God,  I hate what man does to man in your name.   Have you ever thought of shutting down the factory that is Religion and opening up another business that would encourage man to work together in your name?.    From the battle for Choice to give birth, to live a life in peace and harmony (with just the occasional quiet domestic as the credit card bills arrive) to Choice for Dignity in Dying.    Dirty political tactics are used in your name God.   It is War!    It is not God!

Like a few Muslims have, effectively,  high jacked Peace in the Name of Allah, The Israeli Jews took land back after 3000 years in the Name of God, and Christians tell us that God wants everyone to be born because a couple have sex which results in impregnation (forget the poor baby born unwanted and unloved).  Then we are expected to hang around for the next hundred years because medicine has found a way to transplant heart, liver, kidney, and even a face, if you want it.   Forget the fact the brain is so tired and the body even more so!…  God, would want that?      I don’t believe it for one minute,  and if the average Religious person could be honest, I feel,  they wouldn’t either.   The Human Body was never meant to live forever in this overcrowded world.   An eighty year old rarely contributes much physically, except words to society, yet even their voices are not listened to when they ask, for themselves to be released from their fatigue.   I have one 73 year friend who consistently climbs up on his roof for repairs while another 73 yo hobbles with pain in every step.   I really do believe that the Health authorities have to treat people according to their individual needs.

 That Catholics can challenge Cardinal Pell is the one thing that gives me hope of sanity in that institution known as Catholicism.   I feel, the fact that the ideas that have evolved out of two thousand years of “hearsay”  continues to be treated with any degree of belief in the face of the reality based on facts, beggars belief in itself.    Be that as it may, Christians “believe”, I don’t, yet their beliefs are what laws that effect me are based on.   I resent this deeply.

I am sure when the great men of History developed the concept of Religion (and formalised religion is a man made institution after all) they had no idea of the carnage they were creating both in angst and death for most mankind.

Alone is:

Not the absence of others,      It is the presence of me….

Billy Connelly said this during his interview this week with Andrew Denton and I thought it a profound statement.   I understood what he meant.   Sometimes we just need time alone.  No computer, no TV, no radio, no Ipod, no discussion, just a sense of nothings but self.   A form of mediation without the God, just the spirit resting.  All thought processes slowed and stilled…

But God how hard is it to stop the brain……..how bloody hard can it be to stop the thoughts flowing and just be still?

Very, can be the answer for some of us.

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Old Buddhist Saying also compliments of Billy Connelly: Learn What You Should Be Doing – And Do It!

Again, for some of us, so much harder than it seems……

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For anyone with a remote interest in Biblical History there is an interesting article posted under Related Readings – Others.  It appears that Iraq is almost as famous as Israel for making religious history.

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An article produced, talking about Hospice Care in Kansas perhaps gives us some insight into why religious groups are so anti VE, not because of a fundamental religious viewpoint but to do with the god almighty dollar.   In 2003 The American National Hospice and Palliative Care Group in its Report, Feb 19, 06 tells us that Kansas dealt with 6440 patients generating $47.5 million dollars annually.  I went back over the figures three times trying to get my mind around that figure which translates into $7.4 million per customer.   Say someone put a decimal point in the wrong place and it should read perhaps 1 million….. No wonder Religion has become a major fallback for all the organisations that are running these facilities, in the name of caring….I too could care for someone, very lingering, not wanting to lose their custom if I thought there was $1 million or 5 million or 7 million in their sticking around.

Dying people are big business: employment, maintenance, catering, machinery, cleaning, laundry, medicines, staffing, buildings, transport.  

At then end of the day, we’re told that 80% of people do not die suddenly…..what a market, what a gold mine…..what of the patient?    What about their needs?  just how long does one string out a good line to keep a person “alive” in order to improve profits.

