It’s from Dr Kimberly Manning, who works at Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta Georgia. In it she describes how and why the decision was made not to prolong unnecessarily the life of one Mrs Cafferty and how it was accepted by her family, there at the hospital by the side of the dying woman.

When challenged by a colleague why the medical team shouldn’t do all they could to keep this patient alive, Dr Manning replied: “Mrs Cafferty is dying.”

The blog continues: “I stated the facts and left it at that. In silence, it set in. I could see their wheels turning. Imagining those same things that I was thinking like, Why are we sticking her with needles and pricking her fingers for blood sugars when those things hurt? Why are we not focusing on keeping her as comfortable as possible?

“We entered her room that morning and…discussed these things with the family. By this point, Mrs Cafferty was lapsing in and out of consciousness, so this conversation took place with her children. And no, this was not the first time that the subject of end-of-life care had been brought up with them, but it was the first time they were ready to accept what was happening.

“ “Let her go in peace,” the eldest daughter finally said. “This is our decision. Mama would not want us to keep her alive this way. Please just keep her comfortable.” The rest of the family nodded in sombre agreement.”

Why this is important is that it describes a changing of a mindset that assumes the medical profession should do all it can to keep someone alive regardless of the diminution of quality of that life, to one where the futility of such intervention leads to its withdrawal. And so, with the informed consent of the family, medical treatment is ended so that death can come naturally, with no more tubes, chemicals, machines or doctors’ valuable time used to delay the inevitable.

In short, society and the medical profession are beginning to believe that while the prolonging of life is accepted as a medical absolute, to prolong death is a futile, cruel and costly perversion.

To make this changing view of medical practice more acceptable, it’s essential that people have their individual death plans, filled in following discussion by the ailing patient, their close family, their medical professionals and if appropriate a minister of religion.

My Last Song has created a holistic death plan that covers the medical, physical, emotional, spiritual and practical issues, even down to who looks after the pets. It includes considerations such as the aromas the patient wants to smell, music to hear, people to be present, where the patient wants to end their life and, of course, the level of medical intervention.

Its aim is to make the end of life as comfortable and comforting as possible.

The easy to complete template can be found in the Lifebox section of My Last Song. Once filled in, it can be securely stored, updated and accessed by selected loved ones so the end of life experienced by the dying will be one supported by those like Dr Manning who have the quality of their patients’ lives foremost in their minds.

Gail runs A Good Goodbye out of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Its strapline, which appeals hugely to the My Last Song team, is ‘Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die’. We have two straplines which benefit from greater brevity but lack the clever humour. They are: ‘Plan Your Exit Strategy’ and ‘A Good Life Deserves A Good Ending’.

Gail’s blog looked at what she loosely titles funeral films, and then describes the great music played in the soundtracks.  Quite a few have been chosen by visitors to Family Bhive in their fave five – the five songs they want to be remembered by, or played at their funeral, or send off party. Several haven’t yet been chosen but should be listened to because they are  excellent farewell songs.

What was encouraging was the confirmation that there is  a growing interest in the importance of getting the right music played at your farewell, rather than clichéd hymns (and I recognise how important hymns are for those of the Christian faith) and even clichéd secular songs.

My Way comes top of those songs that show little imagination. There are better Frank Sinatra tracks, even though Paul Anka’s lyrics are very apt for the final review of a life about to end.

In the past few months there have been increasing number of online forums, mainly in the US, Canada and UK, discussing funeral songs. The range of suggestions has been vast, covering most modern music genres, as well as arias and classical pieces.

Anything which makes people think about their mortality and plan to make it as positive and successful a goodbye as possible should be encouraged. That’s why we are part of the Dying Matters coalition here in the UK and want to share information and ideas with people like Gail Ruben in the US.

In the UK, the excellent website Gransnet, founded by Justine Roberts who previously set up Mumsnet, posted a forum on whether photographing funerals was acceptable. I’m a great fan of Gransnet, not least because of the wisdom and eloquence of its editor, Geralding Bedell. Other good things about it are the general common sense and progressive views of its members and visitors and its use of social media including twitter.

I used twitter to point out that funeral photography was a growing trend, and linked to articles on My Last Song by Priscilla Etienne and Rachel Wallace, two excellent funeral photographers. Hopefully Gransnet twitter followers will consider the benefits of commissioning either of these photographers the next time they have to organise a funeral, which I also hope is not for a long time.

In the US, Carolyn McClanahan contributed a thoughtful piece to Forbes, I’ve Accepted I’m Dying. Now What? This was as good a description of why I started My Last Song four years ago as it’s possible to get.

It urged people to plan their funeral in advance, work out the probate, put their financial affairs in order and leave their memories, wishes, life stories for others to share, in the form of specially recorded videos.  This is an endorsement for the My Last Song Lifebox idea, and Carolyn hadn’t come across My Last Song when she wrote this piece.

I commented, repeating my support for her views, namely a good life deserves a good ending…but it has to be planned.  Carolyn immediately replied that the problem was getting people to ‘do it’.

And she’s right…death, dying, our mortality, our funerals are the most difficult subjects to discuss and plan.  My blog yesterday argued that if the reason for discussing death was to have as good an ending as possible, the discussion might just be more approachable.  The vehicle for this discussion would be the filling in of the ailing person’s death plan. It makes sense to me, but there again it would…I created the death plan template.

Hopefully Carolyn McClanahan will see the benefits of a death plan and write about it in Forbes.

So we take the easy way out, and the end of life decisions are then made for the dying patient rather than by the dying person. Hence the medical professionals will assume that the family expect medical intervention.

Family members too will take decisions, usually confirming the doctor’s view that they want prolonged medical intervention so their loved one lives longer.  Some will decide they haven’t the ability, facilities or inclination to care for a dying loved one and so the person whose life has run its course is left to suffer unnecessarily prolonged intervention in a frightening and often lonely hospital.

Very few medical professionals or close loved ones will think about the sensory elements of the dying person’s end of life experience. Where do they want to die? Who do they wish to be present, or not present? What do they want to see – photos of loved ones, lovely views?  What smells would they like to experience as their life ends? Do they want their hands held, to be caressed, to be massaged?

They will, of course, want to be rid of concerns, so issues such as their funeral wishes, their probate, and the care of their property and pets, should be dealt with in advance so they can ‘die in peace’.

The Royal College of Physicians’ report that recommends that doctors are regularly trained on communicating end of life treatment with their patients is clearly limited to their role in providing suitable end of life treatment. Quite rightly, they see the need for planning for the death well in advance in the hope that patient and doctor have a meaningful discussion. The palliative care, which should extend to the spiritual and physical, will be limited to the medical.

My Last Song believes that by having a personalised death plan, the medical decisions and the existential decisions can be discussed and agreed at the same time, with the involvement of the patient, the medical professionals, loved ones and if appropriate ministers of religion.  We’ve created a death plan template to make it as easy as possible to fill in, edit and save.

The result should be a more comfortable and comforting end of life experience, and if this is the likely outcome, then the discussion is less difficult to initiate, less likely to be misconstrued.

They brought us into this world, nurtured us, educated us, paid for us and still play a big part in our lives.  For those whose mothers aren’t alive, their absence often highlights how much we loved them because we miss them and their love for us all the more.

So with Mother’s Day only two days away, consider the virtues of buying your mother a Lifebox.

This is a specially designed and easy to use secure online storage area in which her digital memories, images, videos, music, wishes, achievements can be stored.  If she’s not confident with computers, then younger members of the family can help her, which will increase the bonding between family members of different generations.

Populating the Lifebox with her memories, names of her friends and relatives and her life story means personal family and social history is captured that would otherwise be lost forever.

It also means that your mother will feel valued and pleased that the family want her memories to be accessed and read for generations to come. And you and your offspring will also find reassurance and happiness in opening her Lifebox from time to time to know more about her, her life, her achievements, her dreams, her wishes.

You will also find it useful too as it will encourage her to write down her final wishes and the information the family will need when she eventually passes.  Okay, this might seem shocking, but it’s far more shocking when nothing has been planned, nothing decided and the details you or the executor is lost or difficult to locate.

But to stress the positive…how wonderful that by having her Lifebox, your mother’s memory will live forever.

A cruel, or stupid, sub-editor highlighted the crassness of Pollard’s piece by selecting this statement as the stand out: ‘Now that going out is as easy as staying in and watching TV on the sofa, we behave when we’re out as if we are watching TV on the sofa’. Clearly Pollard hasn’t tried to reach or park in theatreland in the past ten years, but why let facts get in the way of a space filler.

Rod Liddle fills his space with a daft piece that argues the falling support of right wing racist parties will result in a rise in racial violence because bigots and fascist thugs need an outlet for their anger.

Lucy Bannerman writes just about the only worthwhile piece, reporting on Zambia’s achievement of changing goverment peacefully after last year’s election – fairly rare in Africa – and the appointment of a white man as vice President – understandably an exception in post-colonial, post-apartheid Africa.

James Delingpole, who a few weeks ago contributed what was virtually a press release praising the children’s book The Hunger Games, this week attempts a critique of Quantitative Easing, equating it with Soviet style planned economic policy.  He fails, not least because he admits that he isn’t an expert in this area. Is there, readers probably wonder, any area on which Mr Delingpole is an expert?

In the Arts section, it goes without saying the reviewer, Andrew Lambirth, is taken in by Cy Twombly’s scribbles.  This sentence confirms the reviewer is a fool. “Looked at in one way, it’s only a bit of scribble. Differently angled, it’s a rough chimney shape in blue crayon with five dabs of pink oil paint and three further touches of pink.” So it doesn’t matter which way you hang it up were you daft enough to buy it.

But why I won’t read another copy of The Spectator is the insert, The Spectator Guide to Independent Schools.

The publisher  of, and contributors to, The Spectator are too myopic to realise that private education, available only to privileged children, divides and perverts our society. Unimportant to them that the guide is full of fluff such as the importance of going to open days to see if a private school is worth the money, which schools specialise in sport, why one writer enjoyed his private school days as an army cadet, and the most absurdly self indulgent and banal piece by James Delingpole (yes, him again) justifying why he sent his son, whom he calls ‘Boy’, to Papplewick, a school in, where else, Ascot.

‘Boy’ was boardered there because it had a snake club, and when taking his son round on the open day, the inane Delingpole senior was hit on the chin by a rearing and understandably annoyed snake. ‘From that moment on,’ he says, ‘ I knew this was the school for Boy.’

‘Boy’ apparently asked his parents during the tour: ‘Might I really be able to come here?’ Anywhere rather than staying in the company of his pompous father would be a considerable relief to ‘Boy’, one suspects.

The adverts from these wretchedly unrepresentative educational establishments in the guide may subsidise The Spectator, but it now has one fewer reader.

Dr Evison said that when she visited the country two years ago her thinking about the cause for which her son died changed. The social pressures as well as “the revenge culture” and the physical size and layout of Afghanistan made her doubt if the war was winnable.

No war waged by foreign forces in Afghanistan is winnable. Experts in the Foreign Office will have stated this to Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, pointing out not just the lessons of history but that the current situation with the country divided into competing ethnic groups, tribes, warlords, bandits, Islamic extremists, run by an unpopular, ineffective and feeble central government, and with Pakistan, Iran and other neighbours intent on destabilising it would result in heavy casualties inflicted by a fanatical, invisible and, in some areas, popular force called the Taliban.

They would have told the politicians that the Taliban, the religious extremists and warlords would fight any moves to impose external values and culture with deadly effect. They would have dismissed the notion that an external force could defeat the Taliban, build a coalition to govern democratically or change a culture so embedded and so utterly different to ours.

Blair and Straw had commited to helping the US to invade Afghanistan and ignored the advice. Eleven years later and 400 plus brave, loyal and never to be forgotten deaths later (as well as thousands of innocent Afghans whose deaths have made the country’s hatred of the west far more intense) we are pulling out with our tails between our legs.

Let’s hope that our abject military and political failure in Afghanistan and the abysmal achievements of overthrowing Sadam and Gadhafi (Iraq and Libya now destined for years of bloody division, settling of scores and slaughter of innocents while Iran, Saudi and Israel fight proxy battles) prevent the west from considering any further military interventions in either Iran and Syria.

There are few certainties in politics or international affairs but the following is one of them: “The aims and objectives of external intervention in totalitarian Islamic countries will never be achieved, and instead intervention will make the situation more unstable and dangerous.”

Risking, then, online isolation, let me point to the popularity of the display of Ghanaian and English ‘designer’ coffins at January’s South Bank exhibition on death, and also to the growing trend for decorating coffins of loved ones with bespoke designs, graffiti, illustrations, words of affection and humour, even glued on newspaper cuttings and photographs of footballers and pin ups.

I’m all for this trend as it will make people think about the choice of coffin, rather than nod through what the funeral director suggests as the price of the coffin makes up a large part of the cost of the funeral.

I’m particularly exercised by this issue because the cross on the back of Bernard’s coffin was incongruously facing an almost exclusively atheist group of mourners throughout his humanist funeral.

On a range of costs you have at one end the elaborately built coffins much loved by some Ghanaians and the wonderful Crazy Coffins, to the plain cardboard coffins that will be supplied direct to the family from companies such as Greenfield Creations.

I believe that the involvement of bereaved loved ones, or those facing bereavement, in choosing an appropriate coffin (such an eco-friendly type if the departed was concerned with the environment) and decorating it with personal images and messages, can reduce the feeling of helplessness, anxiety and anguish that death inevitably causes.

Playing a part in personalising the coffin is a way of saying that you accept death and aren’t going to collapse into grief when confronted by it. So, I’ll risk telling my friends and fellow party goers that the next time I’m involved in a funeral I’m going to decorate the coffin.

It might clear the room, but at least I’m doing my bit to change our culture. (Probably why the last time you were invited to a party was five years ago – ed.)

Funerals will only be ‘successful’ if properly planned and that takes time and effort from those involved.  The funeral director, W Uden, did a good job, though commissioned by Bern’s sister Joy and his best friend Bill, so I can’t speak for them but everything was agreed and delivered according to plan.

They recommended an excellent humanist celebrant, Jeanne Rathbone, who put the ceremony in a humanist context, understood and related Bern’s positive characteristics and personality and outlined the key events in his life without diluting the tributes that followed. She was most sympathetic and respectful, especially when relating Joy’s reminiscences of their childhood together.

Jeanne also augmented the readings by reciting two appropriate poems, If I Should Go by Joyce Grenfell and How Long Is A Man’s Life? by Brian Patten.

West Norwood crem (see note at the end) doesn’t use the Wesley Music system for playing farewell tracks, so I recorded a CD  with the music for the ceremony.

The tracks were played absolutely on cue by the crematorium manager…Bernard came in to Space Intro/Fly Like An Eagle by the Steve Miller Band. My tribute – memories of our friendship and his unique qualities – ended by detailing some of the music we shared. This included Tom Waits, and so was played his tender, anguished version of Somewhere, from West Side Story.

Then Bill, a loyal and generous friend of Bernard, recalled two or three very humorous moments they shared when Bern stayed with him following his time in Frankfurt. We needed some laughter and Bill delivered.

Hilary, Bern’s partner for an intense period many years ago and who, like many others, has stayed loyal and affectionate, read most sympathetically The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost. This was chosen by Maggie, Bern’s widow who came over from Frankfurt to attend.

Maggie was deeply affected by the funeral and hugely grateful to all those who attended. She designed the excellent order of ceremony leaflets, using some great photos of Bernard.

The track played during the time for quiet contemplation was Meadow of Delight and Sadness from John Barry’s lovely The Beyondness of Things.  And as we watched the curtains close around Bernard for his final journey, The Joker by the Steve Miller Band played, understood and appreciated by everyone who had cried tears of laughter when Bern told a joke or acted out a ridiculous monologue.

Virtually all came back to The Rosendale to share memories, catch up on old friendships and listen to a playlist to which various friends contributed. The staff were helpful, the food excellent and the music system worked well. More important, it was good to meet members of Bern’s family who attended and whose memories of Bernard were so touching to hear.

Bernard, I’m glad to say, had a good funeral. Several people said he would have approved. On his behalf, then, thanks to everyone concerned. Continue to remember him well.

West Norwood Cemetery is an excellent example of a Victorian metropolitan lawn cemetery and has the finest collection of sepulchral monuments in the capital, including a dedicated Greek Orthodox necropolis. Lambeth Council built the crematorium on the top of the hill from which there’s a great view of London. I recommend it as a peaceful and interesting stroll.

67%: Making sure family is not burdened financially by my care;
66%: Being comfortable and without pain;
61%: Being at peace spiritually;
60%: Making sure family is not burdened by tough decisions about my care;
60%: Having loved ones around me;
58%: Being able to pay for the care I need;
57%: Making sure my wishes for medical care are followed;
55%: Not feeling alone;
44%: Having doctors and nurses who will respect my cultural beliefs and values;
36%: Living as long as possible;
33%: Being at home;
32%: Having a close relationship with my doctor.

The Foundation, in summarising the findings, says that there’s “a disconnect between what Californians want (a natural death at home) and reality.” The various poll answers, available in the pdf, prove this conclusively.

What’s true for Californians is true for older people in this country too, and in most developed nations facing the same issues of increasing numbers of old people, the taboo around discussing dying and death, and medical advances which make prolonging life in hospital more likely than a natural death at home.

So, how to make the end of life experience less a ‘disconnect’ with what people want and more a positive, comfortable and comforting experience?

Well, encouraging ailing older people and the terminally ill to have a personal death plan would be a great step forward. It would enable the patient, their loved ones, their medical professionals and, if appropriate, their ministers of faith, to discuss openly and honestly the end of life experience the patient wants, and if at all possible, deliver these wishes.

We have created a holistic death plan that covers the medical, physical, emotional, spiritual and practical issues, even down to who looks after the pets. Less prosaic are considerations such as the aromas the patient wants to smell, music to hear, people to be present, where the patient wants to end their life and, of course, the level of medical intervention.

If the adoption of death plans became widespread, far more people would have the end of life experience they, and their loved ones, want.

