The right to die: the TV fact and fiction

He may have been forced to go to Switzerland to die, but Peter Smedley could not have been more British as he breathed his last.

He and his wife Christine maintained their frightfully stiff upper lips as he prepared to kill himself.

With huge understatement, she spoke of how his death after 40 years of marriage would be "a wrench".

The grim reaper came bearing cups of tea.

"Thank you for looking after me, you've been first class," he told the Dignitas employees who handed him the poison, which he admitted tasted "ghastly" but didn't complain.

After he'd gone, they encouraged Christine to cry and 'let it all out'. "I don't think I can do that," she replied with great dignity.

They were both very brave to agree to let the cameras, and Terry Pratchett, watch Peter's moving departure for the BBC1 documentary Choosing To Die.

They were hard scenes to watch, but I feel this was an important documentary which wasn't all one-sided. Terry admitted to being distrustful of the 'one-stop-shop' approach of Dignitas and he spoke to others with terminal illnesses who didn't want to end their lives early. The chirpy London cabbie spoke of giving life 'another roll of the dice'.

Assisted dying is a hot topic on TV at the moment, what with Jackson being helped to kill himself on Emmerdale. It's all about the quality of life but, while I support someone's right to die in theory, in practice it's a thorny issue.

Quite apart from the fact it's illegal, should Jackson's boyfriend and mother have helped him die when he'd barely had time to come to terms with his disabled state and still, many would say, had a lot to live for?

On a more practical note, at least the Emmerdale villagers managed to do it without breaking the bank. The most surprising part of the BBC2 film was discovering that Dignitas charges £10,000 to help you die.

They're not just doing this for altruistic motives and to champion human rights, then. This is clearly a profitable business and death costs.