs Dervey's granddaughters Annalaise, 19, now living in Bournemouth and 17-year-old music student Porcia who still lives with her grandmother in Christchurch.

Porcia said: "Although Huntington's has been part of my life ever since I can remember, I don't really think about it. It is party of my normality. I know there is a chance that I will have Huntington's but I will cross that bridge if it comes to it."

"I was more concerned about my mum. We thought she may have had a few more months and it was a shock when she died."

Mrs Dervey said: "When my husband died very little was known about Huntington's. They know a lot more now. There is still no cure, but they will find one eventually, I am sure."

First published: September 29