To make it easy, there’s a simple to complete template in the Lifebox section of My Last Song. Once filled in, in can be securely stored, updated and accessed by selected loved ones.

The more people who have their death plans, the more seriously they will be taken by the medical profession.

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,  his cigarette smoke making my eyes run and throat feel sore,  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.

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.

He decided to dig a bit deeper when the No 10 adviser said that loneliness is probably more dangerous to our health in retirement than smoking, to look at the research that underpinned that statement.

It is, as you’ll see if you clicked the link, pretty detailed and obtuse research which can be reduced to those with stronger social relationships had a 50 per cent increased likelihood of survival than those who lived more solitary lives.

Easton points out that research going back 30 years also showed that loneliness, or lack of social interaction, resulted in higher rates of mortality than expected.

These findings come under the heading of common sense. Humans have evolved as social creatures. Working and living together has enabled our survival and success. Being alone, not through choice but by circumstance we would rather avoid, makes us miserable, lethargic, demotivated and vulnerable.

He makes the point that if the evidence, not to mention our common sense understanding of our need for community and company, proves that loneliness is a ‘killer’, we should do more to prevent it.

Now whether it’s the job of the Government to try to make older people have more friends is doubtful. But they should give greater support to charities such as Contact the Elderly and Independent Age whose excellent schemes to reduce elderly isolation are underfunded.

They should also use the Big Society Network to create more intergenerational contact projects which will encourage young people to befriend older people and coach them to be more computer confident…and less lonely through use of the internet. The older people can impart their wisdom and knowledge to their younger friends who, in some cases, will be less likely to join gangs or participate in petty crime.

We at My Last Song are encouraged that the issues facing older people are now being seriously considered, whether it be funding their care, understanding how they want to die, giving them the send-off  they want and helping them living longer, healthier and happier lives.

Why is this important? Just look at the demographics of this country (and indeed the US where the research was carried out)…the 70 year old plus group is the fastest growing with almost 7 million people aged 70 and over by 2015 in England alone. There will be far more than this in the US. Their needs must be taken seriously.

It is written in simple, positive prose and covers all aspects of Advance Care Planning including what is the most difficult aspect, ‘Opening the conversation’.  The tone for the leaflet is set in this telling phrase: ‘Not everyone will choose to engage in such a conversation and that is fine. However, talking and planning ahead means that your wishes are more likely to be known by others.’

I was particularly pleased that the leaflet covered wishes and preferences, and that these included some of the end of life experience defined in the My Last Song ‘death plan.’  Planning for your future care suggests where you want to be, who you want to be with, types of treatment, ‘how you like to do things,’ with examples such as sleeping with the light on or having a shower instead of a bath.

If you, or an ailing loved one,  want to have a ‘good death’ instead of a lonely, frightening end of life, then read Planning for your future care and act on its advice. To make the end of life experience as good as it can be,  fill in your own personal death plan, a template for which is available in the My Last Song Lifebox.

The wishes and preferences are more holistic, covering the music you want to hear; the smells you want surrounding you; the food and drink you wish to taste; the sensations you want your body to feel, such as caressing, massaging, stroking; what you want to see, such as a lovely view or your favourite photographs; how you want to look – clothes, make up, hair style; and ensuring the practical issues are resolved so you have no concerns.

By involving loved ones, doctors and if appropriate ministers of religion or spiritual advisers, having a death plan will go a considerable way to ensuring, if possible, the death is as comfortable and comforting as possible.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

It’s not necessary to repeat the evidence of journalists’ appalling and life ruining behaviour. But this must be stopped and in doing so the professional standards of the media might just be raised from its dire current level.

I doubt, though, whether those running our press and broadcast stations will let go of their front places in the race to the bottom in terms of crass, cheap, facile, immoral and unprincipled reporting, but at least a stop can be made to behaviour which can ruin lives just to scream ‘Exclusive!’  on a paper that will wrap tomorrow’s fish and chips. 

It’s imperative that Lord Leveson isn’t afraid that the media will bleat that restrictions will limit their role to investigate and bring to book politicians and public administrators.

He is too intelligent to fall for this spurious and dishonest argument. There’s no remote link between going through Steve Coogan’s dustbins looking for confirmation of an extra-marital affair and investigating political corruption.

The dreadful torment suffered by Milly Dowler’s parents when the NoW hacked her phone must not go unpunished because of an irrational fear that in future journalists will be unwilling to expose a Cabinet member putting the security of the country at risk.

The Leveson inquiry must ensure we have a media that will never again intrude into the lives of private individuals whose activities have no bearing whatsoever on the public good.

Indeed, if such pernicious activity is punished so severely so that it will not be contemplated, then the media might be encouraged to concentrate on more serious reporting. That will be a good thing for the health of our society, but I fear the moral rot has gone too far.

The star of The Good Life and To The Manor Born is president of a prisons charity which works to divert young people away from a life of crime.

She believes that teenagers and young adults would behave better if they spent more time with grandparents and other older people.

I hope she would like the idea of the Lifebox, the area in My Last Song where people can store and upload their digital memories so they are available for future generations. In effect it’s a digital time capsule.

The reason it should find favour with Ms Keith is that it is ideally suited to encourage younger members of the family to help older members use it. And in doing so, they will learn the lifestories and family history being imparted. This bonding might indeed make youngsters more law abiding. 

For in return, the young relatives will teach their grandparents and other older loved ones to use a computer with more confidence, the result being a unique and valued piece of family and social history which otherwise would be lost forever. The soft skills coaching of their elders will give youngsters a greater sense of purpose and self esteem.

If your family could benefit from all the features of the Lifebox, including drawing the generations closer together and older people being more computer literate, look no further than buying a Lifebox for the person whose memories should be safely stored, or for the youngster to show to his grandparents, ready to sit down and populate it every week or so.

And that, dear readers, is why there is now an irrevocable shift in the world’s economic order.

Those in the UK will be aware of the scores of thousands of jobs in the public sector, created by Labour and Conservative governments, which are not in the slightest bit productive. Many, but by no means all, are necessary to make our society run more smoothly, to help the disadvantaged, to regulate, to administer, to advise.

The private sector is also teeming with well paid overstaffed functions which produce little of value at one end of the scale, and hugely overpaid executives and directors at the other.

The service industries are particularly good at paying their staff a lot of money by providing services that might add value, but produce little that has a tangible long term worth.

In private and public sectors, the pay and conditions have been protected first by trade unions and later by the collective greed of workers and bosses scratching each others’ backs, unified by the shallow values of the baby boomers. Lots of people shouting ‘Me, Me, Me!’ soon becomes ‘Us, Us, Us!’.

Until only a short time ago, our pay increased every year, bonuses went up, pensions rose and our working life reduced.  As we live longer, our retirement extends and with it the time greater numbers of people are being paid for doing nothing.

We are now facing the consequences of an economy which has for decades been based on unproductive overpaid employment as our population grows increasingly old.

Meanwhile in countries such as India, China, Brazil, Vietnam, Korea, and increasingly in Africa and South America, vast and growing numbers of people have been working very hard from an early age until they expire making goods or harvesting food or extracting raw materials, all of which are sold for a profit. Their pay has been low, and kept low – talk of workers’ rights getting you imprisoned or laughed at.

In the UK, the increased income was used to borrow to buy property on the erroneous assumption that this would permanently gain in value. With our property as a safety net, we cheerfully got further in debt to buy more goods and foodstuffs, most of them made and grown by the millions upon millions of people in the by now fast developing world.

And so those countries grew richer as we got more in debt. That debt couldn’t be sustained once the property edifice started to shake and values dropped. Banks had huge books of toxic debt, interbank lending ceased and overstretched banks had to be bailed out by the government.

In many other developed states without a solid manufacturing base and without a well developed service sector, the situation is worse. In the southern European countries productivity per head is falling from a low figure, pensions are over generous, retirement age is in the 50s, working hours are low, unemployment high and tax payments a small proportion of what they should be.

Contradictions within the EU mean that a common currency is untenable; Germany will be able to make the financial rules, and enforce the austerity measures for a two tier Europe.

The electorates in these countries won’t like being told to accept reduced hand outs, pensions, to work longer and harder, but fundamental economic decisions won’t be influenced by the ballot box as much as by the markets and credit rating companies.

Funding the bail out of bankrupt economies are those countries in the developing world who have become very rich as money has flowed into their treasuries from the developed nations. China, India and the emerging economic countries will get us out of this mess, because it’s in their interest to do so, but the rules will be forever changed.

So the world is now one where in the west our lives are less influenced by democratic decisions than by the bond markets; Germany has gained economic and political hegemony in much of Europe, and countries such as China and India are more powerful than the UK, France, Italy, Spain and before long the US.

It was never supposed to be like this, but we had better realise that the old order, shaped by statesmen and industrialists after the second world war, has changed forever.

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.

Highly-placed sources in Sri Lanka have told Channel 4 News that both men visited Sri Lanka every year now for a decade. And every time Dr Fox has gone there, Mr Werritty’s been with him – even while on holiday. It is worth reading this piece from Channel 4 News to get some idea of how unprincipled both men have been in their support of, and benefit from, a most unpleasant Sri Lankan regime.

Fox and Werritty have also on several occasions been to the Middle East where lucrative arms deals are on offer through third parties (hello Mr Werritty) with rich and undemocratic states, often willing to use sophisticated weapons to kill their own people.

Little wonder that Fox wanted Werritty to be involved in discussions rather than civil servants who aren’t allowed to benefit personally from arms deals.

What is so repugnant about this is that the arms trade is about making and selling equipment that is brilliantly effective at killing people. Liam Fox, remember, is a medical doctor (as is his wife) so how he reconciles his medical ethics with the knowledge that the deals he (or his friend) will result in human death, the funerals of innocents and wholesale suffering only he will know in the dark hours of the night.

John Major’s government was destroyed by sleaze.  David Cameron must remove Dr Fox from his government as quickly as possible. We cannot afford to have such an unethical Minister of State for Defence as Liam Fox holding such a critical position that impinges on our security and place in the world.

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.

Some of the landlords of their care homes will take over the running of them. As for the others, well there are few organisations lining up to take these over and so the Government has made the statement that nobody currently in these homes will be made homeless. Any further details conspicuous by their absence.

The Government must be aware of the ever growing problems being stored up in the provision of care for the increasing older population. It’s a double whammy…more people are joining the age group of 80 plus, and more within this group are living longer.

There is no sign of the reversal of the social trend of families, particularly those of the vast majority ‘traditional’ English families, losing their cohesion. An interesting aside here is that most of the immigrant communities bring with them strong family values, not all of them virtuous as can be seen by the increase in honour killings within the more tightly knit groups, whilst the strength of family unit of the indigenous population weakens.

So who will provide the care that an increasingly large proportion of this increasingly large group of elderly people will require?

There may be a huge market here, but I don’t think there’s a business in the market. Residential care requires a lot of costs: spacious properties and their maintenance; specialist equipment and medical supplies and a large labour force.

The income? Local authorities won’t have the money unless given increased ring fenced grants from central government. And the governing party (or coalition) will be loathe to increase taxation to pay these costs until this becomes the only socially acceptable answer.

My guess is that within ten years we’ll see a two tier system for the care of our elderly. A private sector catering for those (or their families) with the funds to pay for a high quality level of residential care and a state funded sector of homes run by a decentralised arms length agency for the rest.

It was with this sort of problem in mind that we put some advice on funding care options onto My Last Song.  It will be prudent to read it and to act on it before it’s too late.

The passage of time, like death, is impossible to deny but is often overlooked.

Instead of a ‘good death’ with their loved ones by them, their emotional, physical and spiritual needs being met, they will be taken to a hospital where, quite often, a lonely, frightening and upsetting death awaits them.

My Last Song has produced an innovative and holistic ‘Death Plan’ template to encourage discussion about a person’s last days so that they have a ‘good death’.  The areas covered in the plan include medical treatment, physical comfort, emotional and spiritual needs and ways in which stress and fear can be reduced.

The questions are designed to involve the patient’s doctor, close family and friends and even professional advisers so that the person whose life is ending has no concerns about issues, such as their will or who looks after their pets, as the plan enables these topics to be addressed.

At the very least, death plans such as this enable death and dying to be talked about in an calm, unemotional and rational way. All too often talk of death is put off as it is too upsetting or awkward until it is too late.

At best, it means that the patient and loved ones are in control of the end of life experience, and the death is as comfortable, comforting and reassuring as possible.

The My Last Song death plan is easy to fill out, it can be edited at any time and stored securely in the Lifebox, along with all the other end of life information such as funeral wishes that close family members and the executor will need.

The Nato offensive in Libya, of which he was the major architect, shows little sign of success.

It’s costing the country many millions of pounds although a Government spokesman told us we shouldn’t worry because the money comes from a contingency budget for overseas wars.

If ever confirmation was needed that our rulers believe we are fools, this was it. The British people want these vast sums spent on education, hospitals, transport and investment which will improve our quality of life rather than on killing other people in countries which have nothing to do with our national security.

Such was Cameron’s enthusiasm to go to war with Gaddafi when it looked as if his forces were going to massacre the inhabitants of Benghazi that he persuaded Obama and Sarkozy to go from no flight zone to large scale military intervention in a matter of days.

The increased bombing has, of course, resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians. And what, Mr Cameron, can justify the recent bombing of the compound of one of Gadaffi’s advisers whose family and servants are now dead or injured?

As a result of Cameron’s Libya policy we have neither the resources nor the international backing for further ‘liberal intervention’ (a dishonest phrase to describe scoring PR points by bombing the ‘bad guys’) in Syria, where Assad is repressing his opponents with dreadful cruelty, or anywhere else in the Middle East where the despots crush rebellion unimpeded by our impotence.

Our policy now is to wait for things to return to ‘normal’ in the Middle East, our influence reduced by our short term adventurism (sorry David, ‘liberal intervention’) in Libya.

In Afghanistan, more of our soldiers are being killed while it is obvious that the Afghans are still years away, if ever, from having a reliable army, honest police and effective security force.

The US are speeding up their withdrawal next year because President Obama realises that the Taliban have the unassailable advantage of living in Afghanistan and being supported by the people.

Not for the first time in history have the forces of a world power returned from that country with its tails between its legs.

The first lesson of military strategy is not to fight a war you can’t win. Cameron should have pulled out of Afghanistan as soon as he came to power, and on this he would have had the support of the populist media and the overwhelming majority of the country.

On the domestic front, 10 Downing Street must have the letter U stuck up in every room.

Andrew Lansley’s much needed reforms have been watered down after the health unions, led by the BMA, objected, followed by the chatterati unable to understand that their beloved NHS is in desperate need of surgery to stop the haemorrhaging of money and morale.

And now Ken Clarke’s sensible and cost saving reforms of sentencing have been abandoned even after being signed off by the Cabinet. I can’t see any rational reason for Cameron’s decision to reverse Clarke’s policy to reduce prison sentences, to lengthen the discounted time in prison if people plead guilty and to vary the sentences in rape, a universally repugnant crime, but committed with different degrees of harm and violence.

However, the Sun and Daily Mail came out against these ‘overly lenient’ reforms with all guns firing, saying the Tories had gone soft on law and order. And so our pusillanimous Prime Minister stamps his foot on the brake and does a 180 degree turn.

Indeed, if you read his speech you will see a reactionary ‘lock ‘em up and throw the key away’ Tory dinosaur wallowing in pre-historic slime.

Oh for a Prime Minister with courage, wisdom and leadership qualities.

Their message – that the world will be a better place when countries behave like theirs – is contradicted by their foreign policy actions.

No sooner had Prime Minister Cameron waved President Obama goodbye than  he announced the deployment of Apache helicopters in Libya.  

Our objective is clearly to get rid of President Gaddafi through military rather than political means…yes, killing the same ruler that we rehabilitated a couple of years ago as the newly found friend of the west.

The BBC this morning suggested that the helicopters were likely to be used in targeting Gaddifi as he sped nightly from local hospital to local hospital to avoid NATO attacks.

Apache helicopters are very efficient killing machines with their night vision optical targeting devises which guide large calibre bullets onto the target with unerring accuracy from long distances.  It’s likely that Gaddafi will be soon killed or decide to surrender.

However, if Cameron follows the new US doctrine of dealing with its enemies, Gaddifi won’t be given the opportunity to surrender.

It is clear that Osama Bin Laden was in no position to defend himself when he was shot in the face in front of his cowering family by the crack US Naval  Seal team, a murder and breach of international law watched live by the President and Secretary of State in Washington.

Bin Laden should have been brought out alive to answer for the wicked crimes he orchestrated. This would have justified the American’s uninvited encroachment into another state’s territory and given the world a message that if the US is going to act as an international policeman, then the criminals will end up in court rather than murdered without a trial, rather like the victims of corrupt police squads in Baltimore.

Bin Laden would also have been more useful alive than dead as it’s difficult to get information from corpses rotting on the sea floor.

Cameron and Obama will get away with breaking international law and ordering the murder of terrorists and rulers they have fallen out with as well as the loss of innocent lives as a result.

But David Cameron should understand that the British people don’t like bullies and hypocrites. Nor do we want millions of pounds spent fighting wars that don’t concern us. 

And when the news bulletins show the funerals of the young helicopter crew lost when an Appache is hit by a ground to air missile, we will ask why more British lives are being wasted in futile campaigns that only increase the animosity of those who don’t share our values.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox agrees that it’s legitimate to degrade the command and control and intelligence networks of the regime, which is code for bombing more of Libya’s roads, railways, food depots, factories and refineries.

So what started as a ‘no fly zone’ now looks like an increased war effort with the aim of killing Gaddafi and destroying Libya’s infrastructure.

Why is Sir David comfortable with this new doctrine that allows an alliance of external countries to go to war on the side of one of the protagonists in another country’s civil war in order to kill its leader and enable ‘regime change’? It would seem prima facie to break international law.

Does Liam Fox know who is likely to take over the running of a divided and tribal country if Gaddafi is killed? How can he be sure Libya won’t descend into greater chaos and bloodshed?

