For the past 18 months I would call in to see my old friend Harry* on a Saturday or Sunday morning in his Clapham flat.

Our long friendship started when we were in our mid-20s. He and his first wife became very good friends to my wife and I, both fairly new to London, and they soon introduced us to their circle of friends.  Harry and I were particularly close thanks to our love of jazz and contemporary music which we listened to for hours two or three evenings a week.

The  seven or eight years of friendships, parties, holidays, dinners, pubs and clubs were the best years of our lives, ending when the ‘set’ drifted apart as kids came on the scene or couples split up.

Harry was even then, among a pretty hard living group, the heaviest drinker and user of recreational drugs.  He was also prone to attacks of depression which he put down to his childhood with a violent alcoholic father. It made Harry difficult to be with at times, irrationally angry towards those who loved him the most and prone to self-harm.

Following the failure of his first marriage, Harry’s life went slowly downhill, mainly due to his depression and alcoholism, though he and I kept in touch as he moved around London and then many years in Germany.

He had a zest and energy for life, when on good form, and gave wonderful parties always with new circles of interesting and delightful friends, and the rump of former social circles. Whether I saw him at these parties or just for a mid-day chat, he was always drinking, and he smoked 40 or 50 cigarettes a day.

This drinking and smoking continued throughout an unsuccessful marriage (his third I think) to a long suffering, warm German woman, and ten years of unemployed misery in Frankfurt. Unsurprisingly his physical and mental health deteriorated there and at the fourth or fifth attempt he finally came back to live first with a friend in Surrey and then on his own in a flat in South London.

I was shocked when I saw him, as the ravages of the drink and cigarettes had aged him terribly. One of the few things he brought back from Germany was a list of illnesses including emphysema, osteoporosis, myopathy and pulmonary oedema. The depression was far worse, sapping him of a will to live, to do nothing more than drink and smoke.

By this time Harry had fallen out with his two sisters (his only family) and most of his friends…so he asked me if I would visit him once or twice a week to get some shopping and clean the flat. As I was only a mile away, and still liked the old rogue, I agreed.

His shopping list always started with 200 Mayfair Smooth and three large bottles of gin and three bottles of tonic, a bottle of port and two bottles of wine.  There was not much in the way of healthy food.

After I put away the shopping we usually chatted, listened to some music before I made my excuses, coughing with the cigarette smoke and unable to bear any longer the sound of accumulated phlegm gurgling in his throat.

Recently the amount of food he wanted decreased…he was losing weight, getting more and more depressed.  He sought medical help but then refused to go to hospital or GP appointments. I, and one or two other friends who saw him occasionally, told him he was drinking and smoking himself to death, to which he replied ‘Good, that’s my business not yours.’

Harry started going downhill more rapidly two or three weeks ago. I was very worried this Saturday when I visited him as he had lost a lot of weight and didn’t have the energy to get himself out of his easy chair. I told him I was going to take him to hospital or call an ambulance to get him admitted. He got very bad tempered and told me not to interfere. I said that I was going to come round tomorrow (Sunday) and come what may ensure he got to hospital.

I was too late. I opened the door to his flat at 12.15 yesterday and he was curled up on the floor, stone cold dead, his head resting on towels he had by his easy chair.

I called the police, and then the ‘emergency services’ took over…did an excellent job, contacted the coroner and organised for Harry to be taken by a local funeral director to the nearest mortuary. On the advice of the police I left his flat before the fd arrived.

The police found a few numbers on his mobile, and I had the numbers of other old friends, so yesterday afternoon and evening was spent telling people and discussing the tragedy that was Harry’s last few years. His funeral will be sparse but not completely lonely.

It’s likely that I’ll be involved in the funeral arrangements…Harry refused to discuss anything to do with his funeral or death, in effect a focus group of one who saw no point in My Last Song.

Even so, I’ll spend some time going through my memories of the music we used to listen to endlessly when in our 20s and 30s. There will be an appropriate last song for Harry, and those who attend the farewell will know why it’s been chosen.

*Not his real name. Those who know ‘Harry’ will know who this is about. I’ve also not named the wonderful people who shared parts of his life and were not always appreciated by Harry for their love and friendship.

I saw the other day a memorial message: ‘Gran will look down on us from heaven’. It made me wonder in a semi whimsical way, Where is heaven?

It isn’t ‘up there’ in the sense that somewhere between the earth and space is a place where God looks down, angels flutter around and saved souls swan around feeling happy, though the more active somewhat bored…how do you do occupy yourself for ‘eternity’?

Space missions to planets and amazingly powerful telescopes haven’t come across heaven, and thanks to scientific advance we’re discovering the vast limitless expanse of space. Heaven has still to be found above us, and our spirits will have to travel very fast to reach it if it’s further than we’ve discovered so far.

I might be proved wrong and a camera on board a rocket heading for the sun might shortly send back  pictures of endless rolling hills, clear streams, clean streets, stately homes and chateaux, cake shops, choirs singing and angels plucking at harps, rows of well stocked vegetarian food stalls, sandy beaches, warm calm seas, England winning Test matches, but I doubt it.

God’s up there, Christians have been told for many hundreds of years, along with a neat hierachy of semi human helpers: cherubims, seraphims, angels and saints with special privileges such as front row seats to hear the choirs and quality time discussing serious issues with God. Jesus is up there, at His right hand, as he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.