Thank God for people like Dr Philip Nitschke who cuts straight to the chase and makes only the person suffering, his major priority.  He does not promote suicide, he explains the ramifications in trying to achieve a good death.   Anyone who has listened to him, knows that frequently the media sensationalize a single sentence within a whole range of advice.   He warns people of what works and what doesn’t.   But that is not incitement.   It is information.

Talking about suicide methods did you know that gun shot wounds frequently do not kill, because the hand holding the gun is not steady enough, and the slight tremor results in the bullet being propelled away from a vital area.   This is not told to us in CSI!, and I believe this is not well known.   I had thought that putting a gun into the mouth would always result in death.   It doesn’t, but it can result in months of very painful reconstruction work.     I would urge people not to attempt to shoot themselves.   If nothing else, it can mar your beauty for life! 

Very early in February I asked Ms Bronwyn Pike, Minister for Health on direction to the Health Budget which I had assumed was a public document, and to date I have not received any acknowledgement.   If we in Victoria come even remotely near the Kansas accounting figures, unless some serious issues are raised and dealt with in Parliament, (like the Global Warming issue), the Australian economy will collapse under the strain of supporting people to live longer who would otherwise prefer to die.    Medically assisted dying has to be a very real consideration for the authorities.   If Governments would address the need now it will prevent a catastrophic damning of people when the situation becomes overwhelming as it will.

This is one of those days where “Choice” has taken second place to one of my other interests, which is the Australian Labor Party of which I have been a strong supporter since November 11, 1975 when previously I had mostly voted Liberal.   As a result of listening twice to a radio program ABC’s Background Briefing, Labor in Crisis, February 5th, I felt compelled to speak in support of much of what the topic was about.   People I’ve met, rubbished Mark Latham but he was just the messenger, as was Senator John Faulkner with the same message but people are not alienated from him,  so may well actually listen first.  Different style of delivery but same message.

http:choicesplease.blogspot.com will give you a full version of my POV.   Copies of my article have been sent to some key people within the Party.   Namely Messrs Beazley, Bracks, The ALP Information desk and a few other Labor Politicians who may or may not know of me.   In my usual forthright manner, I have called a spade, a shovel but genuinely believe that if the hierarchy don’t start doing some very serious reassessment of their management style they will be left without people to promote their profile.

I tried in my blogspot to focus on the issue of Management style, although my experience has been as an activist for Choice, trying to be heard, I have cringed on so many occasions when I hear Labor representing me.   In fairness I was pleased with the outcome of RU 486 when Mr Beazley got it in one, Science not morality should dictate policy…but the damage was really done with the Suicide Related Materials Bill which the Labor party supported, ensuring loss of civil liberties never before seen in Australia.   To be fined $110000 to hold a personal phone conversation with a friend discussing suicide methods, and this Labor party supported that Bill!.

Mr Beazley and none of his Minister responded to my correspondence.

Like cattle in a truck we Members of the Labor Party,  are good for herding time, when the Party needs the numbers but when the roles are reversed and we need support, we can’t even get a response explaining fully why a particular decision is being made.   Not one Member of Parliament, capable to making a difference,  Federal or State has invited me to discuss the points I’ve raised with them.   The Opposition (Liberal) Victorian Health Minister did write a charming letter until I offered to take him up and he then backed right off! 

That’s one major thing I’ve noticed that most Politicians mouth words but say nothing, it must be an art taught at their induction into Parliament.   Someone I was talking to the other day was telling me of a friend who entered Parliament thinking they could make a difference but was very quickly shown how the factional and party line system works.  Depressing that one very rarely steps outside the square to demonstrate their individuality.

I wrote to three Ministers early February, one ignored my letter, and one referred me to the third Minister yet all three subjects raised covered issues of Community, Aged and Health.  The time spent in the dozens of letters I received, these past years,  referring me back to the Health Minister is crazy when it should be considered that she alone does not generate Policy for the Whole State.  Parliamentarians are not employed by the individual Electorate, they are employed by the State (we the people are the State aren’t we?) to Represent the people of Victoria  and to Vote for the State.  Not their individual constituents!   When Laws are created in Parliament they are based on the whole big picture, not just the local village street.   All Parliamentarians should have a public viewpoint about issues raised, even if they are undecided ones!    It shows they actually can think for themselves on behalf of others. 