Don’t both of them recognise that Libyans who neither loathe Gaddafi nor are willing to die for the rebel cause are unlikely to view Nato with much goodwill when they suffer from the affects of destroyed infrastructure, lack of food, water, petrol and other essentials, and when, as Baroness Amos, the UN’s under-secretary for humanitarian relief, points out, far more of them will be killed.

Valerie Amos reflects public opinion in this county when she argues for a political rather than a military solution to Libya’s civil war.

We know what’s behind our intervention in Libya.  At a time when the government wants to reduce the military budget, fighting a war in the full view of  the media is a wonderful opportunity for our military leaders to say the UK needs to retain its ability to intervene in such conflicts for humanitarian reasons and to rid the world of dangerous despots.

To which the answer is ‘No, we can only afford a military force to defend our legitimate national interest, not go to war in countries that don’t threaten us.  Our intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has ended in failure so let’s not repeat our mistake in Libya.’

The voters should also say to Liam Fox that we aren’t prepared to support spending £3million a day to drop bombs to destroy a Libya’s intrastructure, kill its young soldiers and get rid of Col Gaddafi. What happens in Libya should be for Libyans to decide.

But the military and the Government won’t take much notice…they know only too well the rich pickings for the UK firms that will get the contracts to rebuild the infrastructure once a sort of peace has settled on Libya and to sell arms to re-equip the country’s forces with yet more deadly weapons.

As ever, the taxpayers will pay for the war while a few rich people will get much richer once it’s over.

I fully support the aims of Dying Matters, a broad coalition headed by the National Council for Palliative Care, to raise awareness of death, dying and bereavement. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise since My Last Song was established in the belief that more people would address their mortality on line, and use My Last Song to ‘Go out on a high note.’

I take heart in the increasing signs that society is more ready to address the subject of death in a positive way. This, I think, is because people are living longer and therefore most deaths don’t cause the terrible grieving such as Queen Victoria’s reaction to the early passing of her beloved Prince Albert.

So, does the ending of a long and fulfilled life mean that death is easier to address?  Is it also easier to accept given a medical diagnosis of a terminal illness that allows time to come to terms with a life that will end?

For many people the thought of discussing the end of life causes distress, anxiety and embarrassment, and they want to put it off. However, as Dying Matters understands, if you face the subject from a more informed and positive approach, the negatives are reduced.

My Last Song has produced an innovative and holistic ‘Death Plan’ template to encourage discussion about a person’s last days alive so that they have a ‘good death’.  The issues that are covered include medical treatment, physical comfort, emotional and spiritual needs and ways in which stress and fear can be reduced.

The questions are designed to involve the person’s doctor, close family and friends and even professional advisers so that the person whose life is ending has no concerns about issues, such as their will or who looks after their pets, that should have been resolved.

I hope that all those who support Dying Matters and who will use this week to raise awareness will also see the benefits of promoting personalised death plans as a way of reducing the fear of dying and increasing our control over how we end our lives.

Many people have also told me that they imagine what their funeral will be like because of the people who will attend and hear the tributes, listen to the last songs and swap stories and reminiscences.

These are probably the reasons why living funerals are becoming more popular here and in the US.

When speaking to comedian Arthur Smith, by chance a neighbour of mine, about My Last Song, he told me that his brother Richard, a respected doctor, had written a blog supporting the advantages of living funerals, not the least of which is the advanced planning means far flung loved ones can attend whereas they are unlikely to make the funeral at shorter notice.

A living funeral is the logical destination of the wish to have a farewell ceremony that is a celebration of your life, rather than the traditional grief-fest.

And why not have a ‘party of a lifetime’ to celebrate your life with the people whose lives have touched your life. You can thank them, remind them of their importance to you, swap memories and stories, share your achievements and hopes and, not least, be the centre of attention.

As the founder of My Last Song, I would also emphasise the importance of selecting the music that you’ve most enjoyed, and which has special significance.  The same attention should be paid to the food, the drink and the other details that will make this a party that people will never forget.

You should also organise someone to make a video of the party, or at the least take still photographs.  The video and images can then be put in your Lifebox to be accessed by loved ones in future years, so that your memory, and your memorable last party, can be enjoyed many times over.

Clearly you have to take your family with you, and some of the more traditional members might disapprove.  However, the advantages over and above people’s liking of a good party, include the fact that they won’t have to pay for a reception once you’ve died and also reducing the grief they might otherwise feel when faced with your demise.

After all, how much better to look back on someone’s life and remember the warmth and enjoyment of a final celebration than wish they had been able to share this once it’s too late.

Once the grim reaper has called, the party really is over.

It was written after several members of the coalition refused to be further drawn into what will be a long and expensive military engagement as the rebel forces, helped and probably armed by Nato, face stalemate in confronting Gaddafi’s better trained and equipped military.

Cameron, Obama and Sarkozy are trying to take the moral high ground on the day when their commanders first denied the Libyan Government’s claim that they had bombed Tripoli, only to admit it hours later when journalists told the world they had witnessed the bombings.

Their letter gives the impression that the Libyan people are at one against Gaddafi who is only staying in power by engaging in ‘medieval sieges’ of rebel held towns, ‘raining down shells and missiles on his own people’ who he is ‘mercilessly massacring’.

We know propaganda when we see it, just as we know that for several nights it was Nato bombs that were dropped from great heights.

We can also work out that a fair number of the Libyan people are not deserting Gaddafi and that his troops are more loyal than our leaders would have us believe.

It’s clear to all except these three ‘world leaders’ that the outcome of the Libyan conflict must be a sound political agreement, with the two sides negotiating a compromise. Yet this letter rules out any solution in which Gaddafi ‘plays a part in Libya’s future Government’ though several paragraphs later, and almost as an afterthought, the letter states that ‘it will be the people of Libya, not the UN, who choose their new constitution, elect their new leaders and write the next chapter in their history.’

The authors of the letter should contemplate that final clause, because in fact Libya hardly has a history.  It is an artificial construct as a sovereign nation state, having been loosely governed by the Ottoman Empire from the mid 16^th century and the Italians between 1911 and 1947. It’s made up of Arabs and Berbers, neither of which place loyalty to nation above that of village, tribe, clan or religion.

Historical fact is a minor inconvenience for our leaders, confident that the mass of Libyans are hungry for western style democracy, with ‘homes and hospitals…basic utilities and the institutions to underpin a prosperous and open society.’  And as they say, Nato members ‘will assist in rebuilding’ what they and Gaddafi have destroyed.

That, I’m afraid, rather gives the game away. A lot of western companies will get rich contracts once the final shells have landed and the bodies buried.

Among Ghanaians in general, and the Akan people in particular, one event that brings us together more than any other is bereavement. 

In rural Ghana where even now birthday and wedding celebrations are virtually unknown, funerals have always been a significant feature of our social life. However, as funerals are all about mourning rather than partying, I believe that we in Ghana have lost its meaning, replacing it with commercialisation and exhibitionism.    

Until quite recently, one significant aspect of Akan tradition was that mourning and feasting never went together. Today, however, when you attend a funeral you may be forgiven for thinking that it’s a big party with huge amounts of food on offer.

Video coverage has also become a familiar item on a funeral budget, which given the cost in what is still a relatively poor economy, makes little sense. 

Another well documented fashionable trend is the use of expensive coffins. They are now so costly that people are now deliberately destroying them after depositing them in the grave so they won’t be stolen!  

Until very recently, bereaved family members only wore rubber sandals on their feet as it was considered inappropriate to be mourning while in expensive clothes. These days, however, ladies’ funeral clothing in particular is more suitable as party outfits. 

It is now common for bodies to be kept in the mortuary for six months or longer to enable dilapidated homes to be renovated or sometimes new ones built before the burial.  

Previously the body would be buried as soon as possible and the funeral held at a later date.  Now dead bodies stay in the mortuary for as long as it takes people to raise funds for a ‘grand funeral’.  

The high cost of funerals is mainly due to our brothers and sisters living outside the country.  Most of them are usually constrained from visiting home as regularly as they want due to their limited finances.  Yet in their attempt to impress some spend lavishly on funerals with borrowed money which on their return, they try to recoup by organising parties under the guise of funerals. 

And the irony is that we do not really care much about the final resting place of the dead.  Cemeteries in Ghana are often neglected, with weeds growing among the graves. 

It would be better if the huge sums of money spent on funerals could be used to improve the final resting place of our loved ones.  

It’s time our traditional rulers, politicians and religious leaders waged war against expensive funerals because it is destroying our society.

In 1867, Quaker Social Action (now known as QSA) was set up in the East End of London as a result of the appalling poverty affecting the working class in that area.

Some 144 years later, the levels of poverty have, thank goodness, declined, but poverty still exists in the East End as it does in many parts of the country. And the recent recession, increasing unemployment and public sector cuts are making the situation worse for a lot of families.

Last year, to meet a growing concern, QSA launched Down To Earth, a project that addresses what I’ll call for shorthand, ‘funeral poverty.’ The project helps people living on low incomes to have the funeral they want at a price they can afford.

As their website explains, “when someone close to us dies, money is often the last thing on our minds.” In 2008 the average cost of a funeral was £7,000, and for families facing financial disadvantage and low income, finding that amount of money can be the first step in a downward spiral of financial difficulty and debt.

It can also cause a great deal of family strife and individual anxiety, at a time when people face extreme distress and anguish.

The Down To Earth project deserves much credit and support for addressing a very real issue that’s all too often ignored, along with everything else to do with our demise.

It may not be a particularly popular or attractive good cause, but consider its main purpose…’to help bereaved people to plan a funeral that honours and celebrates the life of the person who has died, but which will not have a negative effect on their own financial future.’

Hopefully Dying Matters will use its increasingly high profile to support Down To Earth, and also visitors to My Last Song, which has chosen QSA as its April Charity of the Month, will see the benefits of leaving a legacy so that their deaths will mean that the funerals of others need not cause distress and hardship but can be a fitting end of life event for those less fortunate.

His hugely underwhelming answer: “For people to get on and do better.”

This low point in an appalling interview was almost matched by his statement that by encouraging the people to take action, Labour will get the Government to change its policy “like it did when it dropped its idea to sell the forests.”

The ‘people’ did not get the Government to do a u-turn on this rather silly and marginal policy.  It was a small minority of the middle class who made a lot of noise, as Miliband knows.

With such an uncharismatic and hopeless leader, the Labour Party is likely to be in opposition for many years to come, and as someone who until the Iraq invasion was a Labour supporter, this disappoints me.

I’m also very disappointed that David Cameron is a warmonger. He was the NATO leader who first wanted a no-fly zone over Libya which within days resulted in the Allied air force being the air support arm of the rebels, and hugely destructive NATO missiles raining down on various Libyan targets.

He might think that if enough damage is done to Libya’s armed forces, they will refuse to fight for Gaddifi’s cause and NATO’s military action will have achieved its goal.

But as he observes the burning shells of the Libyan tanks, picked off in a sort of NATO turkey shoot, he should consider the terrible deaths of the Libyan tank crews, burnt alive in seconds if they survive the hundreds of pieces of red hot shrapnel screaming around their turrets. These, Mr Cameron, are someone’s sons, husbands, fathers, brothers.

And does he really think that no innocent civilians will be harmed by the ‘smart’ missiles fired from miles away to destroy compounds in built up areas of Tripoli?

At best the damage will be mental scars, at worst the explosive force and heat that burns the flesh off people, destroys the vital organs and causes the slow and painful deaths of men, women and children who live close to the targets of these vile weapons.  These, Mr Cameron, are families, just like yours.

As they suffer, they won’t be reassured by the knowledge that the destruction of their lives has the backing of the UN, or that your policy is to ’save the lives of Libyans’. Their lives will be sheer agony and uncomprehending horror for which you are in large part responsible.

Yes, Mr Cameron, you probably will force Colonel Gaddifi from power, but at a completely unacceptable cost.

And of course you won’t be shamed by the opposition, because Ed Miliband supports your policy.

It’s not an Alternative Vote we should be wanting when we go to the ballot box in May, but an alternative political philosophy.

When I see innocent people suffer whether at the hands of their rulers, victims of natural disasters, or subject to discrimination and bullying I donate to emergency appeals, support societal change and confront bullies.

But I still cannot see any justification for the west’s military intervention in Libya. Indeed I find it very odd that only a few months after we’re being fed the line that President Gaddafi had reinvented himself as one of the Middle East’s good guys, we are expected to support military action clearly designed to remove him from power.

Why no negotiation with Gaddafi and his diplomats before the precipitous rush into military action? It was that notable opponent of appeasement, Winston Churchill, who said that ‘jaw, jaw is better than war, war.’ There wasn’t much talking to Gaddafi before the war planes went in.

Without little idea of the consequences the west has intervened in a civil war.

It hasn’t started too well. A US jet crash landed in the desert, some Libyan rebels went to rescue the crew and were shot at injured by another US plane.

The inability to distinguish between friend and foe dooms any military action to failure.

The rebels are currently the group on whose side we are intervening, but what happens when they take revenge on the communities and tribes that are loyal to Gaddafi?  Our forces will be in a state of confusion because the political goals of the various governments taking part in this fiasco are ill defined and incoherent.

Why also does the west seem to be so keen to kill innocent Muslims? Images of Libyans killed and maimed by western armed forces, families grief stricken at mass funerals, will without doubt radicalise Muslims in all parts of the world, and we know the terrible consequences of that.

I have a horrible feeling that the western leaders have not learnt from recent mistakes. Libya, like Afghanistan, is a cauldron of factions and tribes whose loyalty is far less to a national leader than to local or provincial government.

The lessons from our failure in Iraq have also been ignored. We have no exit strategy and no plans on how to deal with the power vacuum caused by Gaddifi’s overthrow, and these were overlooked in our haste to destroy Saddam Hussain.

Do our leaders know their history? Libya, created as a country less than 100 years ago, is really the sticking together of two different areas, one with its roots in Greek history, the other with Roman antecedents and 500 kilometres of desert in between. Our intervention might well result in two countries where there is now one, presumably not a regionally destablising outcome we favour.

Am I missing something? If so, please let me know.

Although she wasn’t a member of My Last Song, she may as well have been. And she would have appreciated the Lifebox facility.

She had planned her funeral to the last detail. She wanted to be late for it, so this was an instruction. She wanted it to be interdenominational, so this too was an instruction.

The service included a recital of the Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo and a trumpet solo of Amazing Grace, played by Taylor’s grandson Rhys.

She had the final performance she wanted, but only because she (and her family) had planned it beforehand.

Which is the reason she would have enjoyed visiting My Last Song, which helps and encourages people to plan their funerals as well as other end of life decisions.

Liz Taylor would also have taken advantage of the Lifebox and used it to store specially recorded videos – and one can imagine how good these would have been; readings – similarly dramatic; her life story; and even her secrets – and I bet there are still some she’s taken to the grave with her.

So if you know of anyone who would like to follow in her footsteps, go out in style and be remembered for years to come, you know where to point them.

And who knows, Liz Taylor might have visited My Last Song…we have been getting lots of traffic from California recently.

After listening to some of my favourite numbers, I realised just how appropriate many of his songs were to mark the end of someone’s life. So I spent most of the night playing his songs, listing them, re-ordering them, adding to and amending my choices and when finalised, writing cameo descriptions of their unique appeal and qualities as farewell songs.

The next morning, hardly a word had to be changed when I added the article to My Last Song – called simply Farewell Songs From Neil Diamond.

Now, four months later, I have played every track in the list, and I want you to enjoy the beauty and power of some of these songs. Self indulgent, yes, but please share this indulgence with me by listening to the following by clicking the YouTube clips in the article.

Stones
A haunting, poetic song of recalled love and yearning made more beautiful by the sumptuous arrangement.  Stones marked Diamond’s arrival as a writer of original, complex and exceptionally moving songs, using metaphor and imagery with a confidence that would make him one of the outstanding artists of his generation.

If You Go Away
Originally by Jacques Brel, this is one of the most endearing love songs ever written. Diamond clearly recognised its emotional power and delivers an unforgettably touching, sensitive version.

Play Me
In the most lovely, sensitive couplets Diamond reveals to his lover the extent to which he depends on her for his very existence. ‘You are the sun, I am the moon, You are the words, I am the tune…Play me.’ And if ever a melody was written that matched a song’s sentiments, Diamond achieves it here.

Dear Father
Diamond wrote the score for the film Jonathan Livingstone Seagull including this heart rending tour de force. Symphonic in structure, much of it is instrumental and epic in its aural power and pastoral beauty. ‘Dear Father, we dream while we may,’ is the description of so many lives unfulfilled but no less special.

I’ve Been This Way Before
A particularly appropriate farewell song with Diamond extracting every last drop of emotion. In adding layer upon layer of sound, power and sentiment, Diamond proves he’s the master of poignant sadness. It articulates intense grief, yet also can be read as promising hope and release.

Dry Your Eyes
You get the feeling that Diamond is seeing the crowded church swaying to the swirling rhythms, tears swelling in every eye, the haunting French horns used to scintillating effect as the song comes to an end. ‘And if you can’t recall the reason, can you hear the people sing? Right through the lightening and the thunder to the dark side of the moon, To that distant falling angel that descended much too soon. And come dry your eyes.’ Dry Your Eyes is an almost shameless manipulation of our raw emotions.

Be
Poetry of the highest order, ‘Be as a page that aches for a word, Which speaks on a theme that is timeless, While the one God will make for your day. Sing as a song in search of a voice that is silent, And the one God will make for your way.’ The magnificent arrangement builds into an intense climax, before a gentle closing. The closest Diamond has come to writing a hymn.

Hello Again
Diamond here expresses the grief of parting from a loved one…it hurts so much nothing can disguise it. Unbearable sadness, perfectly expressed.

I Am I Said
Poetic, enigmatic, intense, and emotional with a brilliant arrangement and memorable melody. I Am I Said excites and disturbs in equal measure. His dramatic delivery ensures we share his vulnerability.
Well, if you have got this far, and if you have played some of these tracks I thank you and hope you share my enthusiasm for and love of Neil Diamond’s songs.

As you can gather, they mean a huge amount to me. And, in the right setting, they might mean a lot to others as well.

