Following from Melanie McDonagh's article We Need to Talk (The Tablet, 28 August), I am aware that I shock some people (not my family) when I do talk about my death, granted in an abstract manner.
The reason is because I have arranged with my local teaching hospital to take my body when I die, for organ donation/student dissection, with the knowledge and approval of my family. All the papers are filed with my Will and Requiem Mass instructions.
This is remarkably easy to set up: contact one's nearest teaching hospital and it sends a form to be completed, witnessed and returned.
Leaving one's body in this way is not only altruistic but also economical as there's no expensive funeral arrangements to be made by the family. I hope they'll have a good party to see me off with what they save. One's ashes are returned to the family after a year or so, following cremation by the hospital.
Ann Thorp, Newport, Isle Of Wight
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