Politicians spend millions “fighting community depression”.   Perhaps a very good place to start would be to “start listening to the community”.   People do like to feel they are being “heard”!    I have an elderly friend is says that being ignored is equivalent to Abuse of the Elderly.   Because one is retired, “unpowerful”, usually limited income so no big donations, and in her case confined mostly to her home, she feels neglected by the system.     She is not alone. 

I may be and probably am, a “nobody” to the “Image Makers” of the Labor Party.  I won’t count in the big picture of the Labor Party but multiply my disillusionment by many other members, my daughter having already walked, I wonder myself if I could achieve any more being inside the Party than outside it.   As a Member I am an irrelevance! 

On my wall I have pinned an Age article written by Denise Allen, former State Labor Member for Benalla,  dated October 4, 2005 Headed, “Why I just had to resign from the Labor Party”   She makes a very good case.

Recent letters to Politicians, include one to the Federal Attorney General, Mr Philip Ruddock (Liberal Coalition) and the Victorian Minister for Health, Ms Bronwyn Pike (Labor).  

I remember well what happened to the Political Party known as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation when these two major stakeholders combined forces against her and forced her into oblivion, even though One Million Australians (I was not one of them) voted for her.   She had a message that she wanted all Australians to hear.   But the existing power brokers didn’t want another kid on the block.  I feel a little like she must have felt, trying to introduce the concept of Legislative change in the face of existing government bureaucracy together with the conservative religious views who have not moved into the Twenty first century. 

As society implodes in its ability to sustain aged and technologically maintained life, the almighty dollar, not God, I feel will become the deciding factor.  As I said to the Minister of Health in my letter, I despair of the “Right to Life at Any Cost, when a Pace Maker is to be inserted in a 96 year old man.  Does he know how hard it will be to “die”,  until the battery runs out and pressure mounts to always renew it regardless,  because Medicine has started a Roller Coaster ride into stupidity.

The Age Sunday Life, dated February 5th tells us that in 1975,  14.5 per cent in the age bracket 20 to 29 years old had no religious affiliations, today it is 23 per cent.  An 8.5% swing away from a stated religious position is extremely telling about where our society is heading.  

Ms Danna Vale, a House of Representative for the Liberal Party believes we will all abort ourselves in oblivion, in favour of a Muslim society.   With that type of rational debate what hope do the rest of society have when it comes to being Governed for the People.   

Given that neither Parties meet the concerns of a rising number of constituents I wonder what possible hope we have of acquiring a Political party that can be strong enough to withstand the might of the existing Liberal/National/Family First against Labor with its falling Membership numbers because it really isn’t an Opposition Party, recently.    Mr Beazley is relying on the Industrial Relations Legislation to bring back the Believers.  Mr Beazley is yet to grasp that self interests are the most important to the voter.  Very very quickly people will forget the lies, corruption and the GST as a tax break incentive is dangled before the voters eyes, just prior to the next election.

31 Days in Iraq

By ADRIANA LINS de ALBUQUERQUE and ALICIA CHENG

02/06/06 “New York Times” — – In January more than 800 people — soldiers, security officers and civilians — were killed as a result of the insurgency in Iraq. While the daily toll is noted in the newspapers and on TV, it is hard for many Americans to see these isolated reports in a broader context. The map, based on data from the American, British and Iraqi governments and news reports, shows the dates, locations and circumstances of deaths for the first month of the year

(the map did not print up into my website, but was in the original article, little stick figures dotted throughout the country, some places more dangerous than others obviously)

Given the fog of war, the information may be incomplete. Nonetheless, it is our effort to visually depict the continuing human cost of the Iraq war.