These findings were picked up by the Dying Matters Coalition which, knowing the interests of the tabloid news desks (and probably its members also), headlined the piece they wrote on their website: ‘Most men would like to die having sex’.

Why let the facts get in the way of a good story…only one in five men said they would like to spend their final moments engaging in a spot of hanky panky.

More important than the imprecise description of research statistics is the good work the Dying Matters Coalition is doing in getting death talked about.  In this case, the vital issue of where people want to die instead of hospitals which is where most people will experience a possibly lonely and frightening end.

Dying Matters put this item on their Facebook page which resulted in some interesting comments. One woman said she could understand why ‘some blokes would want to go while they’re coming’.

Another reminded us of Peter Sellers’ comment on having a heart attack while making love to Britt Ekland: ‘I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.’

So well done Marie Curie and Dying Matters. Your efforts have resulted in a witty discussion about sex and death…the final taboos are gradually being defeated, and that can only be a good thing.

I had the idea for the website because I knew that as music is so important in people’s lives they would want this reflected in their deaths. And so the musical choices for their last songs would have to be wider than the fairly limited and often inappropriate dozen or so funeral hymns.

Not that there’s anything wrong with hymns chosen for funerals. They can be perfect in the right context, as a contributor to the site has pointed out with great conviction.

I was, therefore, delighted to read a review in the Guardian by the excellent Tim Ashton of a CD of Liszt’s funeral music.

As he says in his review, the music results from the composer’s confrontations with mortality. The album includes Three Funeral Odes of 1866, ferocious laments for Liszt’s son Daniel who died in 1859 and his elder daughter Blandine who was taken from him in 1862.

I have also recently come across the ultimate compilation of classical funeral music, courtesy of Virgin Classics.

It’s called Funeral Music, a simple title which hardly describes the glorious pieces from composers including Samuel Barber, Mozart, Verdi, Beethoven, Faure, Bach and Mahler.

Love and death are two huge inspirations for the creative mind, and nothing better illustrates this that the wonderful music that has been written when ‘confronting mortality’.

So please consider this when choosing the music for the final farewell. Or when simply wanting to hear profound, glorious and memorable music.

Yet according to the Office For National Statistics 69 per cent of people in England and Wales died in hospitals and hospices in 2009. And think tank Demos believes that by 2030, just one in ten people will die at home, the rest dying in hospitals and care homes.

I believes that personalised death plans will enable people to be more likely to have the death they want rather than the frightening and lonely end of life experienced in many hospitals. The sort of treatment old and dying people can expect in NHS hospitals was graphically shown on Dispatches earlier this week, confirmation of the Health Service Ombudsman’s criticism of how the NHS deals with the elderly.

The main cause of this often appalling standard of treatment of the dyings is that they don’t have a voice because death is so rarely discussed. Despite the best endeavours of Dying Matters, death is still a taboo subject and therefore the dying haven’t been consulted on how they wish their final days to be spent.

Yet if ailing elderly people and those with terminal illness were encouraged to fill in a death plan, it would mean the involvement of family members and family doctors who would then know what end of life experience the dying person wanted.

Dr Chris Browne, contributing editor of the health section of My Last Song, agrees: “As a GP I believe that death plans should be encouraged as they can empower the patient and their families to take greater control of the end of life experience.  This won’t happen without people’s wishes being discussed, evaluated, written down and then acted upon by family members and medical professionals.”

The death plan template within the Lifebox section of My Last Song covers much more than medical decisions. The headings enable the dying person to be as comfortable in mind and body as possible when their final moments arrive.

These headings allows people to state where they want to die, the level of medical intervention they want, who they want to visit them when they are dying, who should be there, what they want to hear, (music, poetry, prayers), what they want to smell (incense, scented candles, oils, flowers), how they want to be touched (hands held, caressed, gently massaged), and importantly and often overlooked, being clear of worries (knowing their loved ones and pets are cared for, their estate is in order, their will is up to date).

After all, pregnant mothers-to-be are encouraged to create a birth plan so that they are confident that giving birth will be as positive an experience as possible. The same should be achieved if death plans were more widely used.

On Sunday, David Cameron announced that the government was discussing with its allies the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Libyan aircraft killing Libyan protesters.

Thankfully this now seems less likely to be imposed because of the growing realisation that any Western military intervention will:

• Unite the country behind Gaddafi:
• Present Gaddafi with the PR opportunity to show it’s western powers that want him overthrown;
• Provide Muslim extremists throughout the world with proof that the West is at war with Islam;
• Risk the lives of British airmen;
• Cost a lot of money.

This country must return to the doctrine that our military should only be used to protect our national interest or to enforce a UN resolution against nations that break international law by invading another country.

Our soldiers should not be dying in Afghanistan so that girls might get a decent education or banditry might decrease. All we are doing is propping up an unpopular and corrupt regime in Kabul and the quicker we pull out the better. The Taliban won’t be defeated because they are more representative of the diverse and ungovernable peoples of Afghanistan than a distrusted and discredited administration.

As the temptation to intervene in Libya recedes, now is the time to press ahead with reshaping our armed forces.

We don’t need the weapons to fight wars in far off countries which don’t threaten our security. We don’t need the arsenal that assumes conflict with hostile nations, for we are part of what is now an interdependent world where any potentially adversarial nation will lose everything by attempting military action against another nation.

We need a military that has the intelligence and equipment to defend us from terrorists and to join international peacekeeping forces at a realistically modest level.

So when the generals, admirals and air vice-marshals argue that the situation in Libya demonstrates that the cuts to the military budget are wrong, the Government should say that on the contrary, it proves that we shouldn’t plan to intervene in other countries’ internal issues but instead concentrate on our national security.

This will cost far less money, and more importantly, far less loss of life, whether innocent civilians or that of our own servicemen, far too many of whom have been killed not to protect their country, but in pursuit of confused and misguided foreign policy.

To intervene in another country to affect regime change is against international law. Shooting down the aircraft of another country is an act of war. It will lead to more deaths, more funerals of loved ones here and in Libya.

Haven’t we learnt from our doomed intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan that we should not interfere in the affairs of other countries?

Because of the strategic importance of the middle east and the arab countries of North Africa, the world’s media are covering the story in droves. And as a consequence, western populations are seeing the brutal murders of peaceful protesters by tyrannical dictators such as Mubarak and Gaddafi. Understandably, the public’s sympathy are with these innocent people.

Playing to the public gallery, David Cameron thinks that his popularity will increase if he flexes some military muscle and imposes a no-flight zone.

Think again, please Mr Cameron. Explain what gives you the right to judge good and evil on the international stage.

The North Korean regime is starving its people to death. Mr Mugabe killed and tortured his opponents for over a decade, and people are still being beaten up by his thugs. The Burmese junta is a wicked and cruel dictatorship that has killed thousands of people who want democracy in their country.  These are just some of the countries in which rulers are cruel and despotic beyond imagination, and beyond the coverage of the world’s media.

I’m afraid to say that Mr Cameron’s desire for military intervention is to bolster his popularity, and it frightens me.  He must resist taking measures that are illegal to placate media pressure and uninformed public opinion.  It’s called leadership, Mr Cameron, just as much as is the image of a strong man ordering fighter aircraft to shoot down other aircraft.

Similarly it was media pressure that forced the British government to go to the huge cost and effort of rescuing and evacuating British workers in Libya. Surely this is the responsibility of their employers, the oil companies making huge profits by extracting this valuable commodity from the Libyan desert.

Surely they can afford to have planes on standby to evacuate their workers when, as their risk assessment experts will have recognised, the regimes in Tripoli, Cairo, Tunis and, dare one say it, Riyadh, begin to topple.  Or are they too busy looking at ways to avoid paying tax to the UK government?

I doubt very much they will be handed the bill for the military planes and vessels used to evacuate their staff, so they win both ways. Lots of profit, not much tax to pay and when things go wrong, the bill is paid for by the taxpayer.

Just because the Sun and the Daily Mail cry out for action is no reason to break international law, engage in deadly military activities and cost the country millions of pounds it can’t afford. We would do better for the government to take on tax avoiding corporates rather than dictatorships in foreign parts.

I felt unable to call on this resort last night as the programme I wanted to watch was Dispatches on Channel 4 which featured three people close to death who filmed the treatment they were given by the NHS.

I tried to watch it on my PC, but the broadband connection was playing up, so I only watched a little but what I saw was shocking, and this has been confirmed by comments, particularly those on the Dying Matters facebook page.

NHS end of life treatment is appalling, but this is to a large extent due to the client base having such low expectations and failing to demand better service.

Contrast it to the facilities and level of treatment provided to expectant mothers.

Mothers-to-be are given lots of advice, midwives and pre-natal specialists encourage questions, maternity wards are colourful, pleasant, uplifting places and individual birth plans are discussed. There’s a sense of well-being and an openness in facing the forthcoming event.

Death is as inevitable as the birth, but it’s treated very differently. Of course, one doesn’t expect medical staff to approach the end of a life with cheerful smiles. There needs to be a much more sympathetic and careful approach.

But as the Dispatches programme proved, sympathy and understanding are often sadly lacking when NHS staff deal with the dying, and it’s mainly due to the fact that families of the very elderly don’t address the forthcoming death.

Until people are able to look a doctor or nurse in the eye and say ‘I want to discuss how you will treat my loved one at the end of their life’ things will change hardly at all. While we continue to ignore death, find it uncomfortable to address, postpone the distress or just hand the consequences to others, we shouldn’t complain too much if the quality of its medical care management falls below our expectations.

I’ve gone on about it before, but a major step to improve this situation will be the acceptance of personal death plans which will involve the ailing patient, close loved ones and the appropriate medical professionals.

The My Last Song death plan is a holistic model, covering more than medical treatment but also the mental, emotional and spiritual needs of the patient so that at the end of life the dying person is in a state of comfort, peace, contentment and happiness.

There may or may not be a journey then embarked on, but if there is, it’s a good place from where to start.

“Why,” he asked, “would anyone want to visit a website that makes you think about deaths and funerals?”

“Because if you don’t think about it until it’s too late, it really is too late,” I answered.  ”Death is inevitable so plan for it in advance. My Last Song helps and supports people to plan so that things are better when the dreadful time comes.”

How so?  If your loved ones don’t have the information needed for a death certificate, how are they going to get it when you’re dead?

If family members don’t know your funeral wishes, how can they avoid the stress of wondering what you would have wanted? Some families tear themselves apart when arguing over the type – and cost – of the funeral.

Planning a funeral in advance can save a lot of money. You can take out an inflation proofed funeral plan, or you can think about what part of the arrangements you really need, which can be done by the family, and where costs can be reduced.

And, planned properly, the funeral can be a positive, celebratory and unique event that becomes a treasured memory. Unfortunately, all too often, funerals are rushed, inappropriate services that don’t match the lifestyle or views of the departed. In many ways a traditional funeral is a Victorian religious ritual completely out of place in the 21^st century.

You may even see the benefits of planning a farewell event before the death, so that family, friends, ex-colleagues, neighbours old and new can get together for a party at which you are the centre of attraction, giving your final messages.

Or you can ensure the reception is the sort of event you want to be remembered by…music, dancing, speeches, jokes, great food and drink.

It couldn’t be easier to organise. All the information is available on the website, and then you store in your Lifebox your wishes, the music you want played, the ceremony you want…as well as the other personal details your next of kin and executors will need. Simple…and crucial.

We only have one life, and only one death. My Last Song can’t help to make life memorable, but it can make the ending rather special.

When I read it I thought it summed up the emotional reasons to have a Lifebox, available via My Last Song.

The Lifebox can make someone  ‘live on’ by storing photographs, specially recorded videos and audio messages, scanned documents and uniquely drafted personal information such as life history, details of friends and family, achievements, interests, hobbies and favourite activities including most enjoyed films, plays, holidays, cars, music…the list is as long or short as befits the individual life that is being memorised online.

The ‘saved’ life is not open for all to see if stored in the Lifebox as it can only be opened by the people who have been given the access details by the Lifebox owner. Those granted permission to access the content of the Lifebox would be close family members who, when wanting to remember more clearly their departed loved one, can then play the specially recorded messages and read the letters and share the thoughts that will remind them of the life, personality and unique qualities of their loved one.

Those close relatives will, hopefully, feel less sad, the loss being easier to bear if this information is left for them to access when needed.

They will also admire the foresight of the relative for using the Lifebox not just to store such wonderfully unique memories and personal information to hand on to future generations, but the vital information required by close family members and executors to deal with the probate issues and funeral arrangements.

This type of memorisation, using a safe secure online storage space, adds so much more to the ‘family tree’ information usually limited to dates of birth, marriage and death, names of partner(s) and children, with a few other details added if someone has the time to do the research on the life of the family member thus recorded.

All these are compelling reasons to get a Lifebox, but none as much as the fact that it gives you digital immortality in the hearts and minds of your loved ones.

Today presenter Evan Davies suggested to Dr Julie Rugg who chairs the cemetery research group at the University of York that natural burial grounds offered the solution as they had enough capacity, were outside built up areas and were environmentally friendly.

Dr Rugg replied that natural burial grounds were difficult and expensive to reach particularly for older relatives.  She had come across people in London who needed to use five buses to visit the graves of their loved ones situated in these often remote locations.

She has a point, although such issues haven’t stopped the 30 per cent year on year rise in the number of people being buried in natural woodland sites.

Rosie Inman-Cook, who runs the Association of Natural Burial Grounds, believes the 240 natural burial grounds in the UK “should meet the demand for the foreseeable future.”

Even so, we should take seriously Dr Rugg’s opinion. While from the viewpoint of the reasonably fit and affluent, natural burial has many environmental advantages, to a less well off old person getting to a woodland burial to attend the interment and thereafter visiting the location, presents real disadvantages.

Dr Rugg’s suggested solution was the reuse of the space already taken by a body in our urban cemeteries after it had been there for about 100 years.

While I can see the sense of this, my main worry is the loss of the wonderful gravestones that are such a pleasure when walking in the impressive civic graveyards that our Victorian forebears situated in what was then the outer areas of our towns and cities.

I also think people will not want to bury their loved ones in a space that was previously occupied by an earlier grave.

It seems to me that our age will see its dead being put in fields and woods where they enhance the environment and where there is less pressure on space.

This will present problems, but these can be overcome if families and friends help those more disadvantaged to get to natural burial sites. Maybe that is something that the Big Society can address.

The ombudsman, Ann Abraham, said the patients whose cases she reviewed suffered unnecessary pain, neglect and distress.

Her review is even more chilling when one bears in mind the huge increase in the number of older people the NHS will be treating in the years ahead. Those who are 70 and older are the fastest growing section of the population and in 2015 will measure well over seven million in England alone.

It is a sad fact that many old people who are admitted to hospital then die there, against their wishes and those of their loved ones.

This desire not to end one’s life in hospital will be made stronger by the growing belief that the standard of medical care will not be of the expected level, highlighted by today’s findings.

So it is even more essential then to address the uncomfortable issues about end of life treatment, care levels and, yes, death.

People are entitled to a ‘good death’, not a lonely, frightening and sad ending.

Which is why I’m such a strong advocate of the introduction of personalised death plans. These will encourage the ailing, their close family members and their doctors to address issues such as the level of medical intervention and where they wish to die.

The death plan provided by My Last Song also includes decisions such as who the dying patient wants to be present, the spiritual needs of the patient and the issues that will, as much as possible, ensure a ‘good death’, such as the music or readings they want to hear, the aromas they want to smell, the way they want to be touched and the comforting mental state of knowing their affairs are in order, their loved ones, pets, possessions etc have been properly dealt with and their funeral wishes will be carried out.

Until our society takes a much more proactive and responsible attitude to dying, death and the way in which our elderly are treated when in hospital or indeed other places in which they receive care, we will continue to read reports of unacceptable yet avoidable cases of their poor medical treatment and unnecessary suffering.

Death plans must become more commonly accepted ways in which we take control of our ‘end of life’ experience, for the benefit of the old, their families and those whose task it is to provide treatment, care and comfort.

Three German quality car manufacturers, Mercedes, BMW and Audi, are exempt from this criticism as they have decided to use a numbering system that allows you to know where a particular model fits into the range.  Sensible and logical…unlike the silliness that Porche faces with cars called Boxster which is a dreadfully confused mix of what might be a noun or a verb but is neither, Cayenne, which is a red pepper, and something called the Panamera, another non-word.

The other German manufacturer to get into trouble with names is VW. Golf and Polo were fine as they are international sports, though what makes polo less impressive or expensive than golf is not clear.  Then, in a curious denial of logic, they introduced a smaller hatch back and instead of staying with male dominated and ‘clubby’ sports – Tennis or Squash would have completed the sporty triumverate – they called the wretched car Rabbit.

Peugeot epitomises Gallic logic with its numbering system. If it starts with a 1 it’s small, 2 is a bit bigger and so on until you get to the top of the range which has a 5 at the beginning.

But what’s this? They have now introduced a range called the Tepee, one of which is the Expert Tepee Long.  Which ever way you order these three words, it’s nonsense.

But it’s the Japanese car makers that have the biggest problem with names as their models have to be translated from a rather specific language – Japanese – to words that can be pronounced, if not understood, in those countries where they have their biggest markets. So the sequence of the letters of many models has a Western linguistic feel, but are meaningless. Hence the Toyota Avensis, Prius, Aygo and Auris.

Hopefully the next Toyota recall will be to add some letters to these names to make proper words.

Which brings me to the Mitsubishi Starion.  The story goes that back in the 1980s the top guys at Mitsubishi were very pleased with the UK success of the small hatchback called the Colt. They decided to launch a larger saloon, and a meeting was held in London at which the UK marketing team was asked to present a name for this vehicle to their Japanese bosses.

“We propose,” they said, “to call the model the Stallion because as the Colt is a small horse, so the Stallion is a large and powerful horse. Our customers who want a bigger and more powerful car will want to buy a Stallion.”  There was a pregnant pause…then to everyone’s delight, the Mitsubishi main man smiled a big smile. “Ah yes,” he said, “I agree. It’s very good.  We will call the new car…the Starion!”

