When Ed Rumley sat down with Sky News three months ago, she knew she only had weeks to live.
The 82-year-old former magistrate had just been diagnosed with an aggressive, inoperable brain tumour.
She wanted to add her voice to support for the assisted dying bill making its way through parliament, even though she knew it would come too late for her.
She feared the loss of dignity and identity as she deteriorated.
“I feel that it should be me who says, ‘Well, I think I’ll get off this bus now. I’ve reached where I want to go to, and I’m quite happy, I’ve had a good life’.”
Forty-nine days after we spoke, Ed died.
Her son Stephen was with her in those final days. It was, he said, exactly the sort of harrowing and difficult death his mother dreaded.
“She wouldn’t have chosen that end. She knew exactly what was going to happen to her,” he told Sky News.
“Mum lived her life with dignity. She lived her life in a way that she very much wanted to control everything and the control was taken away from her, the dignity was removed.
“It actually took away her humanity. She didn’t have any other choices open to her.”
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Assisted dying critics attack ‘unprecedented’ plan
Stephen spoke to Sky News as the fate of the assisted dying bill hangs in the balance.
Supporters say peers in the House of Lords are attempting to block its progress with a series of amendments. Those opponents say scrutiny is necessary to protect the vulnerable.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would permit a person who is terminally ill and with less than six months to live to legally end their life.
“Having to go through this experience with a loved one who’s at the end of life, you want the best for them, the best outcome and the best ending, the most human ending for them. I think everybody would agree that that would be the case,” Stephen said.
As a citizen of New Zealand, which has had an assisted dying law since 2021, Stephen has an elderly friend who chose to end their life, free on the country’s health service, at the time of his mother’s death.
His mum’s own wish had been for her life to end in her favourite armchair, with a cup of tea by her side, and a view of her beloved North Yorkshire countryside.
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‘I don’t think she had justice’
“I feel disappointed for her, that as a person who had fought for justice all her life, I felt the system let her down a little bit at the end,” he said.
“I don’t think she had the justice that she deserved.”
“Mum was so frustrated with the system,” her son added.
“I don’t think mum was a person who was angry much. She would see things for how they were and try and change them. ‘How can I make this better, if not for me, then for other people?’
“That’s how mum lived her life.”