Adriana Lins de Albuquerque is a doctoral student in political science at Columbia University. Alicia Cheng is a graphic designer at mgmt. design in Brooklyn.

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

Items like this just confirm the stupidity of the Right to Life Campaigners that would tell me how one life (over another) can be so very precious.   Why aren’t they in the halls of Government yelling from the rafters about the futile loss of young fit lives.  Lives that really would have had a future.

Mr Abbott was bleating overnight about the Senate voting in favour of the drug RU 486, as a vote of no confidence in him as Health Minister, and trusts the House of Reps will see common sense next week.   His energies would be better engaged to finding a negotiated peace in the Middle East before there is no Christianity left to defend.  We talk of choice in dying but we Australians need to consider our choices in living while we have that life.

The Iraq people did not start the Killing!  The killing was started by countries who fight us,  to the bitter end to avoid introducing Voluntary Euthanasia, yet  think little of invading another’s territory, which can result in 800 deaths in a month. (and that is in one occupied country)  I think our Australian Government is playing with moonbeams while the world burns.  With the global reach of modern society no where will people be safe if we continue to disregard respect for other’s rights.   In the name of “freedom” we just replaced  the dictatorship’s methods of killing with our own brand of killing.   One is just as dead with a bullet as being tortured to death!   An Iraq child is just as dead from the violence of war as an Australian adult committing voluntary euthanasia.  The major difference is that the Iraq child would have wanted to live, if it had, had the choice, the Australian may have wanted to live once, but is now ready to die.   I watched a documentary a year ago which showed a three year old boy wetting himself as he died in his father’s arms, at that point, I left the theatre.      Horrible, horrible images of children battered, bruised and dying, yet I have yet to hear a clamoring of voices to make the Australian Government desist in being a participant in supporting the killing.  We can’t even be honest and call it “killing”, but rather “collateral damage”.

When I hear Senator Fielding, Abetz, Joyce or Mr Abbot talk about the sanctity of life, it should not be selectively random for when it suits them,    All life is precious, we’re told.   Well I suggest Politicians prove that they act with honesty and integrity and start working towards peace not war in the Middle East.    This Federal Government ably abetted by the Opposition Party (ALP) introduced a law taking away our rights for free speech in January of this year on the grounds they wanted to protect the vulnerable of our society and reduce a suicide rate of 2300 per annum.  That is less than 3 months worth of killing in Iraq!….

A couple of interesting articles have been posted under Related Readings this morning.  Both have a story to tell, one of a Minister of Religion committing suicide along with his wife, and that, Italian women in the majority,  favour VE under the usual conditions that inspire the rest of us to consider it as a viable option to living.

I suppose the most important message for me is the indication that faith alone, for some of us,  does not sustain one to endure pain at any price, even for the gift of offering said pain up to the Greater Glory of God.  (a throw back from my convent days enduring a painful toothache, not to mention badly ulcerated mouth!)   Although the pain of MS, or Cancer could not be considered in the same breath as a toothache, the principles remain the same.  

At what point does a rational, pain driven body cry enough?  I remembered in my child birthing hours, I was saying “All for Thee, Oh Lord, All for Thee” and then I realised what I was crying out and how stupid and hypocritical it was for me to be saying such words!.   And I stopped it! and again when I lay in the Hospital Room, having had major abdominal surgery,  in excruciating pain it was a comfort blanket for me to start anew but I knew it wasn’t working for me!.  For others it does! and good luck to them.

For those of us mouthing false pleas, we need a different sort of support.   A much more practical one!.   And yes, I took great comfort in knowing that honesty overcame other considerations when the Minister and his wife, made their Choices!

With the best intention in the world, faith alone was insufficient to sustain a great man of the Church.  How much harder is it for those who do not possess the gift of faith to carry them through a crisis which has no positive outcome at the end of the suffering?   Mind you, for me the advantages of having “no faith in a Christian God” far outweighs the disadvantages.

I am not easily offended by people whose faith is different to mine. 

