Davey Trimmer: I’m not going to ‘pop my clogs’ – I’m going to die

By Davey Trimmer
Published 13th Nov 2019, 06:22 BST
Most people who know me would say I make jokes about death all the time. I’ve never watched Game of Thrones, but someone asked me if I was going to start watching and I couldn’t help but tease that I don’t know how far I’ll get.

It’s 17 months since I was told I had a terminal condition. In this country we’re really bad at thinking, talking or hearing about dying and death. It can feel a shock for people, a long way off, something that will cause unnecessary upset both for us and the people around us.

I tell people I meet, it’s one of the only certainties in life that we’re all going to die. Over the next ten years as our population ages, there’s also going to be more of us doing it. Too few of us have had important conversations about death with our loved ones ­early enough, and even less people make or record wishes and plans.

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Marie Curie wants us to all think, talk and plan earlier, helping break down the taboo around dying. As the leaders in end of life care, Marie Curie has big ambitions to improve the end of life experience for everyone and tackling our reluctance to talk about and prepare for dying and death is one way to achieve this.

People like to talk about death ­indirectly by using euphemisms. I’m not saying there’s a right way to talk about it – sometimes this is to sound less harsh but it can also be to ignore the reality for as long as possible.

This month Marie Curie launched the first nationwide TV ad encouraging people to talk about and ­prepare for the end of life. It highlights some well-known and some lesser known euphemisms such as ‘pop your clogs’, ‘pushing up daisies’ and ‘kick the bucket’.

I agree we need to get better as a society about saying things straight.