A man shaped by history and a love of fashion - Harold Huberman

Although struggling with Parkinson's, designer and painter Harold Huberman is a man full of determination and cheer

Harold Huberman has an attitude, of stoicism and adversity cheerfully borne, that is impressive, and very poignant.

Emily Hourican

'You keep going. You have to. Otherwise you'd stay in bed all day. I'm not going to do that, I'm going to keep fighting on. I'm 78 in a month's time and I've always been very active, so I try to keep going as if I'm as well as the next person, because otherwise, what else would you do?" Harold Huberman, designer, painter and, yes, father of Amy, is describing the impulse that gets him out of bed every morning, despite the gradual debilitation of his health from Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's has many symptoms, of which the most commonly understood is probably the tremor that causes hand or fingers to shake, but the more serious include loss of balance and rigid muscles. "I don't have the tremor in the hands," says Harold. "That's a very obvious symptom, but falling is a bigger problem. I fall every few weeks, and you can't put your hands out to save yourself, so that's dangerous. I already have fusions in my spine from falling. Then I came off the chair in my office, hit my chin off the ground and broke my front tooth. I have three fusions in my neck now."