“We are on this earth but once, make the most of it!  Do only unto others as you would have them do to you.  Your Life, Your Choice.”   If everyone both religious and non religious people just followed that one golden rule in life every other rule, becomes superfluous.

I seek only change for myself, unfortunately, change for myself, relies on the generosity of others to permit that to be easier rather than harder to achieve.   

I am genuinely perplexed!.    What is so very difficult in introducing a law supporting voluntary euthanasia?.  How is it so very complex,  and how could it possibly create more difficulties than it solves?.  Are we really focused on the person concerned or those around them?

If voluntary euthanasia was sanctioned in law and with the consent of two independent doctors, how could a terminally ill person not be the most important beneficiary of VE.   Should a doctor benefit from the death of a patient? and why should it be just the doctor?  Simple, make a law that forbids a doctor from benefiting from the Will of a patient, which immediately disposes of any gain by the death.   Again we need to stay with the patient’s needs!   Why should the patient be left to suffer intolerable pain on the rare chance that the doctor relieving the pain may have been left a set of silver candlesticks in the will?.   

We talk about a “slippery slope” incessantly but how can this be the case when most terminally ill people have already expressed their wishes in a coherent manner, many times verbally and hopefully in writing.   I don’t believe in a here after, but should there be one, I will haunt the person unmercifully that says “they didn’t know what my wishes were.”   More and more grey haired well healthy people are coming forward and stating their wishes in a public forum.  

We hear time and time again of failed suicides which do nothing to aid the person concerned or the health budget.  For a $15 drug, a person could die by their own hand if given just half a chance.   So many people want just the assurance that should the going get tough, the tough get going permanently.   Some people I’ve spoken to, just want to know that their death does not have to be a long drawn out palliative care scenario, with conservatives erring on the side of minimal dosage in case the patient should lapse into unconsciousness.  

I remember well the TV Political Journalist’s wife having to insist the Hospital Staff increase her husband’s dosage as he lay in great agony dying with lung cancer.  She raised her voice to the rafters as they told her they were concerned about the publicity in dealing with such a public figure.    They retreated in the face of her anger and gave the appropriate dose necessary for the circumstances.

Nothing is an isolated case and it is with trepidation that the majority of society has this to look forward to in dying, with one or two people in every four or five directly affected by cancer.   I sat next to a lady on Saturday afternoon who has had three incidents of cancer since my one in 1999.  As I wrote her birthday date in on my calendar for this year, she lamented whether she’d be “here” to celebrate!.  

Tough old bird that she is, of course, she will be.  But many with similar health histories will not.  And will their death be remembered as “a good death”, not unless the politicians get off their bums and start to really address the issue of voluntary euthanasia is a serious manner, without throwing out dud arguments to avoid actually doing something!

People like Dr Brendan Nelson who will send a constituent, a copy of his speeches on Voluntary Euthanasia.   Stop the talking please and start implementing policy.   

Can just one politician in the Liberal National Party make a real difference to the lives of the desperately ill?  There but for the Grace of God, go I!   Isn’t that what is preached?

I feel quite pleased with myself today, with the webmistress having posted a number of letters under Lobbying.  Although their tone once again reflects my passion and emotional involvement I just hope for a positive outcome.   I also appreciate other’s contributions, and in fact welcome them,  to the effort for legislative change.

Yesterday I purchased a book (surprise,  surprise) called Analyzing Moral Issues written by Judith A Boss.   Quickly flicking through the pages I spied a section on Euthanasia.  A heavy book with small print is always a concern to me, also it is American, (their Morals,  are not necessarily mine, particularly justifying invasions) but I thought “open your mind Mary to new possibilities!!!” and bought it anyhow.   I think I will need the magnifying glass in addition to my glasses to read it though.  One of the joys of ageing…..

