There’s a lot happening in the normally quiet death and dying space.  Much of this activity is due to the London Southbank Centre’s courageous decision to put on a week’s events centred on death, in an attempt to reduce society’s reluctance to face mortality.

Part of this will be Sandi Toksvig’s memorial lecture, which she trails with her trademark endearing and engaging wit here.

I’m also looking forward to Paul Gambaccini’s Desert Island Death Discs event, as it will look at the top funeral songs and what they tell us us about our attitudes to departing this world. Will he, I wonder, have gone through the 130 or so lists of farewell songs sent in by visitors to My Last Song?

The Natural Burial Ground’s funeral survey results have also been released, and have some interesting if rather partial findings. The survey has clearly and unsurprisingly been answered mainly by those in or close to the funeral business. What we liked about the results was the large percentages of people who go online to get information about funerals and who have written down or told relatives of their funeral wishes.

Sadly as these wishes are often misplaced or disregarded, such admirable intentions are a waste of time. Which is why people should store their funeral wishes and the vital information required by close loved ones immediately after the death in their own Lifebox.

High on the news agenda today was the story that data from the Office for National Statistics showed that dehydration or malnutrition was linked to 25 deaths every week last year. This is the shocking and depressing counterpoint to the admirable efforts others are making, often out of benevolent self interest, to encourage a change in how the British in particular look at death.

Depressingly it is still true that the vast majority of people don’t think about death and don’t talk about death until it is literally too late. And so the chances of having a good death are still remote as we pointed out earlier, with almost 70 per cent of people dying in hospitals or hospices even though over two thirds say they want to die at home.

My Last Song has supported the case for the terminally ill and the ailing elderly to have their own personal death plans, rather as mums-to-be have birth plans. This way the issues surrounding the end of life can be addressed in as calm a way as possible, with the involvement of loved ones, medical professionals and if appropriate, ministers of religion or other comforters.

After some research we created a holistic death plan template which covers emotional, physical, medical, practical and spiritual issues to make the end of life as comfortable and comforting as possible.

Funeral wishes, death plans and the raising of the public’s consciousness about death and dying are pointing in the right direction, but there’s still a long way to go.

When I started My Last Song four long years ago death, dying and bereavement were subjects rarely covered by media old or new. I had been to two funerals which were dreadfully inappropriate farewells and thought there must be a better way…from that My Last Song developed.

At one stage it had the strapline: Because a good life deserves a good ending, and that’s still our view.

Since then there has been an increasingly rapid change of attitude, highlighted by two or three events which, though small themselves, are significant because of what they signal.

But before that, mention should be made of organisations which have worked hard to change society’s view of how we end our lives. Dying Matters, set up in 2009 by the National Council for Palliative Care, works tirelessly to deliver its aim to change public knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards death, dying and bereavement.

Dignity in Dying is hugely effective in educating the public in their rights to have a good death, including the option of an assisted death for the terminally ill.

The British Humanist Association has publicised the virtues of a humanist funeral for those who have no religious beliefs and the Institute of Civil Funerals have ensured that civil funerals, often a mix of religious and secular, are conducted to a high standard.

And no summary of changes to funerals would be complete without mentioning The Good Funeral Guide who recommends those funeral directors who are moving with the times, and whose criticisms of the Cooperative Funeralcare and Dignity chains are founded on their sometimes appalling failings in customer care standards.

What of the smaller events which confirm the trend towards taking control of the end of life is gaining momentum?

First, the blog posted by ‘grief specialist’ Kristie West entitled Can A Funeral Be Beautiful? This highlights the film, Remembering Josh Edmonds, a poignant tribute video of a 22 year-old’s life and extraordinarily personal funeral. Making this film was his family’s way of celebrating Josh’s life, something that would have been unheard of a few years ago when the only acceptable way of treating a young death would have been to emphasise the tragic grief of a life taken too early.

At the other end of life’s passage, the Chicago Tribune highlighted what they call ‘Dignity Therapy’ which takes the form of interviewing the dying patient to record their messages to their loved ones, transcribing it and then producing a leather bound ‘legacy document.’

In this country, a similar service is provided by A Giving Tribute, an excellent start up which deserves great success.

