[Gobsmacked]

Phobias aside I don't think it's a good thing to hide death from children. We will all die one day. We can't avoid that. It is also quite probable that at some time in our life we may see the body of a deceased person. Not everyone dies in hospital under "expected circumstances" Some die suddenly in their own homes. More often than not it is the spouse who is the first to see them. Should this be something to fear? I believe that if we bring our children up without an awareness of death and without the opportunity of seeing a corpse then they may have an unspoken fear of being the first to discover a deceased loved one.

There may also be circumstances where it is necessary to identify the body of a deceased family member. Provided they are not badly disfigured by the cause of death this should not necessarily be something to fear.

As a young child I never had the opportunity to see a dead body and the only awareness I had was of films where women screamed hysterically at the sight thus giving the impression that this was something unpleasant and horrible. In my teenage years I was the first person to see an elderly neighbour who had passed away peacefully in her sleep as I called to see if she needed any help. I was fascinated to see that she didn't look as I had assumed a dead person would, yet neither did she look like herself. It occurred to me that what was missing was her spirit or soul, her very life essence, the "thing" that was actually her and that what I was seeing was merely an empty shell which she had discarded.

On becoming a parent I made an active decision not to shield my own children from death but to make it such an accepted part of life that they would have no reason to fear.

I see nothing wrong with the media showing us images of the Pope and can understand the need some people have felt to photograph his body as it passed by them. If I have a relic at all then it must be the rosary which was blessed by him when he came to Manchester.

The church was criticised for not sharing enough information when the Pope was ill and accused of being unrealistic in continually sheilding us from the truth and not facing up to the fact that he was close to death, then at the end when they were open with details of how he was fading they were criticised for that. It's simply impossible to please everyone.

For those who have a real phobia about death it must be difficult but one day you will probably have to face up to it in one form or another and I hope that you have the strength to cope. If it is in any way reassuring I'd like to repeat that my first experience was in no way distressing.