The most interesting part of this rather amusing story is the comments on the paper’s website. Most contributors thought this was funny and many suggested suitable secular songs which they wanted for their funerals.

Earlier this month, on the west coast of the US rather than the south coast of the UK, a ‘pop culture’ journalist posted a blog on the songs he wanted played at his funeral.

At the time of writing, 105 comments had been posted with the most diverse, quirky, in some case shocking, selections of songs. And these have been ‘liked’ (and occasionally ‘disliked’) often by ten or more people.

And in my email inbox today somebody asked how they could contribute the five songs they wanted to be remembered by. When this selection comes through it will be the 74^th contribution.

Google ‘funeral songs’ and you’ll find pages of websites with lists of suggested tracks, though with the same ten or so tracks often appearing.

My Last Song appears on page 2, which we hope to improve on, but you get my drift…this interest in personal choices of music to mark your ending is growing in popularity.  I’m frequently interviewed on local radio stations to discuss ‘funeral music’ presumably because the editors and presenters know funeral songs interest their audiences.

What does this prove? I rather agree with Charles Cowling, author of the Good Funeral Guide, who believes that the baby boomer generation are now addressing their mortality and are redefining death culture as they redefined youth culture in the 1960s.

Not for them the dreary, dull and depressing traditional funerals with a couple of Victorian songs expressing religious sentiments when they have few if any religious beliefs.

No, increasingly this group want to be remembered by a positive, celebratory and personal ceremony. All Things Bright and Beautiful is out, What A Wonderful World is in.

So I think the future is looking bright for the increasing number of companies, some of them joined in a loose alliance known as the Farewell Innovators, positioned to give this market what it needs, not what rather traditional and inflexible funeral directors, think is right for it.

Why, though, do so many of them also want to tell me about what they ate for breakfast or bought at the supermarket or what their kids are doing? I’m not interested.

Why waste their time writing trivia, unless it’s a smokescreen hiding a darker, more unpleasant side of their lives.

It made me wonder what sort of Facebook page Hitler would have had.  It probably would have been fairly light on his work activities and containing quite a bit of trivia such as how much he loves children, walking his dogs, staying at his Bavarian estate, how he’s getting on with Eva Braun. No doubt a  few of his paintings.

He probably would have let us know the early career successes. ‘Invaded Czechoslovakia today…went remarkably well.’

Then a few weeks later: ‘Invaded Poland today, think it’s annoyed Britain…oh well, who cares.’

I expect lots of Germans would want to be his friends and like his posts.

Hitler’s facebook page could have saved a lot of lives if he had been honest. ‘Decided to start a republic that will rule the world for a thousand years. Part of the deal is to exterminate Jews, gays, gypsies and the disabled. Rest of the world will be subjugated to German rule. Now off to draw up detailed project chart with Goering.’

It wouldn’t have been long before a group ‘Stop Hitler before it’s too late!’ was up and running.  They might have been taken seriously. I would have signed the online petition.

For the Government, the worst sort of anger – rational, well-informed, articulate, reasoned – and the worst sort of public – middle class, vocal and reasonable.

It shouldn’t have taken many focus groups or polling exercises to show that this was always going to be an unpopular proposal. It’s not clear what the political or economic advantages are to changing the management of our forests and woodlands.

The great British public, or rather the small but affluent and articulate elite that can afford the time and cost of driving deep into the countryside, enjoy strolling around the woodlands with children and dogs in tow.  They are aware that if organisations other than the Forestry Commission are responsible for the management of the woodlands, their pleasures will be at a higher cost and a reduced quality.

And while Jack and Josephine Upwardly-Mobile are happy to pocket bank bonuses and run PR businesses for ever greater profit, they don’t want commercial companies making money by chopping down the trees their Golden Retrievers pee against.

No, they and their ilk have a nice experience and now very much admire the way their playgrounds are managed by the Forestry Commission, the National Trust or English Heritage.  How dare the Government want to change this arrangement!

Neither Caroline Spellman nor Jim Paice, the government ministers saddled with the unhappy task of ‘selling’ the sell off of forests to this disapproving cohort have sounded very convincing.

La Spellman put forward a view she possibly thought would play well with this audience that local groups and charities should take over the management of their neighbouring forests from the large, impersonal Forestry Commission, under the localism element of the Big Society.

No they shouldn’t. Running a forest is a complex task and beyond the ability of a hard pressed local council or a group of well meaning local people who form a charity on the basis that they are more responsive to local need.

When questioned in the media, by unremittingly hostile interviewers, Spellman and Paice soon seek refuge in the ‘but nothing will change’ stance. To which the obvious response is why change it.

Like most of the country, including those who rarely if ever venture into the woods, I like the two words ‘Forestry Commission’. It sums up a body of experts, boffins, public administrators and a workforce motivated by love of trees, muddy boots, rare plants and furry animals and whose sense of commercialism doesn’t go further than selling nobbly carvings and bird feeding kits to kids called Rupert and Annabelle.

Leave well alone Mr Cameron.

Just ten seconds of a John Barry score could tell you all you needed to know about the movie. The melodies and arrangements added excitement, atmosphere, mystery and interest to every film he wrote for.

Such was his ability to create aural moods and sound pictures that at times listening was more enjoyable than watching.

Commenting on his death, British film composer David Arnold said that James Bond wouldn’t have been half as cool without John Barry holding his hand, as good an epitaph as you can get.

I already had a couple of favourites, Goldfinger and Born Free. In 1964 I was a country boy visiting relatives in London when they took me to see Goldfinger in a huge and glamourous cinema. The introduction music and graphics made me tingle. It summoned up the swinging 60s and I still recall it vividly.

Born Free? Well, a lovely piece of music to go with a marvellous film. John Barry’s score suited the script so well.

But choosing the other three pieces was incredibily difficult because he had written so many wonderfully evocative, haunting, thrilling melodies, each with an emotional appeal that would be suitable for the farewell event.

You will have to go to the article to see which three selections made up the five, and I hope you think they are good choices. I’m tempted to reallocate my time this week to listen to more of his filmscores, certain that I’ll hear melodies and arrangements that will fill me with joy and pleasure.

Paradoxical then that John Barry’s death confirmed to me the wonderful variety of music from all genres from which farewell pieces can be selected.

So, don’t put up with the limited and clichéd choices put in front of you by funeral directors, funeral planners and well meaning relatives.

Let your soul and imagination soar…recall the music that changed your life…spend time going through the My Last Song music pages…and whatever you do, make sure you go out on the right note.

A top ten list was compiled earlier this month by US funeral guru Brian Burkhardt. And heading the chart was London based My Last Song followed by The Good Funeral Guide, run out of Birmingham.

The other places were taken by US websites.

I was surprised that My Last Song had been awarded the number one slot.

In the past two years there’s been a big increase in the number of funeral websites. They are particularly popular in the US, so for My Last Song to be chosen as the best in the world by an American funeral expert is quite an honour.

Charles Cowling, who started his website in 2009 to promote his book The Good Funeral Guide, is equally pleased. “There’s a lot of global ideas-swapping around the topic of funeral customs and how they are evolving, especially in the English speaking world. This is a flattering accolade.”

What is it about funeral information that makes it so web-friendly?

First is that while people are reluctant to talk to their friends and family about their mortality and the funeral they want, a website is emotionally neutral and gives positive advice. It’s not going to cry or ask to be left money.

Second, the huge increase in ‘silver surfers’ means that more older people are accessing the internet to find relevant information.

Third is type of information being offered by websites that appeal to the ageing baby boomers.  Fifty years ago this group redefined youth culture. Now they are challenging funeral traditions. They want funerals that match their lifestyles, their beliefs, their achievements and their interests and websites like My Last Song give them the information, for instance music choices, they like.

As Charles Cowling emphasises, “This demographic is simply not going to accept a dreary traditional ‘cut and paste’ farewell event to mark their lives. They will want colourful, celebratory and upbeat funerals.” And funeral websites are meeting their needs.

Funeral planning and advice might be a niche market, but the demographics suggest it will be very big in a few years time.

I was convinced My Last Song would be a success when I analysed the population figures. “According to the Office of National Statistics, there will be almost 7 million people aged 70 and over in 2015 in England alone.  In 2020 this rises to 8 million.

The other interesting statistic is that there were less than half a million deaths registered in the UK in 2009 and that between 1999 and 2009, death rates fell by more than a quarter. So people are living longer which means they will be our customers for longer, visiting the websites more often, buying funeral plans, writing and editing their wills, wanting more information about age related illnesses, care options, and how to enjoy a longer and more active older age.

My Last Song has in-depth advice on all these issues, and expects to monetise the website within two or three years with affiliate agreements, sponsored pages and click throughs to companies wanting to reach this demographic.

I’m also planning to launch a US version of the site in 2012 and now looking for collaborators across the Atlantic.

There are more people in the US, they spend more per head on their funerals and they love music, which is an important driver for visitors to My Last Song.

Cowling’s business model is more simple. He uses his website as a first port of call for anyone needing to plan a funeral and find a good funeral director. It also carries updates to his book.

He has a listing of outstanding funeral directors UK-wide to which he is constantly adding.  “People increasingly want unique funerals for unique

The Good Funeral Guide website also carries a lively and provocative blog which enjoys a world-wide readership.

There are lots of jokes about the funeral business being a dying industry, but for these two UK companies, there’s a lot to look forward to.

The previous Government, aware of the growing need to address the issues, launched an End of Life Care strategy in July 2008. The strategy is supported by National End of Life Care Programme and £286 million of Government money.

It’s informative to visit the website and look at the vast amount of work that is being done as part of the programme. The work, the goodwill, the case studies, the references to publications would be commendable if there was a clear focus on what the programme wants to achieve: high quality, person-centred care for all adults at the end of life and enabling more people nearing end of life to choose where they die.

However, the Programme has grown like topsy and the more it grows, the further it is from achieving these aims.

It is a good example of the wasteful cost and confusion of trying to find a top down solution to what is the most individual of any health care situation – caring for a dying person.

So far the mixture of academics, care workers, medical professionals, think tank researchers and other well meaning individuals have not found the solution and they never will.

The present government recognises that inflexible, bureaucratic, centrally imposed and expensive solutions to society’s complex problems are doomed to failure. It is redefining the state’s relationship with civil society by reducing the role and cost of the state and hoping to increase personal and community responsibility and participation.

The success or failure of this experiment will define society’s progress for the first half of the 21st century.

As far as the end of life care is concerned, delivering a good death requires more emotional capital to be invested than currently the case and less money than currently anticipated.

Planning a ‘good death’ must involve family, friends and appropriate medical professionals. Coming together to address the subject of death and dying will necessarily overcome the still common fear of discussing the subject until it is literally too late.

There is not a great deal of point spending large amounts of money on end of life care as death can’t be defeated only delayed. Of course, the pain, suffering and fear can be managed and reduced but this shouldn’t be expensive.

If GPs and palliative care specialists insisted that patients completed a personal death plan, and if family members felt comfortable in encouraging older loved ones to fill in their plans, a good death would be a far more likely outcome than anything that will emerge from the current hotchpotch of case studies and models coming out of the National End of Life Care Programme.

Important players in changing attitudes will be the excellent hospice movement and the Dying Matters Coalition which, if properly funded, could lead the move to rid our society of the taboo surrounding death and dying. If people talk about death and plan for it – their own or that of an ailing loved one, or in the case of the medical profession a patient – the more likely will be a ‘good death’ instead of a lonely and impersonal passing.

Currently just a small dot on the radar is the ‘soul midwives‘ movement which is a voluntary group of women who want to give spiritual, physical and existential comfort to the dying.  It will be interesting to see if this becomes a growing movement or whether friends and family will be able to administer the same kind of holistic end of life care.

But the survey doesn’t tell us anything we don’t know, and in reality highlights the Co-op’s attempt to catch up.  In short the survey of 2000 people and 850 of its funeral companies confirms that more people now want a celebration of their life, colourful events, secular songs, bespoke coffins, green funerals and personal input from mourners.

The Co-op have involved the country’s leading funeral historian, Dr Julian Litten, to opine that the funerals of Princess Diana and Jade Goody have changed the public’s view of how funerals can be delivered.

I think Dr Litten is wrong about this.  The British public can decide for themselves that a religious ritual isn’t appropriate for someone who had no religious beliefs and that as paying customers they will have the send off they want rather than a ‘choose one from three options’ offered by many funeral directors.

Similarly, there wasn’t much that was environmentally friendly about Princess Di’s and Jade Goody’s funerals, yet the demand for green funerals has risen hugely in the last 15 years as people become more concerned about the environmentally damaging aspects of traditional funerals.

No, organisations like the Co-operative Funeralcare have been slow to understand the change in demand whereas innovators such as My Last Song, One Life ceremonies, the green burial movement, suppliers of bespoke coffins and authors of guides such as The Good Funeral Guide have understood the requirements of the now ageing baby boomers and are meeting their needs.

The number of humanist officiants is increasing to meet the demands of atheists for humanist funerals, and I would like to commend the effort put in by one in particular, Simon Allen, who’s contribution to My Last Song has been invaluable.

The funeral industry is on the verge of a big change in how it operates, and this change is driven by consumer demand. Funeral directors are, inevitably, traditional and slow to change although there are notable exceptions.

But they must recognise that many new customers will be from the generation who, when in their teens redefined youth culture. During the next years of their lives they expected to get what they wanted and that’s going to be true for how their end of life (or their older relatives)  is treated.

The one statistic that is still disappointing if not surprising is that 55 per cent of respondents hadn’t discussed their funerals with family and friends.  Death and funerals are still taboo subjects, but the trend I suspect is for this to be reducing, helped by the growing number of online sources of support and information.

I will again plug the Lifebox facility of My Last Song which encourages and enables people to plan their own bespoke funeral event and store those plans and wishes safely for their loved ones to access.  In practice filling in the funeral wishes checklist and the individual death plan will mean discussing the options with close family members.

When death and funerals are more commonly discussed, the numbers of celebratory, colourful and individual ceremonies requested will increase…whether the larger traditional funeral companies are well placed to deliver them efficiently is questionable.

I must say I was surprised when Google Alerts, true to its name, alerted me to the fact that My Last Song was the number one funeral website slot.

In the past two years there’s been a big increase in the number of funeral and bereavement websites and blogs, particularly in the US, so for My Last Song to be chosen as the best funeral website in the world by an American funeral expert is quite an honour.

Second placed website, The Good Funeral Guide, was started in 2009 by Charles Cowling, author of the Guide.

Charles, who is at the centre of the new-era funeral blogging and tweeting community, confirms the growing trend for online funeral information. “There’s a lot of global ideas-swapping around the topic of evolving funeral customs, especially in the English speaking world.”

It seems likely that the growing interest in end of life websites is because the baby boomer generation is now facing their mortality. As Charles puts it: “These are the people who reinvented youth culture. Just watch them reinvent death culture.”

This generation will want their funerals to reflect their views and lifestyles instead of the often dreary traditional event, built around a religious ritual out of place in an increasingly secular 21st century.

Another reason for the increased use of funeral planning and funeral information websites is the desire to save money.

Funeral costs are rising fast, and the customer is often getting a bad deal because the funeral industry knows they are dealing with people unable or unwilling to discuss money when organising a loved one’s funeral.

As Charles Cowling says, “There are many ways of saving money when planning a funeral and negotiating with the funeral directors. The Good Funeral Guide and My Last Song have lots of advice on how to save money and also have a better, more appropriate funeral.”

A number of organisations wanting to change how funerals are handled have formed a loose alliance called the Farewell Innovators. These include a photographer specialising in funeral photography and a company producing bespoke memorial books of photographs.

Also involved are those who offer eco-friendly funerals and a more personal, often more celebratory approach, to the final goodbye.

All use the new technology so I hope that next year, these new companies feature in lists of the top websites.

The funeral planning advice articles on the website are increasingly popular and thus valuable to a company with a lot of funeral businesses around the country.

The discussion got off to a good start and my proposal seemed to be acceptable.

And then the managing director showed me the print off of the article called Cutting Funeral Costs.

“If we advertise on your website you’ll have to take off this page,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Because it means my companies won’t be making as much money. I don’t want families to pay less for a funeral.”

In fairness, he said that he didn’t have targets for his funeral businesses and his funeral directors were told not to force up the price the families wanted to pay.

He said advice on costs was discussed with the family, to ensure that “mum had the funeral they would want her to have…”

He didn’t think visitors to My Last Song needed to know how they could reduce the costs of the funeral so the deal would only be done if the advice was removed.

I thanked him for seeing me and caught the next train back to London.

The company, which has a large market share, should be aware that the industry will change radically in the next few years.  Customers will be better informed and new businesses will challenge the established way of selling funeral services.

Take coffins. Eco-friendly materials are becoming increasingly popular, and while funeral directors are making these choices available, companies such as Greenfield Creations in Essex and The Coffin Company soon to launch in the north east, sell direct to customers wanting cheaper and more sustainable coffins.

And flowers. Funeral flowers are extremely expensive and also bad for the environment as they require heat and artificial light. Yes, the tradition of marking a death with flowers goes back thousands of years but that doesn’t mean a family in the 21st century shouldn’t want to save on this part of the funeral package, or instead donate the money to a good cause.

I appreciate the point made by the managing director that a family ‘at grief’ need a sympathetic service rather than a ‘we can do a great cut price job for your mum’ approach.

But what is unacceptable is his view that the customer should not be given the information to be a more informed client before the ‘at need’ engagement with the funeral director.

Only in a business as ‘traditional’ as the funeral business could such an unfair approach to the customer be defended in 2010.

With more businesses and organisations wanting to change how we deal with death, dying and funerals, this approach won’t last much longer, I hope.

I got in touch to bring My Last Song to their attention and before long, YourFuneralGuy, had put My Last Song at the top of the list of funeral websites for 2010, with The Good Funeral Guide, author Charles Cowling, ‘in at number two’.

Someone then commented that My Last Song was the best funeral website in the world because it had the facility for people to put their wishes in the Lifebox for loved ones to fulfil (though I can’t find this comment).