The ever growing popularity of green funerals and the ‘natural death’ movement also shows that people are discussing the end of life event they want rather than leaving it to the local funeral director.

More radical still is the Death Café, currently only in London, but planning to expand to other parts of the UK, where, in the words of their website, ‘strangers come together to discuss death and eat delicious food.’ I plan to attend the next Death Café day, and will hopefully add to the favourable reports.

Note too that the photographers specialising in funeral photography, something that would have been frowned up a few years ago.  Farewell Photos and Funeography deserve a mention.

As for My Last Song, the growing use of the Lifebox where people store their funeral wishes, life stories, details to help their loved ones cope following their deaths shows the idea is increasingly appealing as is the number of people visiting the page describing the benefits of having individual death plans to ensure, as much as possible, you can have a comfortable and comforting death.

So at last we are changing our attitude to death, dying and bereavement, influenced for too long by Queen Victoria’s lifelong despair at the death of Prince Albert, into something we should discuss and be in control of.

Our deaths should be just as important as the rest of our lives, and thought of like this, a good life will indeed have a good ending.

I would like to draw your attention to interesting content put on the internet recently by Ken Murray, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Southern California.

Entitled How Doctors Die, it is puts the case for non-intervention once death is inevitable.

It argues that advances in medical science and equipment combined with the professional requirements of doctors  to keep people alive as long as possible has increased the likelihood of futile intervention and unnecessary suffering.

Tellingly, he states that doctors themselves are horrified of the prospect of ending their lives in such circumstances and are choosing in ever increasing numbers to insist that their fellow physicians do not intervene if death is inevitable.

“They want to be sure, when the time comes, that no heroic measures will happen – that they will never experience, during their last moments on earth, someone breaking their ribs in an attempt to resuscitate them with CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).

“Almost all medical professionals have seen what we call ‘futile care’ being performed on people. That’s when doctors bring the cutting edge of technology to bear on a grievously ill person near the end of life. The patient will get cut open, perforated with tubes, hooked up to machines, and assaulted with drugs.

“All of this occurs in the Intensive Care Unit at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day. What it buys is misery…I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly, ‘Promise me if you find me like this that you’ll kill me.’ They mean it.”

My Last Song believes a good life deserves a good death, and that futile intervention and prolonging suffering is not a good death.

We also believe that we should be in charge of how we want to die, not leave it to our loved ones – which is unfair, or medical professionals – which is too random.

We have argued many times in the past that society should face up to death and dying in a more positive, emotion-free way than is currently the case, and that this will be more likely if people are encouraged to discuss how their own death should be managed.

We have created a holistic death plan template which includes medical, emotional, physical and spiritual issues to be agreed, as well as advice on things that need to be sorted before death to prevent stressful worries. 

Used properly, and involving the patient, their close loved ones, their medical professionals – and if appropriate a minister of religion, it will be a major step in achieving a comfortable, comforting death.

It’s the death that doctors want for themselves and that should be the norm for the rest of us.

I was saddened to receive this contribution to the Gay and Lesbian Funeral Issues section of My Last Song by a contributor who asked not to have his identity revealed.

It is appalling that such cruel attitudes still prevail, and difficult to know how to counter them apart from being more honest and planning for the inevitable death of a partner in a same sex relationship and how the funeral will be handled.

I would like to hear the experiences of others in similar situations and any advice they have.

“My first, and only, partner died six months ago. We were together nine years, but we unwisely delayed getting a civil partnership and he was only ‘out’ to his close family and a few mutual friends.

As a result, I had no rights when it came to his funeral. All the major decisions were made by his grieving mother, who told me that it would break her heart to have someone stand up and talk about her son being gay.

I was allowed to attend the funeral, and as the only person able to use a computer properly I was tasked with composing the eulogy as it was dictated by her family. However, I was not allowed to be mentioned in it, and at the funeral the mourners were hustled out of the church quickly by his family to avoid me talking to them.

There is no point trying to explain how psychologically mangled this has left me, I leave it to your imagination.

Suffice to say, those you think these attitudes are a thing of the past are horribly, horribly wrong.  It is no exaggeration to say that the two worst events in my life were, in order, his death and his funeral.”

