I thought that I was going to die, I suppose it's getting on for some months now – I was in a very, very bad way – very poor way, indeed. So much so… well I could hardly walk up to Alison's gateway. And I did think then I was dying, and I was resigned to it. You know, next year I shall be 90, it's a fairly good age or, at one time of course, it was an almost impossible age! But I don't think I'd do anything particularly reckless. Once, Professor Doll said that smoking killed you. I stopped smoking and I begged all the family to stop smoking and they all did, and they've remained healthier ever since. I've done what I can. Yes, you know, there's only so much you can do.

However, I do regret to think that Alison will miss me, and will perhaps be lonely. She too, I suppose, is past her first youth. But for the rest well, I'm fortunate, you know. I don't have to go into a home – I have my home here. It's full of my books, I can go on writing, I can go on painting. But one day, the day will come when I will wake... I think it may come when I sit up in bed and I think, my God, I'm going to die! Well, I may as well stay in bed. And I will die without any grand gestures. I would probably like a cup of tea, but that would be all. And of course, I leave my brain and my spine to the scientific researchers, so they'll come in and muck me about. My contribution to science, really.

But I don't have any great fear of being dead. I can't quite see how one might have fear unless, of course, you're religious and I don't think I'm religious. I'd like the Church of England to go on, because it seems so much better than all the horrid, ragged alternatives, now fighting it out elsewhere.