Another US fellow traveller is Gail Rubin, whose Family Plot blog is excellent, as is the Modern Mourner, the website of Shirley Tatum.

Shirley has sent My Last Song her five favourite farewell tracks, and splendid songs for a funeral they are too.

There is no doubting that funeral music is of great interest…many visitors to My Last Song look for funeral hymns, secular funeral music, advice on classical music suitable for funerals and the five farewell tracks that now more than 70 people have contributed.

There is also no doubt that websites that advise people on how to get good value from their funeral director (or funeral  home as they’re called in the US), how to have the most appropriate send off, how to address their final days and then how to come to terms with the loss will get more and more traffic as the populations of the UK and the US get older.

The people within this demographic, 60 onwards, will also be increasingly those who are from the baby boomer generation, defined by the US Census Bureau as born between 1946 and 1964. These are people who will redefine aging and the end of life experience as they redefined youth culture back in the 60’s.

They are internet savvy. They use social media. They get information from websites.  Many will want to leave this world in a style that is unique and celebratory.

In the UK, a number of organisations who cater for this market have grouped together under the title of Farewell Innovators. A Facebook page has been created and a first meeting is being organised.

I would expect a similar informal association to exist, or to be set up fairly soon, in the US, and then for the farewell innovators both sides of the Atlantic to swap notes, opinions and be mutually supportive.

There’s a lot of people out there who need what we are offering them…the understanding that death is part of life, that it should be planned for, that as we are unique in life so our partings should acknowledge and celebrate our individuality, and that our parting, while a sad and mournful experience for our loved ones, should enable them to continue with their lives stronger in the knowledge that we have had the ending we wished for.

And I hope that includes playing their last songs, music that is meaningful and memorable.

It seems to this observer that the divisions between rich and poor get greater for those in older age.

The older rich can buy a satisfactory standard of living, can call on friends and family willing, if not happy, to help them.

The older poor are all too often isolated, lonely, confused and fearful and as a result live in increasingly desperate conditions.

An earlier blog described the baby boomers who were now planing for a better quality end of life experience as ’superior seniors’. This definition now seems all too apt as it implies superiority and inferiority, or in this context, haves and have nots.

The blog also warned that the Big Society would ignore ’superior seniors’ at its peril, pointing out that vociferous baby boomers, used to getting what they wanted, would complain loudly if excluded from Cameron’s ‘big tent’.

But who hears the voice of those less fortunate senior citizens who missed out on the baby boomers’ boom times and whose later years are spent alone, poor and without any influence?

This is where Age UK  must ensure its campaign against poverty in retirement is successful by publicising the plight of the large number of society’s impoverished senior members.

If the Big Society is to succeed, the poor elderly must be included, but this will present the Government with a major problem. The Big Society’s mission is to create a fairer country in which we all feel a sense of belonging without the impedence of complex legislation and bureaucratic administration.

But with two million of those in retirement not having enough money to cover basic food and fuel bills, let alone enjoy retirement, this will be a major redistribution of wealth requiring more than community self-help and middle class goodwill.

As those who stand to benefit - the isolated and poor elderly - have the least powerful voice and are easiest to ignore, their membership of the Big Society is by no means certain.

Those aware of the scale of the problems faced by the poor elderly must ensure they aren’t excluded from the coalition’s vision of how our society will be improved.

And you baby boomers, now affluent, influential and articulate, should remember that in your youth you campaigned for a fairer and more just society.

You now have just as important a cause to support and that is reducing the shocking and scandalous divide between the rich and poor older members of our socity.

You didn’t look away when you were teenagers…don’t ignore the suffering of your contemporaries now.

It is the belated recognition that the baby boomer generation born in the two decades following the end of the second world war is now reaching the latter years of their lives and that their end of life expectations will need to be met.

It’s becoming rather un-PC to call them old, or elderly, not least because they don’t think they are. Indeed, with more people living to 100, those in their 60s and 70s aren’t really old any more.

More acceptable terms are elders, which has a ring of wisdom attached to it, and seniors which connotes greater experience.

Unlike the generations before them, this group – let’s call them superior seniors – will take more control of their end of life experiences. Baby boomers have been criticised for being the ‘me, me, me’ generation who get what they want.  This attitude isn’t going to change as baby boomers become superior seniors.

They will want better health care so they lead longer and healthier lives. They will want to be independent as long as possible, and when looked after will expect a higher standard of service from care providers.

When the end of their lives is approaching, they will want to be involved in the decisions previously taken by family members or their doctors about how much medical intervention they want to receive and where they want to die.

And when they die, they will want their lives to be remembered positively and uniquely with a high quality farewell ceremony or service.

Superior seniors will have learned from the end of life experiences of their parents’ generation and not been impressed by poor quality care delivery, hardly reassured by the NHS end of life medical care lottery and disappointed by anonymous, dreary send offs.

We are at a point when the future tense is changing to the present…time is passing, years are being added to the ages of the baby boomers. If not old, they are no longer young.

The farewell innovators are those companies and organisations who want to give this increasingly large market (by 2015 there will be well over ten million people aged 65 or older) a better farewell experience.

Central to this approach is the move towards a ‘good death’, the achieving of which is the purpose of the Dying Matters Coalition. It means the ailing patients, their families and their doctors have to address dying and death openly and positively to make the end of life experience as comfortable as possible. The My Last Song death plan is an holistic approach to organising a comfortable death.

While all this signals the retreat of the pervasive Anglo Saxon death taboo, superior seniors and the farewell innovators who wish to provide services for them should not be complacent.

Death is sad, upsetting, worrying and uncomfortable to discuss. It is often easier to ignore, but if not addressed, superior seniors can hardly complain if the end of life decisions are made by their families or health professionals, not always for the reasons they would have chosen.

As this government puts an inclusive, collaborative and mutually supportive Big Society at the top of its agenda, it must do more to encourage better living standards and the delivery of a ‘good’ death for the increasingly large numbers of superior seniors who will not expect to be left out of the tent.

The issue about end of life medical treatment is as topical in the US as it is in this country.

In both societies, neither ailing older people nor their younger family members are comfortable talking about death. It’s therefore surrounded by fear of the unknown, and as nobody likes to talk of what they are afraid about, so the taboo about addressing death continues.

Usually late in the patient’s life, he or she will say that ‘I don’t want to be hooked up to lots of machines,’ or ‘I want it to happen quickly.’

How this view is communicated to the health professionals providing end of life treatment is again the subject of confusion and reluctance to address the issue. The patient’s life is therefore often unnecessarily prolonged, the family’s anguish stretches out and the medical staff are not certain how to proceed.

A simple form of words can change this, and the acronym AND is really very simple.

Research in the States has shown that the phrase Do Not Resuscitate is not used by many families because it is a negative and sounds scary, whereas Allow Natural Death (AND) connotes a positive, it implies permission.

It also gains plus points because it uses the word Natural, as in Natural Childbirth and Natural foods.

What starts in the US quickly cross the ‘pond’, and because part of My Last Song’s mission is to encourage people to address their later life decisions before it’s too late, we think AND should be adopted in the UK.

It will give impetus to the Dying Matters coalition’s goal of changing attitudes towards death, dying and bereavement and make it more likely that the patient, the patient’s family and the family GP will discuss the chosen end of life treatment.

My Last Song has created a Death Plan template, within the Lifebox, which makes it easier for people to make the decisions that will result in a ‘good death’. The old and terminally ill will be more in control of the end of life experience they want.

It will encourage families and GPs to talk about death and to plan for it thus reducing the fear of the unknown.

We only die once and, if possible, it should be the experience we want it to be.

He starts by saying that successful people have a simple recipe for happiness – the pursuit of meaningful goals.

Life, he says, is a journey. If we know where we’re heading, it’s so much easier to take the directions that will take us there. It’s all too common to drift along without a clear destination but it’s never too late to pinpoint where we want to be and take action.

He gives four tips.

Tip One – Focus on What You Want!

Come up with a list of five things you’d like to happen in your life if a genie gave you five wishes.

As well as writing them down, share at least one with a friend or family member. They may even be able to help.

Tip Two – ‘Big Yourself Up!’

As a senior citizen you’re going to have more successes and achievements than most…write down as many as you can.

Experiences may include challenges that seemed problematic at the time, but that you managed to overcome. Once you’ve done that, have fun brainstorming how you could use them going forwards.

Tip Three – How to deal with your challenges

The conscious mind is poor at solving our challenges, plus it struggles with the concept of delegation.

Whatever the issue, write it down. Your subconscious mind will gladly accept the task and then work on a solution in the background. You’ll be busy doing something else and the solution will pop into your head.

Tip Four– Enlist the services of a life coach

Not surprisingly, Paul recommends employing someone who is an expert in helping you explore what you really want, and removing the barriers. It can be incredibly empowering to share one’s dreams (and issues) with a fellow human being. He says family can be judgemental, and so a life coach is the fellow human you need (and will pay for, of course).

I hope I don’t come across as too cynical. I asked Paul to contribute the article and I think it’s good.

More importantly, it has shown a large gap in the advice carried on My Last Song, and that is information aimed at the newly retired and active retired on how to make this period of their lives as successful, fulfilling and happy as possible.

Further contributions to meet this aim welcomed. The autumn of our years should be mellow, warm and fruitful.

Reverend Ratcliff, minister at St John’s Church of England (Continuing), South Wimbledon and editor of the English Churchman, opposes the growing trend where the minister allows families to read poems and tributes, “thus becoming little more than a Master of Ceremonies.”

Reverend Ratcliff argues that “It is quite inappropriate to produce a ‘Princess Diana style’ modern funeral… The service is predominantly the worship of God and so needs to be led by a minister of God.”

According to Reverend Ratcliff, the place for members of the family to address other family and friends is at the reception that follows the funeral, not during the service.

He says that many of the mourners, lacking any knowledge of the Bible, will want the funeral to be “light and jolly”.

This, he says, “is a challenge, not an excuse to dumb down funeral services.”

To ensure the congregation understand the solemn nature of the service, “the minister should take the whole service himself without allowing family and friends to present poems and eulogies. It is his job and he should not hand it over to those who are not qualified.”

Reverend Ratcliff’s views fly in the face of the growing trend to mix secular elements with religious content at the request of the family.

This is known as a mix’n’match funeral, or the Modern British Funeral, and was institutionalised by the funeral of Princess Diana in September 1997.

Watched by millions around the world, the service included tributes read by both Diana’s sisters and a controversial address by her brother, Lord Spencer. Elton John played a re-worked version of Candle in the Wind.

The service was lead by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey.

Reverend Ratcliff also believes burial is preferable to cremation, saying: “the language of being buried and raised with Christ is so beautifully illustrated at the grave and this leaves a lasting impression of a wonderful and sure hope.”

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.

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.

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.

It made me think of just how suitable some of the numbers from the great musicals would be as funeral songs, so I asked a friend of mine who is a lover of musicals to come up with a list, and what great songs she selected.

I encourage those who are interested in the My Last Song mission of ensuring the right music is played at the end to go through the list. There are 23 in all and while there’s not enough space in this blog to comment on all of them, I want to describe what might be called the show stoppers.

And if you think I’ve not highlighted the right songs, or that there are some great musical tracks missing, please let me know.

Third on the list after Somewhere and the rightly popular You’ll Never Walk Alone is the less well known but equally appropriate If Ever I Would Leave You, from Camelot.  This is a beautiful song, with a lovely, haunting melody and the most poignant of lyrics. Lancelot is saying that it is inconceiveable that he would ever leave Guenevere.  And suitable for a farewell because the message is that love goes on forever.

Contrast this with the next track, The Party’s Over, from Bells Are Ringing. This describes the wistful, almost cold,  acceptance that the affair is over, “it’s time to call it a day.”  While it lasted it was fun, but in the cold light of morning, “the candles flicker and dim.” A more realistic though less positive view of life after a loved one has passed.

Similarly bleak is Who Can I Turn To, which featured in Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd. This is about the stark fear of  impending loneliness: ‘With no star to guide me and no one beside me, I’ll go my way and after the day, the darkness will hide me…maybe tomorrow I’ll find what I’m after…’  Many will understand the pathos of that lyric.

Another poignantly sad love song featured in the list is This Nearly Was Mine, a Rogers and Hammerstein classic from South Pacific. The lyric tells of the idealistic love Emile thought he would share with Nellie, but snatched away because she could not accept he had fathered children by a Pacific Islander. The melody is mesmerisingly beautiful, and the combination makes the hairs stand on end. I can see this becoming a popular and affecting farewell song.

Another standout from the list is I Have Dreamed, from the King and I. A similarly powerful combination of sentimental lyric and memorable melody, the interest here is the ambiguity. Did the love which in this song is dreamt about, ever really exist?  In the future, will the love only be in dreams because a loved one has parted?

Less ambiguous are Thank You For The Music, from Mama Mia, It’s Raining In My Heart, from Buddy and Noone But You (Only The Good Die Young) from We Will Rock You. But for fans of Abba, Buddy Holly and Queen these songs have a special message, and that’s the point.

The Lloyd Weber numbers, Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, Think of Me and No Matter What all have suitable lyrics for the final call, and the first two have powerful melodies and arrangements that will stir the emotions.  No Matter What wouldn’t have been my choice, but I can see why others might choose it.

Anyway, have a listen, and bear these wonderful tracks in mind when choosing last songs, advising on last songs, or just wanting to listen to some of the finest numbers that have graced the stage and screen.

When the final curtain closes, they may well be show stoppers. They will certainly be tear jerkers.

The journalist did a great job in compiling within one piece some of the changes taking place in the Farewell Innovators‘ space in Ireland.

It gives details of a humanist funeral celebrant, fairly rare I would have thought in Ireland, and also covers the country’s first natural burial ground.

Most importantly the article states:  ’The best way to ensure you get the funeral you want is to make your wishes known.’

Here it stands four square with the My Last Song approach.  We believe that not only should you want your funeral to be appropriate to your lifestyle and personality, but you should make sure your funeral wishes are known.

Which is why My Last Song provides visitors with a Lifebox in which to store their funeral wishes and the funeral arrangement details so that their close family or executor can access them when the Lifebox owners are about to die or have just died.

My congratulations to the journalist who did such a good job in covering all bases – she even gives advance care directives and Enduring Power of Attorney into her piece – and the Irish Times for covering it. She also coins a phrase that might catch on…’deathstyle’, as short hand for making the funeral match the person’s lifestyle and personality.

When will a serious newspaper in Britain focus on the ever growing Funeral Innovators and the growing market we are servicing?

Quite some time, if the Daily Mail night editor has his way. I’ve  written informative pieces for the consumer editor only for him to tell me that while he likes the story, his editor doesn’t want to carry anything to do with death.

He’s doing his readers a disservice. Nobody, not even Daily Mail readers, lives forever.  Indeed Mail readers are closer to realising this than most, and are in danger every day of being frightened to death.

Oh, and the Irish Times journalist ends the piece: ‘Overall if you wish your death to reflect your life, the advice is to plan ahead and make your wishes known.’

Our view comes from our experiences of officiating (Charles’s experiences, not mine) and attending the rapidly increasing funerals which are unique, personal and positive celebrations of life, and my conviction that it is a sham for a person who had few if any religious beliefs in his or her life to be given a religious funeral at which the readings, prayers and hymns have little or no meaning, either in defining the life being celebrated or to the gathered friends and family.

Where Sarah Dunant’s point of view became most interesting was when she said: “Because having got everything that we wanted in life, baby boomers, more than any other generation, are uniquely qualified to address the biggest taboo of all – death… an increasing number of us want to choose when and how we go.”

When discussing  the baby boomers’ funeral final rite she suggests a generational anthem and thought the Sid Vicious version of My Way was suitable.  I see where she’s coming from but think better advice would have been that we choose the songs that mean the most to us as our last songs.

Which is, of course, why I started My Last Song.

Two other encouraging pieces of news today. The first is that the left of centre think tank DEMOS is about to publish a report entitled How Britain Dies. The other is the announcement that the Government is planning to make it easier to allow people to die where they wish, which is normally at home with their loved ones present rather than in impersonal and often lonely hospital wards.

This reinforces the My Last Song view that the very old and terminally ill should be encouraged to write their own death plans, as this will inevitably mean discussing the issues with their family and health professionals and thus reduce the fear of the unknown  and lessen the taboo that still surrounds the subject of our mortality.

A lot is happening in the little niche that we’re calling Farewell Innovations….if you look at the 10 million or so people now over 65 maybe it’s not so little.

Having kindly praised My Last Song, she went on to discuss the organisations that had moved into a niche market – that of helping people to deal with death, dying and bereavement.

Talk of  ’gaps in the market’ worries me as I recall an economist commenting on the demise of a specialist car maker whose founder said the company was filling a gap. The economist told journalists, “just because there’s a gap in the market doesn’t mean there’s a market in the gap.”

But a number of factors encourage me to believe that the ‘farewell’ market is there to be serviced. The first is the demographics of the UK.  The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show there are over 10 million people in the UK aged 65 or over.

The second is the type of people these are…the more independent, free thinking baby boomers who are wanting their end of life experience to match their lifestyles and who are, slowly, reducing the taboo around death. They want a personal and honest farewell and are more likely to take charge of the process to get what they want.

It’s how they’ve led their lives, for better or worse, and they’re unlikely to stop just because they have reached old age. I get the impression that many are practicing when organising the funerals of their parents – they don’t want their mothers and fathers dispatched in a traditional and often rather anonymous ritual.

Third is the Government supported Dying Matters Coalition, of which My Last Song is a member.  It is encouraging doctors, palliative care providers and the general public to make ‘living and dying well’ the norm.

So, given the figures, there’s quite a gap in the market for those of us wanting to help people have the endings they want, to be remembered the right way and to be more in control of end of life decisions.

It’s being filled by companies I will name run by remarkably nice and slightly eccentric individuals that I won’t.

Civil Ceremonies, Sentiment, The Good Funeral Guide, Remember Me When I’m Gone, Much Loved, One Life Ceremonies, Heavens Above Fireworks, Lovingly Managed and the Natural Death Centre. Add to this the growing number of innovative funeral directors, humanist celebrants and interfaith ministers who spend a lot of time and trouble ensuring families and friends say a very personal goodbye to a parted loved one, and you can see a movement growing.

