JENNI MURRAY: I pray that Diana Rigg’s last words will change the law of dying

In the final weeks of Diana Rigg’s life, she recorded tapes pleading with MPs to legalize assisted death. The 82-year-old actress suffered the ravages of lung cancer and said: ‘I think it’s unfair that I don’t have a choice.’

Diana died in September 2020. I’m not at all surprised that it took three years for her daughter Rachael Stirling to listen to and then reveal these tapes.

Nothing can be worse for a daughter than spending her days and most of her nights watching her smart, active, beautiful mother tormented by agonizing pain. To see her subjected to the humiliation of her body and abandoned to the extent she desires begs for death.

I know what Rachael must be going through because I’ve been there. My mother’s Parkinson’s disease left her completely helpless. She couldn’t do anything for herself.

In the care home where she spent the last year of her life, she was dependent on caregivers for her toilet needs. She was lifted from her bed to the bath. She began to find it impossible to eat and became as thin as a skeleton.

The same words came to me repeatedly: “Jen, please help me. Help me die.’ I could only give her one answer; I couldn’t do anything.

The Suicide Act of 1961 made it illegal to assist someone who longed to die. If I could find a way to help, even if I didn’t know where to start, I would be facing 14 years in prison.

I knew she wouldn’t want that, but she still kept asking, “Please Jen, help me.” I want to die.’

Almost twenty years later I can still hear her voice. I still feel the anger, the guilt and the pain – anger at how powerless I was to get my mother the help she craved.

Since then, I have campaigned with Dignity In Dying for a law that would allow assisted dying for people suffering from a terminal illness and who have made the choice to die. It has been debated many times in Britain, but has never been successful in putting it on the law book.

So here, so long after my heartbreaking experience, comes another loving daughter, caring for her mother, and finding herself fixated on the terrifyingly cold, hard gaze of that great actor – the one Diana used to such effect as the Queen Or Thorns in Game Of Thrones – and hearing her plea: ‘Rachie, it’s taken too long – push me over the edge.’

Like me, Rachael had no power to ease her mother’s suffering. She says her mother “suffered as much as I have seen any human being suffer.” By the end it was painful for her to even smile, let alone laugh. “I think I’d rather be away from God,” she said slowly and painfully, the day before she died. “I think he’s fucking mean.”’

I can only imagine what Rachael went through listening to what her mother had to say in the deep, powerful voice that made her such a sensational artist.

Diana had asked her daughter to make her recorded statement public after her death. The task of listening to her mother’s words is one for which Rachael had to carefully prepare. She took herself from her parents’ home, where her mother died in her sleep.

Rachael’s hideout is in Brighton, where she says she ended up in a room with a balcony overlooking the sea. In the space in front of the window she has a battered old card table where she can write down her mother’s words by hand. It felt more appropriate than typing.

She lit a candle, placed a tube containing her mother’s ashes on the table and poured a glass of her mother’s favorite prosecco. Clearly, a ritual was needed to convey her mother’s words to a wider world.

She believes her mother’s fame and the admiration she enjoyed will help influence the ongoing fight to change the law.

I know, and I’m sure Diana was aware, that legalizing assisted dying is controversial. There are people whose deeply held religious beliefs make it impossible for one human being to assist in taking the life of another. That responsibility should be left solely to the God Diana had run straight from.

I’ve spoken to people, like former wheelchair racer Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, who are against any change in the law for fear of seriously disabled people. Would their lives be in danger if they were thought to cause too much trouble, or perhaps if parents thought they had no chance of a fruitful life? Then there are the elderly who may be deemed redundant by grabbing families.

The God question is not easy to discuss because it is rooted in an unquestionable belief. The other concerns, it seems to me, are covered by the bill. It would only allow help to people with a terminal illness, six months from the likelihood of death and who are of sound mind to make the decision for themselves.

That is undoubtedly what Diana meant when she said: ‘No one is talking about how terrible, how truly terrible the details of this situation are, and the shame associated with it. It’s high time they do that. And it is high time that legislation is introduced to give people in my position a choice. This means that people must be given political autonomy over their own deaths.”

Choice is the most important word in this debate. It should be up to the individual to choose. No daughter or son should ever have to grieve for years because they couldn’t fulfill a parent’s dying wish.

I’m so glad I said no to Strictly!

Can 2024 really be Strictly’s twentieth anniversary? And can I really be a devotee for so long?

Sad to see Annabel and Johannes go on Sunday. She was what Strictly was all about. Someone who starts out knowing nothing and becomes Ginger Rogers.

Still, I don’t regret saying no when asked five years ago. Twinkle Toes is not my middle name!

Hamas victims will not be silenced

For years, rape was used as a weapon of war and women hid in shame. That is not the case in Israel.

It took far too long for the UN and feminist groups to acknowledge the sexual violence committed by Hamas during the October 7 attacks. But the victims will not hide.

Instead, they turn the idea of ​​a fun fashion show on its head. Yovel Sharvit Trabelsi’s husband was shot dead next to her. She saw other women being raped and murdered.

For the show, she wore a wedding dress covered in men’s hands during the attack. She has a bullet hole in her head and a ribbon gagging her mouth.

She and her colleagues could not have been clearer about the crimes that took place. They will not be silenced.

Horrible queues at Eiffel bothered me too

Ah, the Eiffel Tower – it has been crowned the visitor attraction with the world’s most complained about queues. I lived in Paris for a year as a student and never went up there; I always waited at the bottom to pick up the tourists for whom I was responsible as a tour guide.

I have been back to my favorite city dozens of times. My sons have said, “Don’t worry, Mom, the line is too long.”

For my 70th birthday we planned to go up the tower. What happened? Covid and lockdown. Now a trip is at the top of my bucket list. Booking in advance essential.

In Scotland, parking on the sidewalk will no longer be allowed from this week, with heavy fines for offenders. Good.

Now let’s extend the law to the rest of Britain. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: sidewalks are for pedestrians and no one else.