Yes. Of course. And since I don't believe in another world, in another life, that this is it. And when they die they are out of my life. They're gone forever. Blank. Blank. Blank. And I am not afraid of death. And I begin to - as maybe a good many elderly people do. Who knows? When I did "Bumble-ardy" I was so intensely aware of death. Eugene, my friend and my partner, was dying here in the house while I did "Bumble-ardy." And I did "Bumble-ardy" to save myself. I did not want to die with him. I wanted to live, as any human being does.

We received death threats, yes, but you see when you are in a struggle, there are going to have to be casualties, and why should you be exempt? But I often said, “Look, here, God, if I’m doing your work, then you jolly well are going to have to look after me!” And God did God’s stuff.

Did the Victorians fear death? As Death says in one of my own books, most men don't fear death, they fear those things – the knife, the shipwreck, the illness, the bomb – that proceed, by micro seconds if you're lucky and many years if you're not, the moment of death.

But if I was sitting in an armchair with bits and pieces of rubber sticking out of me and my son came over and said, you know, would you like a banana? Wink once for yes, wink twice for no, I dont think the interest of the conversation would get me past the sense that this is horrible. It's horrible for me but above all, horrible for them. There are things worse than death.