[Acrylic-bob]

A great many of us have expressed our opinions on this subject in several threads over the past year or so. But it is a subject that concerns us all intimately because, sooner or later, we will all have to face the prospect of dying, whether we like it or not.

Shuttling back and forth between Fleetwood and Blackpool, via Cleveleys, I get the chance to pass quite a number of retirement homes. Some of the sights I have seen leave me wondering what is the point of prolonging a life to the last possible syllable. For me, life only has value if you do something with it. Spending one's days sat in the same chair in a puddle of one's own effluent and too frail to move is not living. The Welfare State may have been instrumental in improving lifespan in the UK, but it has proved to be singularly useless in helping us to figure out what we should do with all the extra years we have been sentenced to.

Surely a society as sophisticated as ours can come up with a means whereby a dignified end can be arranged for those who feel that life has become a burden too heavy to be bourne?
Speaking personally, I would hate to end up in a retirement home. Were the prospect ever to arise I think I would develop a sudden case of insomnia and save up the sleeping tablets before I would agree to go into one.