A Right to Die? Not yet

When I heard the news on the car radio last week that Tony Nicklinson had died of natural causes, I am sure that like everyone else, I was relived that his suffering had finally finished and he had got his wish to die. Tony was paralysed from the neck down after suffering a stroke in 2005.

He had described his life as a "living nightmare" and had gone to Court to be allowed the right to die. This was refused and the Court said this was a decision for Parliament to legislate about and not the Courts.

I must admit that in recent years I had been coming around to being in favour of giving people the right to commit suicide in such circumstances. However, earlier this month I heard the disabled campaigner Baroness Campbell (see photo) being interviewed on Desert Island Discs. Baroness Campbell has the incurable disease Spinal muscular atrophy. Her condition also means that she is prone to severe chest infections and often needs emergency care. At least twice when she has been in A&E the doctor has said to her husband that they "assumed" she did not want to be resuscitated.

That was one of the reasons why she is opposed to the "right to die". She told the interviewer Kirsty Young, that "when society values me as much as it values you" then we could have this change. Not until then.

Doreen Lawrence on "Desert Island Discs"

This morning I was driving to a hearing in Kent listening to Radio 4. Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence was this week's "Castaway" guest .

I challenge anyone with a ounce of humanity in their soul to listen to this interview and the music played without a tear (or many) in their eyes.

This was perhaps not the best preparation for a wannabee rufftie tuftie union rep who should have been psyching himself up to take on management in a collective hearing over vital TUPE protection.

But thinking about it now perhaps it was.

Listen to here to the programme.

Vidal Sassoon: East End Anti-Fascist Streetfighter, Soldier and Hairdresser

Vidal Sassoon died yesterday aged 84. What an amazing life. A tough East Ender brought up during the Second World War in an orphanage, who was
apprenticed as a hairdresser in Whitechapel at age 14.

During which he become an anti-fascist street brawler who then went on to fight as an Israeli soldier before returning to London to become one of the fashionable
icons of the swinging 60s.

Early this year I heard him being interviewed on Desert Island discs. A complex man who had a very hard start in life but who did achieve material success due purely to his enormous talent and aptitude. I did not know him at all but I suspect he was one of those fascinating but ever so demanding charactors. I would recommend you listern to the interview with Kirsty.

(picture of Vidal with Mary Quant)

London Marathon 2012 Wk 16: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"

My run of the week was on Saturday. I went from Forest Gate and through West Ham then on the Greenway towards Temple Mills. Picture to the right is of the beautiful memorial in Three Mills Green remembering the death of 3 workers at this site who died trying to save a work colleague.

"Of your charity pray for the souls of Thomas Pickett, Godfrey Maule Nicholson, Frederick Eliott and Robert Underhill, who lost their lives in a well beneath this spot on 12 July 1901. The first named while in the execution of his duty was overcome by foul air. The three latter successively descending in heroic efforts to save their comrades shared the same death…".

I then ran past Bow Locks and along the Limehouse Cut into Limehouse Basin while listening on headphones to James Corden who was the guest on Desert Island Discs.  He seems a decent bloke. The Cut was largely frozen. I was surprised to see on the way a site full of tanks and armoured vehicles which I assume belonged to some film company. At Limehouse basin I followed the Thames Walk to Canary Wharf then ran past Billingsgate Market and Tower Hamlets Town Hall (Mulberry Place). Across Canning Town flyover and then up into West Ham again then back home. I stopped off at the station to check on a ward problem. The run took about 2 hours 15 minutes and the last 30 minutes were very slow and very sore.

I am running the London marathon in April 2012 while sort of using the official advanced training programme and will be raising funds for Homeless charity for Young People "Alone in London". Click here to sponsor me.