Ruth Langsford, 65, has admitted she “used to get really jealous” watching the connection between grandfathers and their grandchildren whilst her son Jack was growing up.

The former This Morning host, who has Jack, 23, with her estranged husband Eamonn Holmes, 65, described how her son never had the opportunity to bond with her cherished father, Dennis, before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Speaking exclusively about her partnership with Amazon and UK charity Dementia Carers Count, Ruth revealed her anguish over Jack losing out on precious moments with her late father, who could have passed on countless life lessons before his health battles began.

Loose Women star Ruth, whose 94-year-old mother Joan is also fighting Alzheimer’s, said: “I feel a great sadness, really, not so much about my mum, because my mum didn’t have Alzheimer’s [for all of Jack’s life], but Jack never knew my dad without Alzheimer’s, because I didn’t have Jack until I was in my 40s.

“My dad was just, like, the best man, and he would have taken Jack fishing, and gone sailing with him, and showed him woodwork and all those things that he loved to do.”

“And yeah, Jack never really met him like that, he had Alzheimer’s from the moment Jack knew him, really. And it was tricky sometimes when my dad was around, because I was very conscious of, is dad alright?

“And he couldn’t quite grasp that a two-year-old makes noise, you know, drops their toys and stuff, and he couldn’t cope very well with noise. So it’s quite tricky, but it was more of a sadness.”

Ruth was struck by the emotional reality once more when she brought Jack to her father’s funeral reception, where he failed to recognise his own grandfather’s image on the memorial photo displays created to honour Dennis’ life.

She remembered: “Actually, when my dad died, at his wake, my sister and I had done all these big photo boards of photographs of my dad from when he was a baby, right through his life, and when he was in the army, he was in the motorbike team.

Ruth and Eamonn’s son Jack missed out on bonding with his grandfather before his Alzheimer’s battle

“And I’ve got these amazing pictures of my dad on a motorbike coming over the top of the hill, and Jack said to me, ‘who’s that?’ And I went, ‘that’s grandad!’ So he’d never seen that side of my dad.

“Sometimes, you know, I’d be in the park or something, and I’d see grandads with grandchildren and I used to get really jealous and sad for Jack. I mean, he knew my dad, but not in the way that I would have liked him to.

“But that is life, it deals you these hands sometimes and you just deal with them, don’t you? I would take him to see my dad during his Alzheimer’s, when he was in a care home, and Jack just dealt with it, you know.”

Ruth’s mother is also residing in a care facility following her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, with the celebrity confessing that her health concerns are “always in the back of my mind”, though the broadcaster has found the support offered by her Amazon Alexa helpful, allowing her to schedule reminders for her mum’s medical and dental appointments.