I first met Roger Crouch when I joined Westminster City Council in the late 1980s.

He was a special adviser to the leader, Dame Shirley Porter. She had just taken me on as head of press and PR with a remit to get her as much favourable publicity as possible. Mine was the fourth such appointment in a year and Roger told me he didn’t think I’d last long but that he’d do all he could to help.

Well, I survived for two years and before I left we became close associates, if not friends. I admired his intelligence, honesty and witty barbed comments about Westminster’s elected members and his colleagues. I think he admired my tenacity and knowing when not to obey Dame Shirley, and definitely for organising a memorable Christmas party.

While at Westminster Council Roger met Paola, who also worked in the leader’s office, and whom he married a few years later.

I had left the council by then, and had since rarely contacted Roger. The last time was ten or so ago years when he spoke warmly about his young family – son Dominic and daughter Giulia – and his love of life in Gloucestershire. I remember him saying that Dom had slight learning difficulties and was a wonderful boy.

Roger then came to my attention following the dreadful circumstances of Dom’s tragic suicide in May last year.

Dom jumped from the top of a six storey building close to his school.  He was being bullied at school because he kissed another boy in a game of dare. While on the roof he texted 999 to get help…it didn’t arrive and he jumped.

Following his son’s death, Roger, at one time head of children’s services at Gloucestershire County Council, embarked on a campaign to prevent bullying, particularly homophobic bullying, in schools. He threw himself relentlessly into this mission and in November was named the gay rights charity Stonewall’s Hero of the Year.

Roger’s early life had not been easy, and the last months must have been terrible.

His mother died when he was only 11. He left school at 16 before studying at night school to get into Kings College Cambridge to read history then getting a degree in public policy and administration from the LSE.

A successful career in local government followed, and a happy family life which meant more to him that anything else.

Then, in the last two years, tragedy built on tragedy. His sister died a few months before Dominic’s suicide. And a few weeks ago his nephew died in Afghanistan, a death which must also have affected Roger, a pacifist.

Sometime during the afternoon of Monday, 28 November, Roger hanged himself. Yesterday was his funeral. 

The yellow roses on his coffin were later laid on Dominic’s grave.

In recent weeks, Cameron, Hague and now Phillip Hammond, have been patting themselves on the back for the role NATO played in freeing Libya from the tyrannical Gaddafi regime, replacing it with an administration that will be democratic and progressive.
Absolutely nothing will be said about the true situation, described below, which our interference has caused according to a leaked UN report.
That Gaddafi should have been removed from his corrupt and violent leadership, and that a democratic Libyan government is in the interests of the Libyan people and the wider world isn’t open to argument.
What is worrying is the dishonest attitude of our leaders. At the beginning of our involvement, they told the public that NATO bombers would be used to protect the Libyan people from massacre.
This stance quickly became one of assisting the rebels by being their airforce, taking out Gaddafi’s tanks, radar bases, ammunition stores and communications infrastructure.
Not surprisingly, the rebels were victorious in the civil war.
Equally unsurprising are the terrible and inevitable results of this victory.
Groups, armed with looted abandoned weapons, are controlling the streets of many town, settling scores including the murder and torture of black Africans who they think might have been mercenaries hired by a desperate Gaddafi.
Women and their children are being imprisoned and tortured for alleged links to the regime, and in Libya this means being part of the wrong tribe, from the wrong district or wrong Islamic sect.
Oh, and The Report of the Secretary-General on United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) states that: “Although thousands of Manpads (ground to air missiles that can bring down commercial airliners) were destroyed during the seven-month Nato operations, there are increasing concerns over the looting and likely proliferation of these portable defence systems.”
So don’t believe the PR spin being put on our government’s decision to get involved in the Libyan civil war. For as our leaders know, war is bloody, horrible and vicious. Yet how they quickly they joined in, regardless of the human and financial cost, the funerals of innocent people, the ruined lives and the obvious risk of an unstable, divided country replacing Gaddafi’s dreadful regime.

It was with more than a little sadness I learnt today of the death of singer Dobie Gray.

