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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congratulations to the University of Nottingham, Dying Matters and the National End of Life Care Programme for producing the excellent Planning for your future care publication.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The review into Palliative Care, led by the chief executive of Marie Curie Cancer Care, Thomas Hughes-Hallett, has highlighted the fact that very many dying people don’t have the end of life experience they want.

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 smiles that so readily crossed the faces of David Cameron and Barak Obama when they were together this week hid something sinister.

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.

 The theme of this year’s Dying Matters Coalition Awareness Week (16 to 22 May) is ‘Why Dying Matters to me’ which is as good as any to get people to address the taboo surrounding death.

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.

Marie Curie, the cancer care charity, this week published the findings of a survey that showed that almost two-thirds (63 per cent) wanted to die at home and 71 per cent would like to be surrounded by friends, family or loved ones. In stark contrast, just three per cent wanted to spend their final hours in hospital.

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.

I don’t have a television…when, on those rare occasions there is something I want to watch, I ask various friends and ex-partners if I can pop round. The answer is normally yes, and the added bonus is I get snacks and a decent glass of wine at the very least.

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.

Today’s damning review by the Health Service Ombudsman of the medical treatment of elderly patients will make frightening reading for hundreds of thousands of older people and their loved ones.

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.