Jane Aiken Hodge: her death is likely to fuel
calls for a change in the law
By David Brown
Jane Aiken Hodge won fans worldwide with a string of historical romances, each guaranteed to have a satisfyingly resolved final chapter. But after more than 40 bestselling novels there was a dramatic shift in her final title, Deathline, which explored the contemporary theme of terminal care. Six years after its publication the author’s own ending was far from romantic or straightforward.
After taking an overdose of pills the 91-year-old novelist lay in bed, alive but unconscious, for four days last month, watched by her daughters, before she finally died. Her daughter, Jessica Hodge, described yesterday the dilemma faced by the family and the “inhuman” legal position they have endured as they await a decision on whether anyone will be prosecuted.
The novelist’s death will fuel the debate on calls for a change in the law to allow medically assisted suicides and raise questions about the legal and ethical issues surrounding the help available to those who want to die.
Hodge, who was in good health, had left strict instructions with her GP and in a letter that no attempt be made to revive her. She also had a “Do not resuscitate” card when she was found unconscious last month by a neighbour at her cottage in Lewes, East Sussex.
Related Links
'We must stop botched, lonely suicides’
‘Patients have a right to die with dignity’
'Arrest me' says former doctor over suicides
“We knew for certain what she wanted, so we sat there praying she would die overnight,” said her daughter, who was joined at her mother’s bedside by her sister, Joanna, a philosophy professor at Manchester Metropolitan University. The next morning, though, their mother was still alive.
“We called her GP and he allowed us to keep her at home. He thought that she would slip away,” Ms Hodge said. “The doctor came each day and we reviewed what we were doing and agreed we were doing the right thing.”
Ms Hodge, from Battle, East Sussex, said that she “wobbled” at one point, fearing that her mother might wake up and be in pain. But for another three days the daughters waited.
“I don’t think there was any doubt rationally that we were doing the right thing,” Ms Hodge said. “Had there been any distress I am sure the GP would have insisted we got her into hospital but she just lay quietly there, apparently deeply unconscious.”
After her mother’s death on June 17 the police were called and removed the empty bottles of medication, documents and a “to whom it may concern” letter.
“The letter expressed her clear distress that she had been unable to discuss her plans with her daughters because of the risk of legal action,” Ms Hodge said.
Ms Hodge said that her mother had acted alone for fear that her family would be prosecuted for aiding and abetting a suicide. “My mother was protecting us. What a dreadful way to die: not the decision, but the fact that she could not talk to us. She could not say, ‘I am thinking about doing this, hold my hand’.”
She added: “I would have wept buckets and I am not sure what I would have done, but I would much rather have had that opportunity.”
She and her sister, the neighbour and GP have all been interviewed by police. A file will be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for lawyers to consider whether there is sufficient evidence for a criminal charge of aiding and abetting suicide.
Ms Hodge said: “In a humane society it should be possible for someone in their right mind who, whether through age or illness, wants to die now rather than later, to be able to discuss this wish and to helped to fulfil it rather than, like my brave mother, having to do it in isolation and without being sure if it is going to work.”
Ms Hodge said she understood the anxiety of those opposed to the change in the law because of the risk that people could be encouraged to kill themselves by those motivated by malice or greed. But the present state of the law was sufficiently confusing that, inevitably, the authorities felt they had to be punctilious in investigating any apparently unnatural death. “The result is just horrendous for our family. My mother died five weeks ago and we still have no indication of when we will get the body back, or indeed whether any charges will be brought. It is dreadfully distressing and, I feel, inhuman.”
It appeared that the pills the author took had been accumulated over several years. Although she had a mild form of leukaemia and high blood pressure she was in excellent health for her age.
Hodge, the American-born daughter of the poet Conrad Aiken, moved to Britain aged 3 and studied at Somerville College, Oxford, and Radcliffe College, Massachusetts. As well as her fiction she was also a biographer of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.
Her younger sister, the popular children’s author Joan Aiken, whose books include The Whispering Mountain and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, died in January 2004.
Later that year Hodge wrote a letter to a newspaper in which she said: “All this mealy-mouthed talk about the hazards of living wills seems to be making a tidy little death more difficult to achieve. A depressing thought.”
A Sussex Police spokeswoman said yesterday that a post-mortem examination had given the cause of death as a drug overdose. “We are not treating this as a suspicious death and there are no suspects,” she said. “A file will be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service as a matter of course.”
