Like many of the ladies lunching in the restaurants along the fashionable King’s Road in Chelsea, Nan Maitland was discussing the art exhibitions she and her friends wanted to take in.
Maitland spoke with enthusiasm about some stained glass windows by the Russian artist Marc Chagall. A mischievous glint flashed across her eyes, however, because the windows she was talking about were not nearby, but in the Fraumünster church in Zurich.
They were of particular interest, she said, to an acquaintance who wanted to see them before ending her life at the Dignitas suicide clinic.
Over cheese souffle and chocolate mousse Maitland described her plans to help others kill themselves. She believed deeply in what she was doing as an extension of her great cause — helping ease the pain of others.
At the meal in April 2009, nearly two years before she was to end her own life, Maitland looked elegant, with a cape from Harrods draped over her shoulders. She suffered from arthritis and capes were easier to put on than overcoats.
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This was a typical, practical idea for making daily life easier for the infirm. By profession, Maitland was an occupational therapist, passionate about helping the elderly to live in their own homes. She was founder and president of Homeshare International, a charity which allows those needing help to offer accommodation in exchange for assistance with household tasks. Maitland was still helping the charity only a week before her death last month.
Her decision to kill herself because she wanted to avoid the increasing pain of old age has sharpened the row over the ethics of Swiss suicide clinics, which have pushed steadily beyond the mission of helping the terminally ill shorten their final ordeal.
Maitland, born in 1926, used to live in Kent, where she brought up her three children before moving to London 40 years ago. She dispensed advice on suicide from her home in Chelsea. Recently, she turned her administrative skills to arranging her own death.
At the end of February she calmly and without visible emotion said goodbye to her loved ones and left London for Switzerland with two fellow right-to-die campaigners. She left behind her three children and a sister. Her husband, from whom she was separated, is also understood still to be alive.
In a note, Maitland wrote to friends: “For some time, my life has consisted of more pain than pleasure and, over the next months and years the pain will be more and the pleasure less. I have a great feeling of relief that I will have no further need to struggle through each day in dread of what further horrors may lie in wait.
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“For many years, I have feared the long period of decline, sometimes called ‘prolonged dwindling’, that so many people unfortunately experience before they die.”
Maitland was a founder of the Society for Old Age Rational Suicide (Soars) which campaigns for the law to allow elderly people to have doctor-assisted suicides, even if they are not terminally ill.
There are two organisations offering death to foreigners in Switzerland. Dignitas and Ex International, a smaller clinic in Bern. Maitland chose not to name the organisation which assisted in her death to avoid bringing publicity to it.
Dignitas, founded in 1998 by the lawyer Ludwig Minelli, has so far helped more than 1,000 people die, including at least 115 Britons.
However, it has been embroiled in controversy, particularly when it was accused of dumping the ashes of some 300 of its clients in Lake Zurich, prompting an investigation by the Swiss authorities.
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Disputes over who Dignitas should be helping to die were sharpened in 2008 when Dan James, 23, a former England under-16 rugby player who had been paralysed in a game, died there.
Dr Michael Irwin, who founded Soars with Maitland, and who accompanied her to Switzerland, said: “Besides those who are terminally ill, there are many elderly individuals who, experiencing increasing physical and psychological suffering, get to the last years of their natural lives and have to seriously consider whether departing this existence will be much more attractive than struggling on.”
According to a poll commissioned by Soars last month, 66% agree elderly people who are suffering from serious, but non-fatal health problems, should have the right to doctor-assisted suicide.
Maitland’s decision has been criticised as potentially putting pressure on the elderly to end their lives so as not to be a burden on loved ones, carers or the state.
Baroness Finlay, a consultant in palliative medicine, said: “This is an extension. Where do you stop? We are endangering others in the process. Do you start to say, that if you are older and you are becoming dependent on people that you have a duty to die?
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“The danger is that you can make people feel that they are being selfish by wanting to carry on living or by wanting to be cared for rather than ending their lives.”