Paintings and frescos have depicted these Elysium scenes in wonderfully realistic works of art down the centuries, their creators having no doubt that the firmament they were depicting was real, God and his crew were above us, we were being judged from on high, heaven was waiting for us if we believed, and who in those days before science provided more empirical answers, wouldn’t?

For Muslims, paradise is also tangible as a bounteous bejewelled garden where, notoriously, vast numbers of virgins wait to give solace to martyrs as they arrive.

This is now considered a mistranslation of the original ancient Arabic description, and a good thing too when you think of the moral ambiguity.  But it shows that Islam like Judaism, Christianity and most religions, has created a place with physical properties where our souls, spirits or reconstituted bodies are summoned when we die.

I try to get my head round this, but can’t. I conclude, not with any pleasure, that heaven doesn’t exist. If I accept it’s a metaphysical place, it simply confirms that this definition of heaven is a device used by religions to avoid the inconvenient truth that it’s not there.

This metaphysical destination for our souls by definition has no tangible location, no pearly gates, walls, clouds to sit on. It’s a place that religions create to reassure us that when we die there is more to follow if we are good and obey a God who has not only created where we live but where we’ll go next if we pass whatever test, given final sacraments or are part of the elect. There are all sorts of obtuse rules for our entry to paradise, not surprising really, as it adds to its mystery.

The metaphysical definition of heaven has another problem for me. If heaven isn’t a physical entity, does it have a timespan? Put another way, if heaven doesn’t exist as a place, does it exist in time? When did this metaphysical heaven start to host spirits and souls? At what stage in our evolution did man have a soul? Were we only given souls when we understood the nature of our relationship with God, or when He started his relationship with us?

I don’t believe we started from Adam and Eve, so when during our evolution were we advanced enough in God’s eyes to qualify for entry to heaven? Was heaven rather lonely for the first few thousand years, and is it not uncomfortably overcrowded now?

Silly questions I know, for if it’s a metaphysical place; it’s neither empty nor full, it’s not a real place.

The more I think about it, the less chance I have of  finding heaven.

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 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.

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.”

This morning’s juxtaposition of interviews on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme with investment guru Jim Rogers (close colleague of George Soros) and Martin Sorrell, head of marketing giant WPP, provides good insight of why we face economic meltdown.

Rogers gave his view about  China’s huge donation of funds into the Euro bailout fund. He stressed that the proposed Euro crisis solution was a scam as all it did was to put back the time when the real issue has to be addressed. Most of the developed world, especially the US, are spending more than we earn.

Then Martin Sorrell came on to answer questions about WPP’s third quarter performance, growing nicely but reflecting a slow down. He was also asked to justify his rapidly increasing and huge remuneration. This on a day when research has revealed that pay for directors of the UK’s top businesses rose 50 per cent over the past year.

When asked whether companies should spend more or less on marketing in an economic downturn, Sorrell predicatably said they should spend more as clearly this means greater profits for WPP, the umbrella under which sits multi-national marketing giants including Ogilvy, Young and Rubicam, Chime Communications and TNS. For Sorrell to answer they should spend less on marketing would be like turkeys voting for Christmas.

WPP’S marketing agencies are in business to increase the market of their clients. They have only one aim: to make people spend more, to buy their clients’ products and services. And as WPP’s inexorably increasing profits and growth prove, they are brilliant at it.

Herein, however, is the root of  the problem. Marketing companies have succeeded for many years now in making people think that the acquisition of something is more important than whether they can afford it.

This is unsurprising, for it would never enter the heads of well paid executives, creatives, planners, researchers working in WPP’s companies, rewarded for their success, that the majority of the people they are aiming at don’t have the money for the latest gadget, garment, gourmet experience… And so individuals, families, communities and indeed states where these marketing geniuses operate most effectively get further into debt.

One day, and that day is approaching faster than we care to think, the whole edifice will come tumbling down, and when it does, the millions we are paying ourselves will count for nothing.

On a micro level, families are finding it ever more difficult to pay for funerals of loved ones. If it helps at all, we give advice on how to reduce funeral costs. It’s not advice you’ll get from funeral directors such as Co-operative Funeralcare or Dignity Funerals.

The 1st October is the International Day of Older People, and given My Last Song’s appeal, we are right there in that space.

The international element is the most important, in that it aims to campaign for pensions and greater provision for older people in the developing world. Alas, My Last Song can do nothing to support this goal.

But on a more individual level within the UK, US and other English speaking countries, I hope we can do something to ensure the wisdom, experience and values of each older person will remain after they die. 

This is not to assume that older people are about to die – thank heavens we are living longer and more healthy lives. But the older we get the more we must address our mortality.

And when doing, think about subscribing to a Lifebox into which you can put your memories, your wisdom, your achievements, your photographs…even your secrets. This will be secure so that only you, and after your death your chosen loved one(s), can open the Lifebox and access the information.

There is no such thing as eternal life, thank goodness. However, thanks to digital technology and perpetual storage on Cloud servers, your memories can live forever thanks to the Lifebox. And, as you are a member of the ‘Older’ community, these memories will include your nuggets of wisdom, experience and personal history that would otherwise be lost forever.