Family commitments meant I couldn’t go to the Southbank Centre’s  ‘Death: Festival for the Living’ over the past weekend, but I was able to attend Paul Gambaccini’s Desert Island Death Discs session on Friday evening at which he held an enraptured audience in the palm of his hand.

From the tweets and postings by The Natural Death Centre and Emembrance, the weekend was exceptionally good and I would like to thank and praise the Southbank Centre’s Artistic Director Jude Kelly for having the courage and vision for staging the event.

She summed up the audience’s gratitude when thanking Paul Gambaccini at the end of the event, for his was a most intelligent, informed, personal, amusing and insightful analysis of funeral music. He had researched copious lists in this country, Europe and north America. He used his encyclopaedic knowledge of all types of music to add pertinent anecdotes, not least that the original lyricist of My Way electrocuted himself changing a lightbulb while standing in his bath shortly before the release of Sinatra’s version, thus losing the huge royalties that would have boosted his bank account.

Paul felt no reason to hide his annoyance at Robbie Williams’ Angels being the third most played secular song at funerals. “It’s got nothing to do with death.” And he damned Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On with the faintest of praise.

What I, and most of the audience, appreciated were his personal choices that didn’t make the top ten. I’ve made them a specific fave five, and in the meantime will mention a most moving Johnny Cash tribute to a friend, Jim I Wore A Tie Today; the poetic, haunting Hope There’s Someone by the gifted Antony Hegarty, better known as Antony from Antony and the Johnsons; and Beth Nielsen Chapman’s Sand And Water, which was heard in total silence, Gambaccini’s explanation of its provenance and the sadness of the lyric demanding nothing less.

I also liked the way he interspersed the secular songs with the most popular hymn, The Lord’s My Shepherd, the most popular piece of classical music , the opening of Mozart’s Requiem and his personal favourite Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, sung by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf.  As an aside, Gambaccini told us that when she was the castaway on Desert Island Discs the eight titles she chose were all her own recordings, the only time this had happened, not surprisingly.

The most popular comedy song was Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life from the Python film The Life Of Brian.

He knew when to ask for audience interaction – ‘what were the songs we wanted at our funerals?’, and I would like to finish by giving my thanks to those who suggested Ain’t No Sunshine, Misty Blue, Iron Maiden’s Hallowed Be Thy Name, Is That All There Is? And in particular the lady who came on stage and explained why a Sinatra song was her choice.

I didn’t catch the title of the song, but it was a cracker.  If anyone who was there can let me know I will be very grateful, and the song will appear on My Last Song so others can appreciate it too.

And the top ten secular funeral songs as researched, described and played by Paul Gambaccini:

My Way: Frank Sinatra

The Wind Beneath My Wings: Bette Midler

Angels: Robbie Williams

Time To Say Goodbye: Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman

Stairway To Heaven: Led Zepplin

My Heart Will Go On:  Celine Dion

I Will Always Love You: Whitney Houston

Goodbye My Lover: James Blunt

Candle In The Wind: Elton John

The Show Must Go On: Queen

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.