Ms Hodge said: “My mother was a very, very brave woman. I wish it had not happened like this, but I feel very, very proud of her.” [rc]
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd
July 29, 2009
UK: Romantic novelist plotted her death in secret, and in fear
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LONDON, England / The Times / Life & Style / Health / July 29, 2009
Jane Aiken Hodge: her death is likely to fuel
calls for a change in the law
By David Brown
Jane Aiken Hodge won fans worldwide with a string of historical romances, each guaranteed to have a satisfyingly resolved final chapter. But after more than 40 bestselling novels there was a dramatic shift in her final title, Deathline, which explored the contemporary theme of terminal care. Six years after its publication the author’s own ending was far from romantic or straightforward.
After taking an overdose of pills the 91-year-old novelist lay in bed, alive but unconscious, for four days last month, watched by her daughters, before she finally died. Her daughter, Jessica Hodge, described yesterday the dilemma faced by the family and the “inhuman” legal position they have endured as they await a decision on whether anyone will be prosecuted.
The novelist’s death will fuel the debate on calls for a change in the law to allow medically assisted suicides and raise questions about the legal and ethical issues surrounding the help available to those who want to die.
Hodge, who was in good health, had left strict instructions with her GP and in a letter that no attempt be made to revive her. She also had a “Do not resuscitate” card when she was found unconscious last month by a neighbour at her cottage in Lewes, East Sussex.
Related Links
'We must stop botched, lonely suicides’
‘Patients have a right to die with dignity’
'Arrest me' says former doctor over suicides
“We knew for certain what she wanted, so we sat there praying she would die overnight,” said her daughter, who was joined at her mother’s bedside by her sister, Joanna, a philosophy professor at Manchester Metropolitan University. The next morning, though, their mother was still alive.
“We called her GP and he allowed us to keep her at home. He thought that she would slip away,” Ms Hodge said. “The doctor came each day and we reviewed what we were doing and agreed we were doing the right thing.”
Ms Hodge, from Battle, East Sussex, said that she “wobbled” at one point, fearing that her mother might wake up and be in pain. But for another three days the daughters waited.
“I don’t think there was any doubt rationally that we were doing the right thing,” Ms Hodge said. “Had there been any distress I am sure the GP would have insisted we got her into hospital but she just lay quietly there, apparently deeply unconscious.”
After her mother’s death on June 17 the police were called and removed the empty bottles of medication, documents and a “to whom it may concern” letter.
“The letter expressed her clear distress that she had been unable to discuss her plans with her daughters because of the risk of legal action,” Ms Hodge said.
Ms Hodge said that her mother had acted alone for fear that her family would be prosecuted for aiding and abetting a suicide. “My mother was protecting us. What a dreadful way to die: not the decision, but the fact that she could not talk to us. She could not say, ‘I am thinking about doing this, hold my hand’.”
She added: “I would have wept buckets and I am not sure what I would have done, but I would much rather have had that opportunity.”
She and her sister, the neighbour and GP have all been interviewed by police. A file will be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for lawyers to consider whether there is sufficient evidence for a criminal charge of aiding and abetting suicide.
Ms Hodge said: “In a humane society it should be possible for someone in their right mind who, whether through age or illness, wants to die now rather than later, to be able to discuss this wish and to helped to fulfil it rather than, like my brave mother, having to do it in isolation and without being sure if it is going to work.”
Ms Hodge said she understood the anxiety of those opposed to the change in the law because of the risk that people could be encouraged to kill themselves by those motivated by malice or greed. But the present state of the law was sufficiently confusing that, inevitably, the authorities felt they had to be punctilious in investigating any apparently unnatural death. “The result is just horrendous for our family. My mother died five weeks ago and we still have no indication of when we will get the body back, or indeed whether any charges will be brought. It is dreadfully distressing and, I feel, inhuman.”
It appeared that the pills the author took had been accumulated over several years. Although she had a mild form of leukaemia and high blood pressure she was in excellent health for her age.
Hodge, the American-born daughter of the poet Conrad Aiken, moved to Britain aged 3 and studied at Somerville College, Oxford, and Radcliffe College, Massachusetts. As well as her fiction she was also a biographer of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.
Her younger sister, the popular children’s author Joan Aiken, whose books include The Whispering Mountain and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, died in January 2004.
Later that year Hodge wrote a letter to a newspaper in which she said: “All this mealy-mouthed talk about the hazards of living wills seems to be making a tidy little death more difficult to achieve. A depressing thought.”
A Sussex Police spokeswoman said yesterday that a post-mortem examination had given the cause of death as a drug overdose. “We are not treating this as a suspicious death and there are no suspects,” she said. “A file will be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service as a matter of course.”
