In his lecture, Shaking Hands With Death, the author will volunteer to be a test case before a euthanasia tribunal himself. The tribunal panels would include a legal expert in family matters and a doctor with experience of serious long-term illness.

"If granny walks up to the tribunal and bangs her walking stick on the table and says 'Look, I've really had enough, I hate this bloody disease, and I'd like to die thank you very much young man', I don't see why anyone should stand in her way." He said there was no evidence from countries where assisted dying is allowed of granny being coerced into dying so relatives could get their hands on her money.

"Choice is very important in this matter. But there will be some probably older, probably wiser GPs, who will understand. The tribunal would be acting for the good of society as well as that of the applicant -- and ensure they are of sound and informed mind, firm in their purpose, suffering from a life-threatening and incurable disease and not under the influence of a third party.

"If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice."