June 2026 Special Days
Meet Keith...
Keith, from Wrexham, is living with MND but is determined not to let it stop him working or celebrating his son following in his footsteps. Diagnosed in 2024, Keith has continued working as a Production Manager at Solvay, thanks to extensive support from his employer. As his mobility has changed, his role has been adapted so he can work from home while remaining closely involved in daily operations.
We spoke to Keith about his MND experiences in June 2026.
My special day
We’ve accessed support funds through the MND Association, but we’re also trying to put it back as well. This year, my son Charlie and his mates doing the Three Peaks Challenge. We’re both so proud of him. We’ve always been a very active family. I used to be very fit and I did the three peaks myself in 2000.
Since my MND diagnosis in 2024, Syensqo have been incredible at supporting me to continue working. With my role as Production Manager, I’m there to manage the people on site and to make sure that the operation runs as it should. So when I started losing my mobility that part of my role became more difficult. I couldn’t go on the shop floor which is an important part of my job. The company recognised that so they adapted my role with my input to ensure that I stay employed and stay working. It’s brilliant. You can’t ask for more, really. It’s great to be looked after by a company that supports you.
Life before MND
My name is Keith and I’m married to Lisa. I’ve lived in Wrexham all my life, I grew up in a little village called Acrefair. We’ve been married for 22 years and we have one son, Charlie, who’s 20. He’s in university in Cardiff studying strength and conditioning and rehabilitation and massage. He’s an aspirational rugby player, but he also wants to be involved in the coaching side of things.
I’ve always been into sports. When I was playing rugby, especially, I was very strong. I also used to run and even did a marathon and a couple of half marathons.
I used to love cycling, often going on big rides and some long journeys, not just on the roads but off road as well.
Early symptoms and diagnosis
Early symptoms I noticed started with what they call muscle fasciculations, basically getting twitches across all my muscles. My arms, my neck, my shoulders. There was no pain or anything like that, but they were constantly twitching. It was particularly noticeable in my right arm. Then it progressed into weakness in my hands. But it was the weakness in my fingers that really prompted me to take action, because there were times I just couldn’t fasten buttons on my shirt, for example.
We have private healthcare through work and GP appointments are typically difficult to get so I went through Bupa and arranged to see a neurologist. I did go to the GP at one point – my wife more or less dragged me there because I wasn’t feeling particularly well over something else. They actually ignored that and were more interested in the muscle fasciculations. I said I already had an appointment with a neurologist, so that had already been taken care of.
I had an appointment on a Saturday morning with the neurologist. He went through a few things and was pretty much convinced it was MND before he’d even done the tests, but he arranged for them to be done. By Thursday afternoon I was in another private hospital having all the tests done again. The doctor was brilliant.
I had the call the following morning and was back in on the Saturday to have the diagnosis confirmed. So it only really took about a week.
I’d probably had the symptoms for about 12 months before that. By the time it was June when I had the diagnosis, that’s when the weakness in my hands had really started to appear properly. It had been progressing up to that point.
Employer support
I work for a company called Syensqo. Syensqo is part of the larger group Solway and is a manufacturer of advanced composite materials within the aerospace and automotive industries. I started there originally in 1985. I worked there for five years before leaving to go to work with JCB, the construction equipment company. I was there 13 years before I was asked to come back to Syensqo back in 2003 and have been there since, so almost 30 years in total.
My role at Syensqo is Production Manager and I’m responsible for making sure that the day-to-day operations go according to plan. In Wrexham we employ about 400 people.
Since my MND diagnosis in 2024, Syensqo have been incredible at supporting me to continue working.
Syensqo have put another member of staff into my role as my ‘eyes’ on site. He carries out the role day to day and I’m in constant contact with him daily to make sure things are running as they should. It works out really well.
Now, I work from home with a home office in place. The company supplied all the equipment to me for that. Things like my mobility, moving around, getting into the right position at the desk, they worked with me to find a suitable chair for office work. Basically, it’s an electric chair, which is like an office chair but height adjustable electronically. So I can move around on that with very little effort. I can scoot around the house and get to the places I need to be, move into position for work and transfer to other seats.
The company bought that without any sort of quibble or hesitation and they’ve also gone into future proofing. I’ve got technology in place to allow me to use my eyes to type on the screen. They’ve already bought that kit for me in advance, should I need it.
They want to be ahead of the game to ensure that I can carry on for as long as possible. So they’ve been amazingly proactive, I can’t fault that at all.
Life with MND and Association support
The house we lived in since we were married was not suitable for me as things progressed. So we ended up moving to a lovely bungalow which is absolutely stunning. We’ve made it our own very quickly.
We’ve accessed some support funds from the MND Association. We’ve had cost-of-living support towards things like the heating and we’ve had some funding towards equipment around the home to help me keep my independence when things become a physical challenge.
Lisa has accessed the carers grant and used it towards setting up her own work space in my home office.
We’re a very social family and we enjoy entertaining. I like music and I’ve got quite a good collection of vinyl albums and I still like to play them. I’ve been quite keen on barbecuing, so I’ve got a good setup in the back garden for that. People come to us and we’ve made changes to ensure we’re got the setup to continue entertaining family and friends.
We’ve just had the gardens done as well. It was a nice garden, but it was all on split levels.
For me to get around it all, we needed everything level. So now it’s all flat and we’ve got new slabs I can move around on in my wheelchair. We’ve got quite a large barbecue hut, so we can get the barbecues in. We’ve got outside space that I can get into which means we can keep things feeling as normal as possible with barbeques this year and family get togethers, although I think Lisa will be doing most of the cooking under my supervision.
Advice to others
If I were to give advice to someone with MND, I would say keep smiling. Just fight and don’t cave into it. Don’t let it beat you. I’m fighting every day and I refuse to let MND beat me.
Every day matters, to me, means support is there for you. There are people out there who will help you. You have that support, so please use it and keep smiling, keep fighting.