I must get stuck into the heavy stuff, but from what little I’ve read, it seems the discussion points will challenge me!  That females are more likely to succumb to the use of euthanasia because of their willingness to put others before self???  That male doctors will accommodate their female patients, more readily to achieve this goal????….Perhaps I need to read further and not late at night before I get too wound up.

Having said that,  I appreciated the first paragraph I read which say:

The case for euthanasia rests on three fundamental moral principles: mercy, autonomy and justice. 

Referring to Mercy, a doctor writes,

This principle of mercy establishes two component duties:

1    the duty not to cause further pain or suffering; and

2    the duty to act to end pain or suffering, already occurring.

The principle for Autonomy is considered thus;

One ought to respect a competent person’s choices, where one can do so without undue costs to oneself, where doing so will not violate other moral obligations, and where these choices do not threaten harm to other persons or parties.

and the third moral principle is Justice, explained

Has to do with justifying the use of limited resources for what is quaintly called “irretrievably inaccessible” patients with some interesting figures (I love figures, because they do tell a story). 

A permanently comatose woman injured in a riding accident in 1956 at age 27, lived for 18 years costing in excess of $6 million dollars while providing her with not one single moment of conscious life.  The record survival for a coma patient is thirty seven years and 111 days.

The argument from justice demands that these patients since their claims for care are so weak as to have virtually no force at all, be killed, not simply allowed to die.

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This last item to do with Justice must make the Australian Medical Economists winch.   Only 25% of our Health Budget has been costed for effectiveness against outcomes.   When we consider that in law and in all Religious Palliative Care, Hostels, Nursing Homes and Hospitals, this number will increase dramatically as people live longer naturally and then take longer to die because of medical intervention.   I believe the terminology used is “unsalvageable patients”.

Just recently I have written to three Ministers to ascertain if costings have been done on both attempted and successful suicides.   Just having people permanently comatose will make the Health budget spiraled out of control as the RTL lobby says life must be retained regardless of cost!  State Hospitals may operate their agendas a little more practically one would hope, but say St Vincent’s and like minded organisation would retain a vegetative person indefinitely and with funding of the Public Purse.   Apart from the funding aspect, what of the fact, that in spite of the costs incurred “the person has not one moment of conscious life”?    Surely a compelling argument in favour of euthanasia or killing the person quickly with a single injection. 

Let’s face it,  Americans have killed some 999 prisoners and left many to anticipate their demise slowly while waiting on death row.   America, God’s Own Country, after Israel, believes in killing.  The Commandment, should you believe it,  States:  Thou Shalt Not Kill.    The Commandment should you believe in it, is not selective about euthanasia or war.  Where as,  people dying as a result of euthanasia still makes the news, its so rare, the killing of war is totally ignored because it is so very common.   Yet both involve killing!.

The problem I have with the conservative religious right is their hypocrisy in “allowing” 6000 children a day to die of contaminated water because they pour valuable resources of time and money into fighting the euthanasia lobby groups, where very few lives are at risk, while basically ignoring the less “sensationally motivated” areas of death and dying.   Help the Children, and Prisoners first.  Euthanasia does not need “saving”, we’ll take care of our own souls and deal with spirituality in our own way.  Honestly.

Lead by example, not the nose!

I think I am going to enjoy this book, in spite of my initial reaction…..

How some people regard their earthly departure as dead funny

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/54767.html

DAMIEN HENDERSON

January 23 2006

Fancy attending a “small thermo conversion to mark being cast off on a great adventure with the tide”?

The death notice section in The Herald is not expected to raise a smile, but John (Ian), McLeary had other ideas.

If crossing into an unknown afterlife scared the former merchant seaman, the prospect of his friends and family appearing sombre and sober at the crematorium clearly terrified him.

The 61-year-old was terminally ill with cancer when he penned his own death notice.

It was published last week following Mr McLeary’s death on January 15 and invited post-funeral debate on the deceased’s “possible destination and ports of call”.

His relatives and friends say it was typical of the man who smiled at life and appears part of a wider trend of “gallows humour” when faced with our last hours on earth.

