‘We permit pets to die with dignity so why not our family members’

Anyone who watches daytime telly knows that advertisers are chasing the Grey Pound so hard they may soon be contacting compo lawyers for torn hernia payouts.

Every break is filled with smiley over-60s actors marvelling at the amazing deal they’ve bagged for erectile dysfunction pills, stairlifts, life insurance policies or cremation plans. Especially cremation plans, where the actors are buzzing like they’ve just bought Glastonbury tickets when they’ve really bought a one-way ticket to an oven.

Many older people find these ads tasteless but I’m not one of them, because when you catch yourself watching repeats of A Place In The Sun three days on the run you realise that maybe death is not such a bad option. I also don’t think we can get enough reminders of our own mortality. There can never be too many prompts that we’re going soon and need to enjoy every minute of life as we only have one of them. Plus, we only have one death, so why not be the author of our final act?

Which is why it’s ludicrous that our MPs were this week still debating whether to introduce an assisted dying bill after more than 200,000 people signed a petition calling for terminally ill people to be able to request to end their lives.

It’s even more ludicrous when more than 80% of Brits believe they should have that right and 206 million citizens in countries from Australia to Spain can legally terminate their suffering with their loved ones beside them. Surely it’s time we all had the right to sail into the sunset on a ship called dignity? If someone who can’t afford the £15,000 it costs to fly to a Swiss Dignitas clinic places a pillow over a dying partner’s face who is pleading to end their pain, why waste police and court time criminalising that act of love?

I saw my dad and mother-in-law die miserable, undignified deaths in care homes as dementia reduced them to shadows of their former selves and I don’t want the same fate. I’d prefer to be put out of my agony, give any money I’ve saved to my kids and let my state pension be spent on more worthy causes.

Esther Rantzen is leading a spirited campaign to expose the hypocrisy of the likes of the religious lobby who block our legal right to assisted dying. Esther, who has terminal cancer, said this week: “Isn’t it typically British that we give the pets we love a -pain-free, dignified, private death but we can’t offer it to the people we love.”

She’s spot-on. When we agreed to put down our lovely labrador Steve, who was riddled with bone cancer, the vet told us to make him as happy as we could for his final few hours. So we cooked and fed him three sirloin steaks and stroked and hugged him as he took the lethal injection. We’d rarely seen him look so grateful.

If I end up in crippling pain knowing I won’t recover, why can’t I be allowed to die knocking back cold lager and red wine surrounded by my nearest and dearest, as we relive our greatest laughs together with a soundtrack of my favourite music playing in the background? I’m with Esther. Especially as my final song would be That’s Life.