I was in my early teens when his soul dance hit The In Crowd came out, and I loved its energy and clever hip rhymes. And I’m not the only one – someone chose it as a song they want played at their farewell.

As I moved from soul to jazz, pianist Ramsey Lewis did a soul jazz cover of The In Crowd which I played endlessly.

I didn’t know it but a year after The In Crowd Dobie Gray recorded Out On The Floor, which was to become one of the biggest tracks on the northern soul scene. Ten or so years later I first knew of this track, and since then I play it often, dancing with increasing stiffness to its many and steady beats per minute.

I didn’t really follow his career but was very pleased when the country influenced Drift Away, among these suggested funeral songs, became a hit in 1973. Indeed, in the 1970s Gray became that very rare thing – a commercially successful black country singer.

It’s worth listening to a ‘best of’ compilation to see what a fine country artist he was, with a great ear for the best songs in a genre that has more than its fair share of poor ones. Loving Arms and There’s a Honkey Tonk Angel are two of my particular favourites.

Like many soul singers he began by singing in church choirs in the south where his family were share croppers.

Unlike most of his contemporary R‘n’B singers he also had a relatively successful acting career, and also wrote songs for artists including Ray Charles, Johnny Mathis, George Jones and Don Williams.

Dobie Gray was an intelligent, charming, dignified and talented artist whose voice has given pleasure to hundreds of thousands down the years.

He’ll be missed but his music will live on. We’ve chosen our favourite five Dobie Gray songs here.

Drift Away is a particularly appropriate farewell or funeral song, with this the last verse: “Thanks for the joy that you’ve given me,/I want you to know I believe in your song./Rhythm and rhyme and harmony,/You help me along, makin’ me strong.”

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, told the global conference on Afghanistan’s future that international support after foreign forces withdraw in 2014 is crucial if Afghanistan is to remain stable.
Many observers foolishly regard a long-term international commitment to Afghanistan as critical, as Western forces prepare to leave the country by 2014. To date, almost 400 British troops have died in Afghanistan, to add to many more from the US and other allied countries.
Karzai no doubt has his eyes on the £4.5bn a year that ‘experts’ believe is needed if the country is to stay at current levels of development. Up to now, the vast majority of aid money has ended in the bank accounts of his friends and family.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has said that the objective of the talks is “a peaceful Afghanistan that will never again become a safe haven for international terrorism.”  This goal won’t be reached as neither Pakistan nor the Taliban are taking part. 
I find it amazing that those who believe that Afghanistan can be turned into a peaceful liberal democracy are unwilling to address the following:
1. Afghanistan isn’t a conventional state, but a series of local centres of power run by warlords, Islamists, criminals, elders, many of whom are also locally elected leaders who resent the inefficiency and corruption of Karzai.
2. Afghanistan is made up of two major ethnic groups, the Pashtun and the Tajik, with several smaller groups subdivided into tribes.  Tribes often occupy specific areas such as valley passes and are suspicious and hostile towards other tribes. It is not possible to unify these groups or deal with them as if they are unified.
3. Some of these groups straddle national boundaries and have little loyalty to any nation but to their own group, its customs and beliefs. Their culture has nothing in common with Western values.
4. The Taliban are not interested in international terrorism. They are a loose alliance of Islamist gangs and individuals, many from other countries, who want to fight the occupying forces and install an extreme Islamist code of living, often supported by local tribes and villagers.
5. The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan can’t be closed. It is almost 2000 miles long and much only passable by those who know the mountain passes.
6. Pakistan cannot, even if it wanted to, control the homegrown Islamist militants who want to help their co-religionist zealots in Afghanistan.
7. Afghanistan, like most muslim countries, is divided between a Sunni majority and Shai minority with mutual fear and loathing. 

All the money and armaments in the world won’t change these facts.
So the quicker the West leaves the country to find its own solutions, the better, and also the more successful the solutions will be.

It would pay us to look at the world from the position of Iran if we want to prevent the current conflict escalating.

Let’s then study the map  as if we are sitting in Tehran and ruling Iran.

To the west is Iraq where western forces have twice invaded, the second time hunting down the leadership and putting them on trial resulting in their execution.

To the northwest is the border with Turkey, which seems to be militarily and politically closer to the west than ever before.