“He thought people would want to remember him by having a drink and enjoying themselves,” said Denise Duncan, manager at the Garthland Arms in Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire, who was appointed as chair of the “debate”.

The assembled friends, acquaintances and family members who raised a toast to Mr McLeary in his local pub are part of an increasing trend towards off-beat funeral services officiated by non-religious “celebrants”.

Another death notice posted earlier this month had a similar bent, announcing that Donald Briad had died “suddenly, playing up to a grand slam at bridge (we had no idea it was so exciting).
”
While such black humour has a long and celebrated role in British culture, its place in official funeral ceremonies is a more recent phenomenon.

The Humanist Society of Scotland, which oversaw Mr McLeary’s cremation in Paisley, has seen the number of funeral services it presides over increase by a quarter in the past year. Around 1800 were conducted in 2005.

Gordon McLeary, the youngest of Mr McLeary’s three sons, said his father’s wishes were in keeping with his subversive sense of humour.

“A humanist ceremony is a bit more fitting,” he said. “He would have had the full New Orleans jazz band playing if he could have afforded it.

“I think it’s a bit hypocritical to have religious ceremonies when you’re born and when you die when you’re not a Church-going man. Before humanist ceremonies came along, it was a choice of religion or nothing.”

Friends of Mr McLeary, who died in a hospice after a two-year battle with cancer, insisted he would balk at the idea of being taken seriously by his mourners.

They recalled him sitting reading a book in a crowded pub during an Old Firm football match and politely asking the fans to stop cheering and turn the television down.

On another occasion, he started an argument with the leader of a local hunt who was celebrating his 12-year-old son’s first kill, on the basis that the murdered duck was “unarmed”.

“There was a bit of an edge to his humour, you never knew which way it would go,” Sandy Innes, landlord of the Corner Bar in Lochwinnoch, recalled of his former golfing partner and close friend. “His death notice was typical of the man. He wouldn’t want it to be morbid.”

Instead of receiving a religious blessing, Mr McLeary’s ashes will be scattered by his sons around Staffa, near the isle of Mull.

The injection of humour into death notices has proved controversial in the past. Following the death in 1983 of John le Mesurier, the actor who played Sgt Wilson in Dad’s Army, The Times refused to publish his intended notice: “John le Mesurier has just conked out.” Other papers did, to much acclaim.

Ivan Middleton, secretary of the Humanist Society of Scotland, recalled a similar difficulty last year. “The notice read: ‘…in hospital, before she could complete the crossword.’
Her widower submitted it to the local paper which wouldn’t print it so it appeared in The Guardian. She was a keen crossword enthusiast,” he said.

On other occasions, people have been buried in their Doc Martens, toasted to the sound of jazz bands and marched down the isle of the crematorium to the soundtrack of the Dambusters.

“Death is a part of life and so is humour. People often say to me after the ceremony that it was a real relief to be able to laugh. I’ve had people say afterwards ‘that’s the way I want to go’,” Mr Middleton said.

He added: “Once you take the religion out of the ceremony, you have a lot more time to talk about the person and who they were.”.

Famous farewells

- John le Mesurier, the actor who played Sgt Wilson in Dad’s Army, announced his death in 1983 with the notice: “John le Mesurier has just conked out.”
- The gravestone of Spike Milligan, who described himself as “the UK’s most famous manic depressive”, has the words “I told you I was ill”. The tombstone was laid two years after his death in February 2002.

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A little bit about the Humanist Society……

The values and ethics of Humanism defines it mission as follows: “Humanism ventures to build a world on the idea of the free person, responsible to society, and recognises our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world. Humanism is undogmatic, imposing no creed upon its adherents. It is committed to education free from indoctrination.”

A modern alternative to religions formulated in ancient times when the chaos and vagaries of life made claims of certain knowledge so appealing. It requires the maturity to live with doubt and face life as an autonomous, responsible being.