Ms Hodge said: “My mother was a very, very brave woman. I wish it had not happened like this, but I feel very, very proud of her.” [rc]
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd
Jane Aiken Hodge: her death is likely to fuel
calls for a change in the law
By David Brown
Jane Aiken Hodge won fans worldwide with a string of historical romances, each guaranteed to have a satisfyingly resolved final chapter. But after more than 40 bestselling novels there was a dramatic shift in her final title, Deathline, which explored the contemporary theme of terminal care. Six years after its publication the author’s own ending was far from romantic or straightforward.
After taking an overdose of pills the 91-year-old novelist lay in bed, alive but unconscious, for four days last month, watched by her daughters, before she finally died. Her daughter, Jessica Hodge, described yesterday the dilemma faced by the family and the “inhuman” legal position they have endured as they await a decision on whether anyone will be prosecuted.
The novelist’s death will fuel the debate on calls for a change in the law to allow medically assisted suicides and raise questions about the legal and ethical issues surrounding the help available to those who want to die.
Hodge, who was in good health, had left strict instructions with her GP and in a letter that no attempt be made to revive her. She also had a “Do not resuscitate” card when she was found unconscious last month by a neighbour at her cottage in Lewes, East Sussex.
Related Links
'We must stop botched, lonely suicides’
‘Patients have a right to die with dignity’
'Arrest me' says former doctor over suicides
“We knew for certain what she wanted, so we sat there praying she would die overnight,” said her daughter, who was joined at her mother’s bedside by her sister, Joanna, a philosophy professor at Manchester Metropolitan University. The next morning, though, their mother was still alive.
“We called her GP and he allowed us to keep her at home. He thought that she would slip away,” Ms Hodge said. “The doctor came each day and we reviewed what we were doing and agreed we were doing the right thing.”
Ms Hodge, from Battle, East Sussex, said that she “wobbled” at one point, fearing that her mother might wake up and be in pain. But for another three days the daughters waited.
“I don’t think there was any doubt rationally that we were doing the right thing,” Ms Hodge said. “Had there been any distress I am sure the GP would have insisted we got her into hospital but she just lay quietly there, apparently deeply unconscious.”
After her mother’s death on June 17 the police were called and removed the empty bottles of medication, documents and a “to whom it may concern” letter.
“The letter expressed her clear distress that she had been unable to discuss her plans with her daughters because of the risk of legal action,” Ms Hodge said.
Ms Hodge said that her mother had acted alone for fear that her family would be prosecuted for aiding and abetting a suicide. “My mother was protecting us. What a dreadful way to die: not the decision, but the fact that she could not talk to us. She could not say, ‘I am thinking about doing this, hold my hand’.”
She added: “I would have wept buckets and I am not sure what I would have done, but I would much rather have had that opportunity.”
She and her sister, the neighbour and GP have all been interviewed by police. A file will be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for lawyers to consider whether there is sufficient evidence for a criminal charge of aiding and abetting suicide.
Ms Hodge said: “In a humane society it should be possible for someone in their right mind who, whether through age or illness, wants to die now rather than later, to be able to discuss this wish and to helped to fulfil it rather than, like my brave mother, having to do it in isolation and without being sure if it is going to work.”
Ms Hodge said she understood the anxiety of those opposed to the change in the law because of the risk that people could be encouraged to kill themselves by those motivated by malice or greed. But the present state of the law was sufficiently confusing that, inevitably, the authorities felt they had to be punctilious in investigating any apparently unnatural death. “The result is just horrendous for our family. My mother died five weeks ago and we still have no indication of when we will get the body back, or indeed whether any charges will be brought. It is dreadfully distressing and, I feel, inhuman.”
It appeared that the pills the author took had been accumulated over several years. Although she had a mild form of leukaemia and high blood pressure she was in excellent health for her age.
Hodge, the American-born daughter of the poet Conrad Aiken, moved to Britain aged 3 and studied at Somerville College, Oxford, and Radcliffe College, Massachusetts. As well as her fiction she was also a biographer of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.
Her younger sister, the popular children’s author Joan Aiken, whose books include The Whispering Mountain and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, died in January 2004.
Later that year Hodge wrote a letter to a newspaper in which she said: “All this mealy-mouthed talk about the hazards of living wills seems to be making a tidy little death more difficult to achieve. A depressing thought.”
A Sussex Police spokeswoman said yesterday that a post-mortem examination had given the cause of death as a drug overdose. “We are not treating this as a suspicious death and there are no suspects,” she said. “A file will be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service as a matter of course.”
Ms Hodge said: “My mother was a very, very brave woman. I wish it had not happened like this, but I feel very, very proud of her.” [rc]
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd
