It’s often said that my parents’ generation rarely talked about sex but often talked about death. Whereas for my generation the opposite is true. But when you get to my age it’s hard to avoid it. I think the worst part for many is not death itself, but the process of physical and mental deterioration. However, I don’t think anyone ever summed up better what that process can be than C S Lewis, in the final words of his classic children’s books The Chronicles of Narnia: ‘For us this is the end of all the stories…But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world… had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: and in which every chapter is better than the one before.’