I would also add to this group the long established and excellent Dignity in Dying, which as well as campaigning for a change in the law on assisted dying, also encourage people to take out Advance Decisions to refuse treatment and be in control of their end of life medical treatment.

If we are to have a collective title, then I like ‘Farewell Innovators’.

Time is on our side, fellow innovators…it might be a struggle at the moment, but keep going because more and more people will be want what we offer.

Robbie is looking very healthy…married life seems to be suiting him. But he’s got the sense to know he’s not going to live forever, and probably wouldn’t want to.

That’s why he’s planning ahead so that his funeral is the ending he wants.  In particular, what the music says about him…which is at the core of what My Last Song does – encourages people to choose the most appropriate music to be played at their final event, rather than often meaningless hymns if they aren’t religious, or clichéd secular songs selected by their families.

And while Angels is a lovely song, chosen by very many people to be played at their funerals, Robbie Williams believes he can do far better and has written a requiem, “all on my own, without any help.”  He doesn’t want people forever thinking of him as “the clown from that boy band,” and so he has composed Mass For The Dead.

I hope he records and releases it so that people can appreciate his musical talent as expressed in this composition and then, if suitable, choose songs from it to be played at their funeral.

I think more people should consider writing their own elegies so that the gathered friends and family can appreciate the message and, in some cases, the unexpected or unknown talent.

Music alone has that quality where the lyric and melody can express and share emotion, whether it be sadness, love, power, happiness, tenderness, aggression or whatever the composer seeks to convey. That is why music is such a wonderful form of art.

So, I hope more people will follow Robbie’s example and plan for their funeral well in advance. They should in particular select the music that they want to be remembered by, and if they feel able, create that music themselves.

And then, to avoid their wishes and compositions getting lost or ignored, store them in their Lifebox and ensure a loved one accesses it after they have passed so their plans can be incorporated into the funeral arrangements.

As a footnote to the above, I have added Aretha Franklin’s Angel to a long list of music I want played at my wake, along with My Last Song I Sing for You which my friend Raphael Oyelade sings so well here.

The poll asked visitors to the website to choose what they wanted to happen to their bodies when they died.  Woodland burial received 35 per cent of the votes with cremation second, receiving 30 per cent. The poll took place in September and there were 205 votes.

Currently 74 per cent of funerals are cremations with woodland burials accounting for six per cent.

Rosie Inman-Cook who runs the Association of Natural Burial Grounds says the poll confirms the rapid rise in the popularity of woodland burials.

“While it will be many years before 35 per cent of funerals are woodland burials, natural burial sites are experiencing a 30 per cent year on year increase in the number of people being buried in their sites.

“The increased demand is reflected by the increase in natural burial sites. The first natural burial site opened in Cumbria in 1993. The number today is almost 240.

“This should meet the demand for the foreseeable future.”

Environmentalists will be pleased with the support the poll shows for eco-friendly funerals and the decrease in those wanting to be cremated.

Julia Hailes, leading environmentalist and author of The New Green Consumer Guide, is not enthusiastic about cremation.

“Burning our dead – along with their coffins – not only creates toxic pollution but has significant impact on climate change too.  The energy consumed in cremating one body is the equivalent to 23 litres of oil.  I’d like a shallow burial in a well run woodland site, so that my body turns to nutrients as fast as possible”

The poll also gave the option of cemetery or church burial using eco-friendly coffins which 11 per cent voted for. Put the two together and 46 per cent of people want their funerals to be environmentally friendly.

These results demonstrate that when people consider their own funerals they are more likely to consider the environmental impact.

But the demand for woodland burials will not be as great as the survey suggests because most people don’t plan their own funeral arrangements. As a consequence, when they die their families are likely to opt for the cheapest or most conventional funeral – cremation.

And that’s why many people attracted by the idea of a woodland burial because it is eco-friendly will probably end up cremated, a  paradox that highlights the importance of planning the funeral you want and ensuring your funeral wishes are known.

It is why we encourage people to discuss, write and store their funeral wishes within a safe Lifebox which their closest family can access when they die and give them the funeral they want.

Ten per cent of people who voted chose to leave the funeral arrangements to their families.  For those of us who’ve witnessed the distress, division and panic when a grieving and shocked family is left to make decisions about the type and cost of a funeral, the ‘I don’t care’ approach is callous.

There’s no excuse for thinking that your ending is someone else’s responsibility.

From the Croydon Advertiser 13 August, 2010:

“It is always very sad when no-body attends a funeral,” said a spokesman for Rowland Brothers, undertakers.

“In this case, the 43 year-old man from Addiscombe who we buried on Monday had changed his name by deed poll to Luke Skywalker.

“The case was passed to us by Croydon Council, and we attempted to contact his family and friends.  But he didn’t seem to have any close friends locally, and because the deed poll office are not allowed to give out a person’s former name or personal details, we couldn’t track down his next of kin or relations. We did our best, but the result was a tragically lonely funeral for Luke Skywalker.”

From the Romsey Advertiser’s website 16 September, 2010:

Funeral was a celebration of Jane’s spirit

“Jane Scoones’ coffin was carried out of East Tytherley church to the sound of Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum and a huge round of applause from the 400 people who attended her funeral.

“It was exactly how Jane had planned her final exit and was the perfect conclusion to a service that was a celebration of her remarkable life, filled with heart-felt tributes from family and friends, including Precious Moments, a song that was written for her by her husband, Rob and sung by her daughter, Caroline.

“Those attending Friday’s funeral were simply asked to remember Jane with happiness rather than tears and sadness and to think of the joy she brought to life rather than the tragedy of her loss.

“Jane’s battle with cancer ended on August 28, at the age of 55.”

Jane Sconnes had the funeral she wanted. She planned it meticulously. She didn’t want tears, she wanted happiness. She wanted people to look back on the good things she had done in her life.

I think that there are thousands of people out there who’s lives are also special…indeed, aren’t all our lives special. And our end of life event should also be special. By being unique, the funeral is a much more satisfying and comforting event for the loved ones, for they will feel more positive.

Jane’s approach to her funeral and the event itself  is a validation of the My Last Song purpose. A good life deserves a good ending!

And if people use My Last Song to plan the ending they (or their loved ones) deserve, and keep those plans safe in their Lifebox, then so much the better.

Here at My Last Song, this is music to our ears! (no more silly jokes – ed).

Early on in the life of My Last Song we decided that we should include a section giving advice on health and fitness to an, er, older audience. I commissioned an experienced medical doctor to be the contributing editor and asked him to write articles on obvious subjects including:

• Staying healthier longer;
• Why you should exercise;
• How to keep fit; and
• Age related illness.

There are now over 30 advice articles within My Last Song on health and fitness subjects, and most encourage the reader to eat properly, exercise as much as possible and lead a healthy lifestyle in order to live longer, more active and happier lives.

In this section, there’s an article on sex and older people with tips on spicing up your sex life (careful – ed). In other articles, sex is encouraged as it is good exercise (that’s enough sex – ed).

The purpose of My Last Song is to encourage and support people to be responsible for their end of life issues, and for that ‘end of life’ period to be long, healthy and happy.

We know that unfortunately many older people this will not be the case, but we also believe that if you plan for a longer and healthier old age, it’s more likely to be achieved.

Part of the planning is putting your legal and financial affairs in order, arranging the funeral you want, making/updating your will and ensuring your memory lives on.

That is why My Last Song has a Lifebox for visitors to put this crucial information, which can be edited at any time, in a safe place where the contents can be accessed by the executor and close family when the fateful day comes.

The My Last Song Lifebox also provides a sort of digital immortality. Future family members will be able to read the life stories, achievements, interests, memories, even the secrets, of the Lifebox owner.

And if they read that the owner was active, creative, happy and healthy until a very old age, their admiration will be added to their affection. Especially if the Lifebox owner had a good sex life well into older age. (you’re fired! – ed).

“The reluctance of patients and their families to discuss death as the likely outcome of an illness or because of old age makes their end of life medical management more difficult.

“If by filling in a death plan the patient, the family and the appropriate health professionals have a more meaningful discussion, the result is likely to be a more positive approach with obvious benefits for the patient, their loved ones and the medical staff treating them.

“By having a personal death plan, the patient and the family will be more reassured that the time leading up to the final moments will be as comfortable and comforting as possible.

“As a GP I believe that death plans should be encouraged as a way of changing attitudes towards death and dying.”

Within the Lifebox section of My Last Song is a death plan templatewhich allows people to state:

• how much they want to be told about their condition,
• where they want to die,
• the level of medical intervention they want,
• who they want to be responsible for their end of life treatment,
• who they want to visit them when they are dying,
• who should be there when they die,
• what they want to hear, (music, poetry, drama, prayers…),
• what they want to smell (incense, scented candles, oils, flowers…),
• how they want to be touched (hand held, caressed, gentle massage…),
• issues to be cleared up so they have no worries at the end (knowing their loved ones, pets are cared for, their estate is in order, their will is up to date…).

Too many people still die a lonely, impersonal and frightening death which reinforces society’s reluctance to discuss the subject. We only die once so it should be, if possible, the experience we want it to be. Personalised death plans will make that more likely.

Thankfully there is now a concerted move to reduce the taboo surrounding death. The Dying Matters Coalition, of which My Last Song is a member, is spearheading this change of attitude towards dying, death and bereavement.

On 1 July, the General Medical Council published Treatment and Care Towards the End of Life, recommending that death should become an explicit discussion point when patients are likely to die within 12 months.

Then in September, the BMJ’s website published a piece called We’re All Going to Die. Deal with it which highlighted the need for candid discussion about palliative care and end of life medical treatment.

My Last Song supports visitors to address all their end of life issues, put their legal and financial affairs in order, organise their care options and plan their own funerals.

This information can be stored in a secure online Lifebox. Only the Lifebox owners can store and edit the information until they give permission to a close family member to open it, normally towards the end of their lives or on their death.

I’m not ashamed to be able to offer to visitors to My Last Song the opportunity to have their heads modelled in bronze by one of the country’s leading bronze portrait artists, Lindy Branson.

After all, My Last Song was created to ensure people are remembered the way they want to be remembered – the right music, the funeral that best matches their beliefs, views and lifestyles, their own Lifebox in which their cherished memories and personal details are stored to be accessed by future generations.

A bronze memorial portrait is easy to organise. Lindy has perfected a way in which she reduces the time the subject needs to sit by using photographs and precise measurements.

The process only requires two to three sittings at her delightful Parsons Green studio to achieve a wonderful likeness. The clay head is then taken to the foundry to be cast in bronze.

The client is able to choose from a variety of patinations (colours) for the bronze. More than one bronze portrait can be made from the original mold.

The process takes about three months from the initial sitting to the presentation to the client of the bronze head, neck and part of the shoulders, mounted on a slate base.

The resulting memorial bronze portrait is a fine piece of art which your family will treasure long after photographs fade or portraits get stored and ignored.

To be remembered by your loved ones, choose a bronze portrait so they have a physical reminded of your presence.

And have a Lifebox so they can see all the information you wish to leave them – a digital time capsule containing  your life story, your achievements, your details…the information that made you the unique person whose likeness has been so well captured by the bronze portrait.

This will reduce the terrible stress and anxiety felt by the relatives immediately after someone dies when they realise they have to arrange the funeral.

All too often, the parted has left no wishes, and so families don’t know if they will be organising the sort of funeral their loved would have wanted.

Yet if grieving families know they are giving the loved one the funeral he or she wanted, they feel more positive and can come to terms with the loss more easily. The goodbye they are giving the parted is somehow more reassuring if they have arranged the funeral in a less stressful and more constructive frame of mind.

The Lifebox is also the place where people can store other personal information in sections such as Favourite Things; Friends; Life Story; My Obituary; Photos; Music; Scrapbooks and even My Secrets.

Currently with 50 megabytes of storage available in each Lifebox (and this likely to increase over time) the Lifebox subscriber can store video clips or audio recordings giving personal messages which can then be accessed by close loved ones for years after the subscriber has died.

The opportunity to go into the Lifebox and watch or hear the loved one will undoubtedly reduce the sense of loss,  because the loved one will seem to live on as people can see the face, hear the voice, recall the mannerisms, be touched by the smile.

To some extent the same is true of the written information subscribers puts into their Lifebox…to know their favourite music, favourite films, favourite holiday destinations, their achievements, their friends, even their secrets, mean their memory is much more vital and will remain so for far longer.

That is why I’m so encouraged by the positive feedback I’m getting to the Lifebox as a particularly useful online area not just to ensure the subscriber has the funeral he or she wants, but as a place that can provide a sort of digital immortality, reassuring to loved ones now and in the future.

Among the most relevant is your funeral, or that of a loved one. After all, you only get one chance to get it right.

A lot of people like to have poems read at the funeral, or to read poems to commemorate the departed loved one.  And many people like to write their own poems as a special tribute and to relate uniquely personal messages.

These can be very moving and emotional poems and at their best deserve to be recognised as works of literary merit.  Others can be sentimental, facile and trite.

So to encourage the former and reduce the latter, I’m proposing to launch a My Last Song funeral poetry competition.

Hopefully this will produce a canon of suitably well written contemporary funeral poems that visitors to My Last Song can read for inspiration and to use and adapt if appropriate to be read at their funeral or that of a loved one.

I’ve posted a forum on Sheer Poetry asking for help in organising the competition. For example I need three suitable judges and advice on the criteria.

Sponsorship would be great but I’m a realist and can’t see anybody wanting to sponsor a poetry competition but am willing to be proved wrong.

If you would like to be involved, or enter once it’s up and running, keep looking at My Last Song for information.

“Secular items such as romantic ballads, pop or rock music, political songs, football club songs are never to be sung or played at a Catholic funeral,” says his guidelines.

You can’t help but wonder if he woke up in a bad mood that day, as he continues: ”A Catholic funeral is not ‘a celebration of the life of Mary Brown’ or ‘a memorial service for Mary Brown’. These designations should never appear in media announcements or on the booklet.”

Hopefully such guidelines won’t be repeated here, because as the My Last Song poll on funeral music indicates, secular music is far more popular than hymns.

The baby boomer generation that 50 years ago redefined the youth culture is now redefining how society looks at death and dying.

They don’t want the ‘cut and paste’ anonymity of traditional funerals which is why secular music at funeral ceremonies is now so popular.

My Last Song describes funerals which mix religious and secular elements as the Modern British Funeral.

The Modern British Funeral is more celebratory than grieving as family and friends give tributes to the loved one rather than listening to readings delivered by the minister.

Other features of the Modern British Funeral include informal dress codes, colourful eco-friendly coffins, greater accessibility to mourners of other faiths and interment in Woodland burial sites.

The Modern British Funeral recognises the growing secularisation and diversity of our society, and concerns about our environment., which is why families increasingly request that money is donated to good causes rather than spent on funeral flowers.

I’ve no doubt that similar ‘modern’ funerals are common in Australia, and realise that Archbishop Hart was giving guidelines for funerals of practicing Catholics in his diocese.

Should, however, Archbishops here consider following his example, they would do well to consider that a mix of secular and religious is a pretty good compromise, at a time when compromise is important for friends and family of a departed loved one.

The choices are Burial; Cremation; Eco-friendly church or cemetery burial (which means eco-friendly coffin and charity donations in lieu of funeral flowers); Woodland burial; Used for medical research and Leave it to my family to decide.

So far 15 per cent have chosen the last option. That is to say, they don’t want to take any responsiblity, they are happy to leave it to their families.

Well, one thing is certain, families won’t be happy to have to deal with all the issues that arise when a loved one dies. For when you are numb with shock, when you are grieving and when you are trying to come to terms with the loss, you are at your lowest.

And to have to make difficult decisions such as the choice of funeral arrangements and looking for all the important details of the life that has just ended so that probate can be sorted out quickly adds significantly to the stress and anguish.

Why would you want to leave a mess for your loved ones to sort out when, with a bit of planning ahead, you can ensure that most of the issues are dealt with, and moreover, on your terms?

So if you are environmentally aware, you can plan for your own ‘green funeral’. If you have no religious convictions, you can have a secular funeral. If you want your life to be remembered by certain pieces of music, you can state what these are.

Similarly, you can ensure your estate is passed to whoever you want to benefit by making and updating your will and letter of wishes. You can list all the details which your executors and close family members will need in the days and weeks following your demise.

If you do this, your loved ones will not just be relieved, they will be extremely grateful you had the foresight and good sense to sort out your end of life affairs while you were able.  They will think better of you, and their pain and stress will be lessened.

The Lifebox within My Last Song has been created to make this process as easy as possible. There are sections for organising the will, writing the letter of wishes, planning the funeral arrangements and listing all the necessary details that need to be known.

The Lifebox also has other sections that enable the family, now and in the future, to have an accurate insight into the departed person’s life and times.

So, if you are thinking to choose the ‘Leave it to my family to decide’ option in the My Last Song poll, think again. To leave it to your family to sort out your affairs just after you have died is a callous and even cruel decision which will make life even more difficult for your loved ones.

With the My Last Song Lifebox to guide you easily through the process of putting your own affairs in order, there’s no excuse for making your loved ones’s lives even more difficult…and not having the ending that you want to be remembered by.

Maybe it should include political parties, because the Labour Party looks as if it’s coming to the end of its life.

This is the list of candidates to be its new leader: Diane Abbott; Ed Balls; Andy Burnham; David Miliband; and Ed Milliband.  Of these, the only one who deserves to be leader because she is not tainted with the previous Government’s mistakes is the least likely to win.

The most likely is David Miliband. He thinks that to follow most closely Tony Blair’s New Labour policies will be most likely to gain the support of the British people.  He might not be too pleased to have this message amplified by Lord Mandelson, since one is judged by one’s friends, but sticking to New Labour’s vision is what David thinks will win him the leadership.

I would like to remind David Miliband and those members of the Labour Party who might be thinking of voting for him that the British people are not stupid.

