Rob Rinder has revealed that his dad has died at the age of 73 after being diagnosed with an illness that has been ‘desperately under-researched’.
The author, TV judge and criminal barrister shared the news with his followers that David Rinder, who worked as a London black cab driver for over 40 years, has died.
David had been living with Lewy body dementia, leading Rob to become a vocal patron and advocate for the Lewy Body Society to raise awareness for the condition.
Writing on Instagram, Rob wrote: ‘My dad died yesterday aged 73. I wasn’t sure whether to share this but if it brings attention to an illness too few people understand, perhaps it belongs here.
‘A London cabbie & lifelong Spurs supporter, he was there for every one of my brothers’ and grandsons’ football matches.
‘I once represented him at the Carriage Office for bad driving; I loved him but the prosecution had a case…’
Rob, who is also known for his work presenting documentaries on the Holocaust and co-hosting travel shows with Rylan Clark, continued by saying that his parents divorced when he was young so he did not grow up with his dad at home.
‘We were very different men. I loved opera and all its drama; he loved Tottenham and cigarettes. We both took people as we found them and we both loved women, though in rather different ways.
‘I never once doubted his pride in me. When I came out he responded with magnificent indifference: I was still his son, there was nothing else to discuss.’
‘In the last years of his life Jewish Care became his home, a place where dignity and tenderness were practised every day. Walid and Tosin, among so many others there, cared for him and came to kiss him goodbye.
‘A Jewish man, held in his final days by people of different faiths: a quiet reminder that what is sacred in us is also what we share. He died with his family around him loved and held to the last.
‘Funny, beautifully flawed, loving and my dad.
‘Lewy body dementia took him far too young. It made the familiar strange and the certain uncertain. Dementia can obscure a person but it does not erase them.
‘At least one in ten people living with dementia has Lewy body’s, around 125,000 people in the UK yet it remains poorly understood, frequently missed & desperately under-researched. Please learn its name, learn its signs and if you can support the work to change that.’