And further to the west sits an intransigent and militarily powerful Israel, determined to reduce Iran’s status in the region since its creation after the second world war.

Afghanistan is our eastern neighbour which the west invaded ten years ago in a panic reaction to the September 11 attacks.

On the other side of the Persian Gulf is the region’s dominant power, Saudi Arabia where Sunni Islam predominates. Historically opposed to Iran, where Shi’a Islam is the state religion, and a great supporter of the US, Saudi’s King Abdullah only last year urged the US to ‘cut the head off the snake’ or in other words, weaken Iran by a military strike.

We might then look further east at Pakistan, a country with nuclear weapons and which, despite being a far more fertile breeding ground for Islamic terrorists than Afghanistan, is treated with great forbearance by the west.

Our eyes might also alight on North Korea, unpunished despite numerous military excursions and a deliberate policy of destabilising neighbouring countries. We will of course know the extent of Kim Jong-il’s nuclear arsenal.

We probably concluded several years ago that the best way to guarantee Iran’s peace was to have nuclear weapons. After all, wasn’t the possession of nuclear weapons what gave a divided world peace after the second world war? And don’t the US and UK still hold on to an albeit reduced nuclear capability to provide a deterrence?

Looked at like this, it is perfectly rational that Iran develops nuclear weapons, and equally unreasonable for the west to try to stop them. What’s good for the goose must surely be good for the gander.

Why doesn’t our government see the world from Iran’s point of view and discuss and reassure their nervous and fractious leaders that we don’t want a military conflict, that we value peaceful relations, increased trade, greater cultural ties and more strategic agreements?

Why don’t we let the Iranian government and people know we understand their history and rightful position in the region? Why don’t we encourage, support and value their role as a moderating influence in the predominantly Arab and often volatile middle east? In this context the issues of proliferation and nuclear control can be discussed calmly.

The answer is because Mr Hague and Mr Cameron have no idea of how to conduct a long-term, strategic foreign policy to ensure peaceful relations with countries they know little about.

There are few headlines to be garnered from discreet talks, opening new diplomatic channels and offers of targeted aid. Instead they seek the support from the tabloids when they expel diplomats, increase sanctions and before too long I fear, order our bombers to destroy Iranian targets.

Geraldine Beddel, editor of Gransnet, wrote a very thoughtful piece last week which argued that our society has unwittingly colluded in the mistreatment of old people by our widespread casual ageism.

Her thesis is that until we respect our elders, the pernicious cruelty towards old people will continue.

While I agree with her arguments I would like to make two observations.

The first is that these attitudes are far more prevalent in the indigenous, longer established population and much less in the families from Africa and Asia where the wisdom of age is much more valued and respected.

People from these continents are used to seeing their elders work hard, without the protection of a welfare state and pension schemes. In these cultures, a person is brought up and protected by the extended family, and as they get older they then look after those who’ve looked after them. 

There’s self interest and community interest at heart here, and it works well. Where this family/community protection is replaced by the state or other institutions, the appreciation of the human relationship is rapidly diluted. 

When transplanted into this country, such respect for older people remains for one or two generations. I know several African families very well, and respect for elders is a value that is instilled into the children. Any ageist remark or attitude is sometimes literally slapped down.

The second point is that we should value old people not just because they brought us up, but because they have so much to teach us. Again this is where communities from less developed countries can illuminate our failings.

Their idea of education was less through formal schooling and more from the passing down of wisdom, ideas, values and experience from generation to generation. The collective learning of old people was critical to the success or failure of a family, village or tribe.

In our more developed culture, old people may not play such an educational role, but their memories, life stories, achievements, attitudes make up micro social and family histories.

We should understand their worth and do all we can to keep them, because once lost they are lost forever.

This is why the Lifebox is such a useful service.  It’s an online secure area designed to enable personal histories to be uploaded and stored, then to be accessed by chosen younger family members.

It’s probable that many older people who will want a Lifebox will need the help of younger family members to populate it, and in doing so, the bonding between young and old will increase the mutual intergenerational respect.

This in turn will reduce our tendency, pointed out by Geraldine Bedell, to dismiss the value of our older family members.