Dignitas

In Switzerland.

Dignitas.

Dignitas,

yeah.

Just in sort of commemoration and remembrance of her, we're going to just show you a very brief clip from That's Life.

But look, lots of political and legal obstacles in the UK.

And she recorded a final message just a couple of weeks ago, which her family have now put out, just imploring people that, you know, to continue her work, her legacy, and if anyone wants to make a donation in her name, to do so for, to Dignitas in Switzerland.

So, she's just a, a- an extraordinary voice, and you just, just brings back so many memories just hearing those clips because she was such a brilliant broadcaster.

And like I say, the days of anyone getting 20 million viewers on British TV, just, just those days are gone.

We hope the humor, ingenuity, and audacity she brought to her work may continue to inspire you, as it will do us." Oh, yeah.

And of course, she campaigned for the right to die, uh, in the UK, and she had signed up for Dignitas, Dignitas in Switzerland, but she was too frail, uh, to go over.

Um, an amazing woman, uh, and we won't see the like of her again, and we won't see the like of That's Life! again either.

It was from a golden age of television.

it.

Honestly, Dignitas

are missing a trick.

If suicide was more of a laugh,

Yeah.

And I know with dementia sufferers, the vast majority of British people who go to Dignitas, for instance, in Switzerland are dementia sufferers.

Yeah.

Because they don't want to put their families through what will happen ultimately, really.

Yeah.

There's a brilliant, I mean, as part of the research, there's a great series of books by a woman called Wendy Mitchell, who was a dementia sufferer and had decided and told her children very clearly that when the time came, she wasn't going to prolong her life any longer than she had to.

And then the poor woman had a fall and couldn't go to Dignitas when she was due.

And she starved herself to death because that was her only option.

And actually, it's one of the things that she's asked for instead of flowers.

She's looking for donations to Dignitas.

She was a real firm believer in it.

But she was an amazing, an amazing broadcaster and an amazing human being.

So, yeah, we can be sad.

But she would say, well, what are you going to do with it? And, you know, it's not by chance that Rebecca, Miriam, and Joshua, her kids, have told us right now the importance of raising money for Dignitas, that...

organization in switzerland that helps people in their final months of life when they can no longer go on with their pain so you know in what's extraordinary is that we've almost got not just that's life but that's afterlife now with esther because she's she's kind of sending out messages from from the world after and and it's truly truly amazing and she was an incredible incredible person um and as i say you know the jewish word is mensch because that's exactly what she was

what was she like to work with because i remember at times during that's life um people said well she could be quite abrasive but she and and you could see she was a very strong woman but how did you i mean you you worked with her for nine years so i mean she can't have been that abrasive if you stayed all that time but what was she like as a person to work with

But what about with assisted dying bill? Have you seen businesses, potentially medical people, where there is an opportunity for this to be a profit-making scheme?

Well, I don't know the structure of Dignitas, but that operates privately.

They may make profits.

What would interest me is, because of the similarities of Dignity in Dying and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which... not only campaigns for a law change, but also provides most of the abortions, contractors by the NHS.

Sat down for lunch with a group of people that I'd just met that day, asked what I did.

And I said, campaign against suicide.

And this guy opposite me says, oh, I'm actually a member of Dignitas.

And I just didn't know what to say.