EARLIER this year I wrote a feature looking at the right-to-die debate, in light of the high-profile Coronation Street storyline about cancer-stricken Hayley Cropper taking her life.

There was much discussion nationally about the issue of dying with dignity and whether we have the right to end our lives in such circumstances. Opinion remains divided, but I think it’s something you can only really address if facing illness that is terminal or has a significant impact on your life. This week actress Lynda Bellingham showed us how to die with dignity. After finishing her last course of chemotherapy for colon cancer, which spread to her lungs and liver, she made a final appearance on TV’s Loose Women and shared a laugh with her friends, knowing it would be the last time she’d see them.

With cancer, the word “battling” is over-used. Aggressive charity campaigns show race-runners in sweatbands and fancy dress squaring up to the disease, sneering: “Bring it on, cancer!” It’s something sufferers are expected to fight – and beat. But Lynda knew she couldn’t beat her cancer and accepted her fate with grace and humour. Her illness saddened me because I interviewed her a few times when she came to Bradford in theatre productions, and found her a lovely, vibrant woman. She was like a chatty friend. When I told her my bloke had a long-term crush on her and had cheekily requested a signed photograph, she laughed and said: “Of course.” I thought nothing else of it, but next time we met she fished in her handbag for a photo, bearing a handwritten message, and handed it to me with a glint in her eye.

I remembered that mischievous look this week when I heard about Lynda’s death. She embraced the end of her life with a sense of fun and a huge smile. The positive spirit she exuded, on the brink of the inevitable, must be of comfort to her family and friends.

Having lost my mum a few weeks ago, I’ve found myself thinking lately about whether it is possible to have a good death. She had a cruel illness which robbed her of the last decade of her life and stripped her dignity, and it was an illness she couldn’t fight. But she died in her sleep at home. She wasn’t hooked up to drips in hospital, or shouting at bedroom walls in a care home, and as far as we know she wasn’t in pain.

When people die from illness we tend to say they “lost their fight” but, as Lynda Bellingham has shown, death doesn’t have to involve a fight. Sometimes it just comes, as a natural end to a life well-lived.