New Labour will be remembered for bringing the country to the brink of economic catastrophe and blighting the prospects of future generations. We will remember it for defaulting to authoritarian measures and wanting to take away our liberty.

The country won’t forget that the Labour Government oversaw the abuse of Parliamentary expenses which resulted in politicians of all parties losing the trust of the British people.

Above all, the British people will remember its illegal and hugely misguided foreign policy which destabilised the Middle East, killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, radicalised many young British Muslims thereby making our streets less safe, reduced the UK  to the status of a US puppet whose strings were pulled by George W Bush, and damaged our standing in the world accordingly. Who will ever forget the humiliation of Bush’s ‘Yo, Blair!’ greeting at the G8 conference.

Millions of us marched through London asking Blair not to invade Iraq, knowing the likely consequences. We were ignored.

The British people will not forget that throughout most of the New Labour Government, David Miliband held high office, including that of Foreign Secretary. His performance in discharging the responsibilities of that post was scandalously inept.

Nor should we forget that Ed Balls was an adviser to Gordon Brown during the first years of the Labour Government, elected in 2005 as an MP and then fast tracked to be Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. During this period, this financial genius, along with Gordon Brown, allowed our economy to head for the buffers at a frightening speed, blind to the inevitable crash that cost the country billions of pounds.

Meanwhile, the best that can be said of Andy Burnham was that he looked pretty on TV, spoke well on the radio and gave whatever message number ten told him to deliver with a sham northern sincerity which fooled few people. From his time as an adviser to Chris Smith in the early years of the Labour Government, Andy Burnham was a true advocate of New Labour.

Ed Miliband was just as true a disciple of Blair’s New Labour vision, as a visit to his Wikipedia page will show.

Diane Abbott loathed these hypocrites and often spoke her mind. She is likely to come last in the leadership election.

The leadership election papers are sent out on the day that the founder of New Labour publishes his account of his leadership.  From what I’ve heard on the radio, it demonstrates that the rift between Blair and Brown was so huge that the Government could barely function.

Worse, Blair still believes it was right to have invaded Iraq and gone into Afghanistan. Moreover, interviewed by Andrew Marr, he thinks that there should be a military intervention if Iran develops a nuclear weapon. Tony Blair is, let us remember, the UN’s Middle East ‘Peace Envoy’.

If the above proves anything, it is that the Labour Party has for many years been devoid of a soul and principles that voters can believe in.

And without these qualities, any political party will wither and evenutally die.

If voters elect David Miliband, his continuing adherence to New Labour policies and principles will hasten the end. But whoever is elected, with the exception of Diane Abbott who might just be able to restore its soul, the Labour Party is in terminal decline and we should be planning its ending now.

As for the choice of the Labour Party’s last song, put your selection in the comments box.

The idea is that children nominate an older and computer illiterate or unconfident family member who they will mentor to be more computer confident and competent through the medium of putting their life stories and family histories in their Lifeboxes within My Last Song.

This will enable more older people to go online with confidence, thus fulfilling one of the goals of Race Online 2012, of which My Last Song is a partner organisation.

Older people are obviously a target group, and if My Last Song can help more of them to understand the benefits of going online and have the ability to go online, then it’s a win win situation.

I also think one of the advantages will be the telling of family history by older relatives to their younger family members, and then the capturing of it within the Lifebox, secure for future generations to access to get an accurate insight into their departed loved one’s life and times.

Encouragingly, the Department for Education sent me a positive email wishing me success with the venture and crucially providing the names and contact details of Heads of Children’s Services in every local authority.

Meanwhile, I’m waiting to hear from my old school friend who is Cabinet member for Education, Children and Families at Barnet Council who was also enthusiastic about the proposal when I discussed it with him a few weeks ago.

So, it looks as if there could be two pilot projects in very different London boroughs launched in the autumn from which we can learn good practice before inviting schools throughout the country to participate.

Hopefully this will be in time for Race Online 2012’s Get Online Week, starting 18 October.

The poll, carried out between 14 June and 16 August, asked people to vote on the type of music they wanted played at their funeral.

Thirty nine percent of the 150 voters chose modern secular while those who wanted a mixture of all categories accounted for 27 per cent. The full results are given later.

The poor showing of hymns confirms the trend towards funerals with a greater secular content.

My Last Song describes funerals which mix religious and secular elements as the Modern British Funeral.

It is more celebratory than grieving as family and friends give tributes to the loved one rather than listening to readings delivered by the minister.

Other features of the Modern British Funeral include informal dress codes, colourful eco-friendly coffins, greater accessibility to mourners of other faiths and interment in Woodland burial sites.

Modern British Funerals also include civil ceremonies held at local council buildings or other suitable non-religious locations. Civil celebrants are trained to officiate at funerals which mix secular and religious elements.

Once people face their own mortality, the more likely they are to want a Modern British Funeral. If they leave it to others, it is more likely they will have a traditional funeral that doesn’t reflect their views or lifestyle.

The choices, and number of votes, were:

Hymns: 27;

Modern secular (popular music from about the 1920s onwards): 59;

Classical secular (non-religious classical music): 11;

Classical religious (songs from requiems, Ave Maria, sacred classical music): 6;

A mix of these: 40;

Something else (poetry and non-musical readings): 7.

Visitors to My Last Song contribute their favourite five farewell songs. So far 48 people have contributed their five farewell songs. Only two people have asked for a hymn.

The most popular farewell songs that visitors have so far contributed are:

What A Wonderful World: Louis Armstrong

Heartbeats: José González

Here Comes the Sun: The Beatles

I Say A Little Prayer: Aretha Franklin

How Can You Mend A Broken Heart: Al Green

Je ne regrette rien: Edith Piaf

My Funny Valentine: Sarah Vaughan

Start Me Up: The Rolling Stones

What you ask, is ‘Beaching’ in this context? It is the currently rare practice of families going to the shoreline and, at low tide, digging rows spelling out the name of their loved one and a message (a body makes about 200 cubic inches so spread thinly can fill several letters), and watching as the waves come in to wash the ashes gently into the sea.

The most interesting question the presenter asked was the attitude of the funeral industry to such radical changes in funeral practices. I made the point, as did a following interviewee – a Sussex based humanist officiant – that funeral directors are in business to provide a service to their clients.

I think it’s a point worth emphasising – in the last few years the funeral industry has modernised and most funeral directors want to give a bespoke service as much as offering a limited number of relatively inflexible options.

My Last Song encourages people to plan their own funerals and farewell events – wake and celebratory party – so that they are remembered as they want to be remembered. It has a Lifebox in which funeral wishes and other end of life information such as a copy of the will and letter of wishes can be safely stored until required by close family members and the executor.

Before making the funeral wishes, it is worthwhile to visit local funeral directors to discuss the options and costs, and to work out a pre-paid funeral plan that covers the send off you want. The funeral industry calls this sort of engagement, ‘pre-need’ as opposed to ‘at need’ which is when the grieving family ask for virtually instant funeral arrangements for a recently deceased loved one.

Like everything else, the more time and planning you put into something, the more successful it will be. So it is understandable that most funeral directors welcome ‘pre-need’ clients.

And, for the person considering their own demise, there is the reassurance that they have made the decisions rather than whoever in the grieving family comes forward to take control…not necessarily the person they would want to decide their funeral arrangements.

The number of public health funerals held by local authorities has remained consistent across the last three financial years (2007/8 to 2009/10) with, on average, 12  per year in  London boroughs, metropolitan and unitary councils) and three in district councils and Welsh authorities.

Eve Richardson, chief executive of the Dying Matters coalition, used the research to state that “older People being buried in what are in effect ‘Paupers’ graves should have no place in modern society.

“Unfortunately these numbers will only increase unless as a society we begin to take more responsibility for what happens to us and those older people living alone in communities.”

She is right…we have an obligation to take care of vulnerable, lonely old people in our communities; to show respect and kindness to elderly members of our families; and also to take personal responsibility for our end of life affairs.

This includes planning for, and paying for, our funerals. It should also encompass writing and updating our wills, and knowing the care options we are likely to face.

I also think it includes leading as healthy a lifestyle as possible, exercising and eating properly and visiting your doctor regularly.

These areas are all comprehensively covered in My Last Song.

The website also offers visitors a Lifebox so that when you have made your funeral wishes, written your will, listed who you want to have your possessions and written your life story, they will be stored securely and, when you die or are in the last stages of a terminal illness, your executor or trusted family member can open your Lifebox and carry out your wishes.

Because you wouldn’t want a pauper’s funeral, would you?

Funeral expert Professor Tony Walter has described it as ‘Pick ‘n’ Mix’.

However, as it is becoming the most popular funeral service or ceremony in our secular and diverse society, I believe it should be called the Modern British Funeral. It is more elegant than Pick ‘n’ Mix which I associate with the sweet counter at Woolworth.

The reason that the Modern British Funeral is becoming the normal send off is that it accommodates greater personalisation.  No longer are families willing to be told what is appropriate when remembering a loved one.

When we consider our own mortality, we want to be remembered as the unique individuals we are, not dispatched by a ‘cut and paste’ anonymous, dreary ritual that all too often is the outcome of the traditional funeral.

The Modern British Funeral is characterised by:

• a mixture of secular and religious music and readings;
• greater participation of family and friends in reading tributes;
• colourful clothing, colourful coffins and fewer ‘rules’;
• greater accessibility to mourners of other faiths and no faith.

Until fairly recently some ministers of religion would, with differing degrees of enthusiasm, deliver a ‘religion lite’ funeral. Most will now officiate at a service that is a Modern British Funeral.

Any serious objection by a clergyman to providing a Modern British Funeral can be overcome by stating the example of Princess Diana’s funeral.

A growing number of families decide that the funeral ceremony of a loved one should not be conducted by a minister of religion. These now choose a civil funeral normally held at a local council chamber and delivered by a civil celebrant.

And the funeral trade, having to provide what their customers want, will now advise on and arrange a Modern British Funeral happy to give – and charge for – a more bespoke service.

Modern British Funerals often have elements of a green funeral, with the interment at a Woodland Burial site and the increasing use of eco-friendly coffins.

For Modern British Funerals to succeed in providing a unique, well organised and celebratory way of saying farewell, families need to be better informed about a part of life that until recently was a taboo subject.

This is now changing. My Last Song is getting over 100 new visitors a day, with a growing number using their Lifebox to ensure their funeral wishes are safely stored to be accessed when necessary by their close family and executor.

The Good Funeral Guide, We Need To Talk About The Funeral and Last Orders are recent publications that provide information about things funereal.

Evidence then that we are now seeing the baby boomer generation which 50 years ago redefined youth culture, reclaiming funerals from the undertakers and ministers and re-casting the rituals for their dead.

Yes, the traditional funeral, while not dead yet, is on its way out to be replaced by the Modern British Funeral.  And a good thing too.

My Last Song has a secure storage facility called the Lifebox where people put a copy of their will which their executors and close family access after they have died.

The website also has a section about wills and probate in which visitors are encouraged to use properly qualified solicitors to write their wills.

I consulted with the Law Society before launching the website and agreed to have links to their ‘find a solicitor’ website page so that people who didn’t have a solicitor could find a local qualified probate lawyer rather than go to a back-street will writer.

The Lifebox area within My Last Song guides people to put information that their close family members will require once they die rather than searching for it when grieving over the death of a loved one.  Examples are funeral wishes and who you want to attend the funeral.

Will Hammond, 53 from Hounslow, says the reassurance of knowing his will would be safe was one of the reasons he bought a Lifebox.

“The ability for my will and other important documents to be accessed by my next of kin is very appealing. I have spent a lot of time planning what I want to happen when I die, including the terms of my will.

“So it was a ‘no brainer’ when I decided to get a Lifebox which has advice on all the issues I had been considering.”

The Lifebox area of My Last Song is divided into sections including letter of wishes, funeral plan and important details.

The will section gives advice on how to draw up an initial plan which helps save time and money when dealing with a solicitor. When the will is written and signed, people are told to put a scanned copy in their Lifebox and to tell their executor where the hard copy is kept.

Another Lifebox user who has taken advantage of this facility is Rod Pearson who lives in Lambeth, south London.

“I recently updated my will because my personal circumstances changed. I have bought a Lifebox so that I can store a scanned copy and give the details of the solicitor who holds the original.  This information can then be easily accessed by my executor when the sad day comes, and it will be one less thing for my family to worry about.”

Well, for a start it is now called the Interfamily Personal History Online Scheme, or IPHOS for short.

More importantly, two weeks ago I sent an outline proposal to the Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, and also to a civil servant at the Department For Education.   As the scheme, sorry IPHOS, is to get school children to improve their older relatives’ computer confidence and competence, the minister and department responsible for schools seemed good places to start.

Well, this morning I got a call from the civil servant who said he liked the scheme.

He cautioned that the minister would probably decide that the proposal was too ‘hands on’ to deal with, and that instead I should talk to local authorities as these were responsible for the day to day educational activities of schools within their areas.

Rather than ‘cold call’ local councils, I thought I would see what endorsement or support I could get from Race Online 2012, whose purpose is to get as many people in the UK online and computer competent by the end of 2012 as possible.

Race Online 2012 is headed by Martha Lane Fox, so any backing the scheme (alright, IPHOS) gets from that organisation will receive the necessary publicity.

So I have just sent them an email asking what level of support I can expect from them.

I have adapted IPHOS to include a ‘deliverable’ whereby children who nominate an older relative to populate their Lifebox with their life histories and details about their friends and relatives will tell their classes about the interesting personal histories they have helped capture online.

This must appeal to teachers, families and pupils alike for it will enable children to tell each other in an ordered way their families’ histories thereby encouraging an interest in social history and an appreciation of their older relatives’ lives and times.

IPHOS might, of course, be one of hundreds of schemes with nice acronyms that never see the light of day, but I’m hopeful it might be a runner given the input of the DoE official and hopefully the backing of Race Online 2012.

Now I also need the support of a computer supplier or retailer such as Sony, Dell, Toshiba, Acer, HP, Currys or Comet and IPHOS will have some ‘traction’ as the marketeers like to say.

I will keep you posted.

With the 14-21 age group communicate more online than face to face, intergenerational communication, especially within families, is rapidly disappearing, made worse as adult family members have less time to talk to their children, nephews and nieces.

The results are:

• Less family bonding and support;
• Less family understanding;
• Less knowledge of family history;
• Less tolerance within families; and
• Less passing on of wisdom and advice.

And so the importance of the family diminishes and this bodes ill for society because families, the support they give and the wisdom and experience they impart are of profound benefit.

However, if a young family member has their own Lifebox the situation in which intergenerational discussion takes place is more likely to take place.

Parents can show the young child the various sections and how to populate them with their childhood photos, important early events, details of friends and early educational achievements.

It can also be the place where parents and children record family history and information about close relatives, something that otherwise might be ignored, and then lost forever.

Once a child has his or her Lifebox, they can continue using it during their adult life as a safe place to store their memories and important personal details.

The Lifebox will be a unique and treasured present, and one children are likely to use throughout their lives especially as their childhoods will have been stored there.

One of the more interesting, more spiritual, options is called ‘Beaching’, which if my memory serves me properly is more popular on the west coast of the US and in Australia than in the UK.  But I can see it catching on here.

‘Beaching’ is creating shallow furrows in the hard sand on the beach when the tide is out.  You then sprinkle the ashes in these furrows which can spell the name of the person whose ashes are going to fill them.

As the ‘cremains’ (short for cremated remains) of an average size adult weigh between three and nine pounds and take up a volume of approximately 200 cubic inches, you can make a lot of letters in the sand into which the ashes are sprinkled,  and messages can be created.

As the tide comes in,  friends and family watch the remains of their loved one  slowly disappearing, to be gradually merged with the sand and stones of the advancing sea upon their favourite beach.

Cremains, it should be noted, are more similar in colour and appearance to crushed sea shells than they are to ashes, so ‘Beaching’ has a sort of natural appeal.

Anyway, now that summer is here, in an attempt to get publicity for My Last Song I wrote a press release with the angle that people enjoying a day at the seaside might be in for a shock knowing that little Johnny was being buried up to his head in a mixture of sand and the remains of a recently deceased human.

The release, which also mentioned some of the other more eccentric ways of dealing with ashes, appealed to a few journalists who have asked me for the names of people whose burnt and crushed remains might be between the toes of toddlers in Torquay as I tap this out.

I can’t supply names of people who are now a mixture of sand and charred bone as I don’t know, and it’s not the sort of thing people make public. So, the story might get spiked, but for those who find it interesting, it is now on this blog and on My Last Song.

I’m not going to give away the numbers who polled, but I’m intrigued by the four per cent who went for something else. I don’t think they were wanting the classic Cannonball Adderley Blue Note jazz album Somethin’ Else, which highlighted a young Miles Davis. Possibly poetry or readings, or even silence.

More interesting though is how few people – 18 per cent at the time of writing – wanted hymns.

People coming across My Last Song, or accepting my invite to vote in the poll, are likely to be interested in their personal choice of music and unless they are strong Christians, this won’t include Hymns.

Of the ten or so funerals I’ve attended, about half were traditional and featured hymns. They had the benefit of encouraging all the mourners to join in, which meant we felt we shared the same emotions as we knew the melodies or were happy to follow the choir.

But those ceremonies where secular music was chosen were far more interesting as the officiant gave a brief description of why the song was chosen and it helped bring back memories or know something new about the person to whom we were saying goodbye. Mourners continued to discuss the songs at the reception and, forgive the horrible term, they added more value to the send off than the traditional hymns which, while giving everyone the opportunity to have a good sing, were forgotten as soon as the last note on the organ stilled into silence.

Anyway, in the My Last Song poll, secular modern songs scored well over twice the votes of hymns, and are followed by the sensible compromise of a mix of secular and classic.

If in the next 36 hours, lots of devout Christians enter the poll and there’s a surge in support for hymns, then so be it, but I think that’s unlikely.  So, if an early ‘exit poll’ is to be believed, secular songs are considerably more popular as choices for farewell music.

Strange then that hymns are sung at so many funerals that take place even in today’s secular society.

I will be considering the reasons for this in my next blog.  It will be next week so don’t hold your breath in anticipation.