Within the My Last Song website is the Lifebox in which people store their memories, personal details and information so they will be remembered for years to come by their loved ones.

The Lifebox can also be given as a gift, and as Christmas approaches, it could be the answer for those people looking for a very unusual, original and useful present.

Ten reasons why the Lifebox is a great gift:

1. Easy to buy…just fill in the form online by visiting My Last Song.
2. Flexible prices: £12 for a year; £100 for ten years; £150 for permanent possession.
3. Fast, easy and free to send to all parts of the world – attach the gift certificate to an email and it’s delivered instantly.
4. Will be valued and used for years to come – the owner can upload their photos, videos, specially recorded messages, unique personal details, life stories so their lives and memories will never be forgotten.
5. Ideal for all ages, and will bring different generations together to recall and record personal and family memories.
6. Secure and safe…only trusted keyholders can access the Lifebox but only when permission is confirmed. Content can’t be edited or deleted.
7. Exclusive discounts from leading retailers available within the Special Offer section of the Lifebox means it can be used to save money.
8. You can put a personal message in the gift certificate you give to the person to whom you are giving the Lifebox.
9. Option to donate to Carers UK charity Christmas appeal, so the certificate becomes a sort of charity Christmas card.
10. Unique, original and very useful…the promise of digital immortality.

So dear readers of this blog, if you have a Christmas present problem, the Lifebox could well be the answer.  And think of the time, stress and hassle you’ve saved. Go to My Last Song, and if it’s not one of the easiest transactions you’ve ever made on line, let me know and I’ll try to make it even simpler.

The Demos report, Dying For Change, is a closely argued and important pamphlet.

For those without much time I commend the executive summary, and for those with less time, the thesis of the report is as follows.

The demographics of this country mean more people will be dying of old age every year. Such deaths are usually drawn out, complex and costly.

The good news is that much of our extended lives will be better spent…the bad news though is that we are more likely to die lonely and impersonal deaths in hospitals, hospices and care homes. Not surprisingly,  two thirds of people asked in a related survey wanted to die at home.

To reverse the increasing numbers of people who will die in hospital, and to reduce the escalating end of life costs to the NHS, Demos propose some radical changes.

The least radical is to improve the way hospitals and care homes look after people who are dying.

Improving these services won’t meet people’s aspirations to die at home, nor will they reduce the costs to the NHS. So Demos put forward effective community alternatives.

The report suggests that the NHS should invest £500 million a year, only 2.5 per cent of its spending on end of life care, “to create the backbone for community services” to allow a far higher number people to die at or close to home.

These community services include:

• Creating new places for people to die close to home where they could be with friends and family;
• Strengthened family capacity to care by providing a dedicated compassionate care benefit or care leave entitlement to provide financial support to look after a dying relative;
• Creating a properly trained volunteer support network;
• Setting up dedicated 24/7 nursing support;
• Establishing dedicated end of life telephone help lines;
• Setting up a national ‘hospice at home’ service to tend those dying at home;
• Providing people with a key relationship to end of life advisers.

I can only praise a report that addresses the issues that My Last Song faces full on, and in particular the confirmation that the only way to improve how we die is by people addressing dying. As the report points out people are frightened not by death but by dying because family and many family doctors are unable to talk about it. Ignorance and fear go hand in hand, and fear is not what you should feel as you approach your end.

Which is a prompt for me to extol the virtues of the death plan which is in the My Last Song Lifebox, ready to be filled in when most convenient, and with the participation of close family and even the family doctor.

This is not another version of the Advanced Care Plans or Preferred Priorities of Care forms which concentrate on the medical care and treatment.

The My Last Song death plan instead addresses the more spiritual and existential needs of a dying person.

Who do they want to be present? What do they want to see? What do they want to hear? What do they want to smell? How do they want to be touched? How much do they want that their loved ones to know?

The death plan also enables them to be reassured their affairs are in order and that they need have no concerns about family, friends or pets.

If the patient, the family and the medical staff collaborate to fill in the death plan, it will help people leave this life as content as possible which while not something you can put a value on, is priceless.

Yesterday, Sunday, two articles for My Last Song appeared in my inbox. Neither author knew the other was going to contribute, yet the similarities of the two were revealing.

One, entitled Solving the Funeral Dilemma, was from Reverend Peter Ratcliff, Minister, St John’s Church of England (Continuing), South Wimbledon, and editor of the English Churchman. The second was on the importance of hymns at funerals from Reverend Canon Peter Moger, Preceptor of York Minster.

Both made profound and, in the case of the former, controversial, arguments central to a Christian funeral service.

Solving the Funeral Dilemma is a powerful repudiation of the increasingly common ‘Princess Diana style’ funeral at which relatives of the deceased read poems and eulogies, making the role of the religious celebrant little more than a compere or Master of Ceremonies.

Reverend Peter Radcliff argues that to compensate for the lack of religious understanding that much of the congreation will have, the minister should stress the Christian message that the deceased is going to a forgiving and loving God, and to show the grieving mourners that he, the minister of God, loves them and desires the very best for them.

He argues that ‘he should not stand down from his duty or hand it over to those who are not qualified. The service is predominantly the worship of God and so needs to be led by a minister of God.’

If members of the family feel they want to address everybody, they can do that, he says, at the reception following the funeral.

Reverend Moger’s piece concentrates solely on the relevance of hymns at the funeral, and gives as the most important reason that they ‘express very clearly the heart of what Christians believe about life and death.’ He doesn’t give an opinion on whether secular songs have a role in the funeral service, but I expect he would disapprove. He gives other good reasons why hymns should be sung, including that ‘hymns tend to stay with us throughout our lives…and help form our spirituality.’

I am very grateful to the two contributors for redressing the balance of the articles within My Last Song which, up to now, have supported the growing secularisation of funerals, and indeed defining the mix of religious and secular content as the ‘Modern British Funeral.’

No doubt the dilution of religious content will continue to increase reflecting the greater secular lifestyles and views of those now reaching the end of their lives. These people and their families will want the most appropriate end of life ceremony, and as they pay the bill, what they want is what they get.

But for those who are Christian, who believe in God, these articles will strengthen their faith and hopefully the resolve of their families to organise a religious funeral that, in its spirituality and faith in God’s forgiveness, will bring comfort and a greater understanding of what being a Christian means.  And even for those who have little or no belief, to recognise that those close to the parted find strength and comfort in their faith is itself reassuring and beneficial.

If the observance of religion is to witness grief and hopelessness replaced by strength and comfort, then even the most cynical atheist will understand the power of faith. And nowhere does this happen more than in properly conducted Christian funerals.