Lucinda Holdforth

And she said, no.

I said, why don't you hang up and I'll ring the ambulance and then we'll get there.

And that's another panicked drive.

So that's just my experience.

Other women, because it's nearly always women, have had it much tougher.

A great loneliness came upon her.

There was... When her best friend died... Oh, it's too sad.

And she was told, and she just compressed her lips very quietly, and she wasn't going to make a big fuss about it, but...

And she was very devastated.

And when her big sister died, that was sort of the great figure in her life that she loved.

And I think it was at that point that she thought, you know what, I'm ready.

And actually, she said to me, you'll be okay when I go.

And I said, yes, mum, I'll be okay.

Well, it is my impression that we have a highly interventionist medical system today.

And the medical ethos is sort of a combination of life at all costs and the customer is always right.

And so part of my role with my parents was taking them to endless clinics

scans, blood tests, x-rays and so on.

And they're in their late 80s.

And so time that they could have spent just sitting quietly in the sun, reading a book, having a cup of tea was spent with the stress of a lot of medical interventions, some of which I look back and I think probably weren't necessary.

There's a wall between what doctors say and what people hear.