Tears of cancer sufferer Geraldine McClelland over family's pain as she ... - Telegraph.co.uk

"That isn't a life by anybody's standards and I want that to end now. I am the only one that can make that decision."

She expressed her frustration that her preparations for her final moments had been weighed down by obtaining paperwork such as proof of ID and medical records that she needed to bring with her to Dignitas.

"I should be looking deeply within my soul about what my life has been and I haven't been able to because that time's been taken from me by our system, and it needs to change."

Asked if she was ready to die, she said: "Absolutely."

She added: "I am lucky I have got a fabulous family. I have done everything I want in my life, I have been everywhere I want.

"One would like to see nephews and nieces grow up and see what happens to them but on the whole I've done what I want and I'm happy to go now, completely."

In an open letter issued by the campaign group Dignity in Dying, she spoke openly of her feelings at the end of her life and urged people not to mourn her death but to campaign for a change in the law.

She said her dying wish was: "Please talk about my death."

"I am not sad that I will die today," she wrote.

"I am angry that because of the cowardice of our politicians I can't die in the country I was born in, in my own home, but I am not sad.

"I feel sure this is the right decision for me and I am relieved that I won't be forced to suffer any more."

She said she had been "fortunate" to travel around the world since she retired 10 years ago but that she had decided to end her life now because she was largely confined to her west London flat and had difficulty breathing.

"I have chosen to travel abroad to die because I cannot have the death I want here in the UK," she wrote.

"I would like to be able to choose to take medication to end my life if my suffering becomes unbearable for me, at home, with my family and friends around me.

"But the law in this country prevents me from doing so."

Praising Switzerland's "compassionate" laws on euthanasia, she went on to say that her brother and sister, who travelled with her to Switzerland, should not have to break British law to be by her side.

"My decision is made, I choose to die on my own terms and with my family around me in Zurich, and it's too late to change the law for me, but please, if you care about this issue at all, please make your voice heard," she wrote.

"I appreciate that it is a difficult subject, but when dying cannot be avoided, let us be compassionate enough and tolerant enough to respect choice."

At present, friends or relatives who help someone to die for compassionate reasons could theoretically be prosecuted in Britain but in practice are unlikely to be.

Under new guidelines issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, last year, the motives of those assisting suicide would be at the centre of any decision.

Sheilagh Matheson, 60, a fellow television producer and friend for 40 years, said: "Gerry decided very early in life that, given any choice in the matter, we should be able to control the way and circumstances in which we die, just as we take major decisions about our life.

"It was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was something she had thought about for many, many years."