By Andrew Alderson 10:35PM GMT 29 Nov 2008
Michael Grosvenor Myer's eyes well up and his voice trembles as he discusses the final hours of his wife's life. "If I burst into tears, take no notice," he says politely but firmly.
He takes a deep breath, regains his composure and describes how, last summer, he and his wife calmly devised a scheme for her to take her own life, yet one that meant he wouldn't face criminal charges for assisting her suicide.
Mr Grosvenor Myer had known some three years earlier that Valerie, his wife of 48 years, intended to take an overdose when her loss of dignity from Parkinson's disease became too much for her to bear.
Yet, when she suggested that he go to visit friends while she committed suicide, he rejected the idea saying he did not feel "comfortable" involving others in her death.
"This conversation took place on August 8, 2007," he said. "We were in the kitchen after lunch. And I said: 'If that's the only problem – that you need the house to yourself – I will pretend to go and do a day's work at the university library'. And her eyes lit up and she looked at her watch and said: 'It's a bit late for today. So tomorrow'.
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"I was a bit taken aback and I said: 'Are you sure, darling?'
"She said: 'Don't muck me about. You said you would [co-operate]. Tomorrow!'
"I said: 'All right, my darling. Tomorrow.'
"She said: 'Well, let's go up to the pub and have a nice steak for dinner at 6 o'clock. Then we'll come home. I feel like watching a Woody Allen film on my last night alive.'"
And so, after an early supper at the Three Kings in Haddenham, Cambridgeshire, they went home and watched the Woody Allen comedy Small Time Crooks before having an early night. "We just lay there and went to sleep," says Mr Grosvenor Myer, clearly picturing the moment in his mind.
"We woke up at 7am. I had a shower and got dressed as usual. I could see she was doing things in the kitchen with the blender and a pile of pills. I didn't ask too many questions.
"I went to give her a kiss and say goodbye, but she said: 'I have started the process. Don't get in the way. Goodbye, darling. Off you go.' And she practically shoved me through the front door. And as the Irish folk song has it: 'That was the last I saw of my dear'." It was 9am and he was determined not to return to their two-bedroom cottage until his wife was dead.
"I went to the university library. I was doing some work on the map in Treasure Island. It was not the best day of my life because my thoughts turned to what was happening at home. But Valerie had said: 'Don't hurry home.' So I didn't.
"So, after a day's work at the library, I had dinner at the university centre. I was reading a very interesting article in The New Yorker about the British political situation. And I was thinking: 'I must tell Valerie about this'. Then I thought: 'You great booby. You will never tell her about anything ever again – if she has managed to do it properly this time.'"
In fact, his 72-year-old wife had conducted her suicide with meticulous efficiency, taking 120 sleeping pills. He had expected to find her dead in their bedroom, but she was lying, in her red dressing gown, on the floor of the bathroom.
It was a sad end to a long marriage, yet by the end of the night Mr Grosvenor Myer found himself bizarrely amused by the situation played out at the couple's home after he had called the ambulance service.
"It was almost funny – a bit like an Aldwych farce. At one point there were two paramedics, a police inspector, a sergeant, two constables and two undertakers who had come to take Valerie away. They were all running in and out of these doors and up and down the stairs."
What he does not find amusing, however, is what he sees as the irrationality of the law that he says forced him to leave his wife to die on her own. It is for this reason that he is speaking out now, 15 months after her death.
Mr Grosvenor Myer, now 76, outlined the dilemma caused by the fact that assisted suicide is illegal in Britain: helping somebody to die carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
"Valerie would say: 'I want to take an overdose and die in your arms.' But I replied: 'I am sorry, my love: the law won't allow it. All that will happen is that I will end up in prison and that's not what you want. And she said: 'I suppose it isn't'.
"But because of the idiot state of the law my poor darling had to die this horrible, lonely death and I couldn't be there to help. The law should be: it's your own life – if you want to get rid of it, then go and do it. And if a loved one affords you some help, then they should be allowed to get on with it too.
"I don't regret it [leaving his wife to die]. But perhaps this makes me a criminal. If so, they [the police] know where to find me."
The couple had met in 1956, in Brittany. "My parents and I were rushing to catch the ferry home. But it was just pulling away as we got there.
"Two young Englishwomen on the ferry drew the crew's attention to us and, amazingly – because French people aren't always as obliging – they came back for us," says Mr Grosvenor Myer, recalling the moment with relish.
"And my father thanked the young women and invited them for a drink. One of the women was Valerie – and if we hadn't caught that boat we would never have spent nearly 50 years together. It really was the most advantageous meeting one could possible imagine.
"But, actually, I went out with the other girl for a year because she lived in London and Valerie lived in the Forest of Dean, where she worked as a reporter on the Dean Forest Mercury. But then she got a job as chief reporter on the Dartford Chronicle and that's when we first started going out." The couple married in 1959, when she was 23 and he was 26.
They both enjoyed fulfilling careers. After they met, Mr Grosvenor Myer, who had a degree in English from Cambridge, abandoned his job as a "glorified shipping clerk in a wines and spirits firm" to become a teacher. He later had a dual career as a freelance theatre critic and folk singer.
Mrs Grosvenor Myer, the daughter of a coal miner but linked through an illegitimate liaison to the wealthy Grosvenor family, also combined several careers. She was a scholar, editor, literary critic, biographer and novelist. The couple shared a love of the theatre and literature, particularly Jane Austen and Shakespeare.
However, they never had children. Mrs Grosvenor Myer went to Cambridge University, obtaining a first-class degree in English as a mature student aged 31, and then suffered an early menopause. "We didn't deliberately set out to be a childless couple, but we were," her husband says now.
Dressed in a black jacket and blue striped shirt, Mr Grosvenor Myer is recalling the past as he sips a cup of tea in the Groucho Club in central London, which he joined earlier this year.
Mrs Grosvenor Myer was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a decade ago. "It is a degenerative disease and her health got progressively worse. Three or four years ago, she said: 'Don't be surprised if you come back one day and find me dead.' I said: 'No I won't. I won't do anything to prevent you from doing what you want to do.'"
Before she died on August 9 last year, his wife had made other unsuccessful suicide attempts. In the summer of 2005, she took a late-night overdose. Convinced his wife would be dead when he awoke, Mr Grosvenor Myer left her lying on a futon in the television room. "She was still there next morning, still alive. Halfway through the day, I realised that she had gone into a coma. I couldn't cope with a coma so I called for help. One of the paramedics said very meaningfully to me: 'It's as well you phoned us as soon as you could or you might have found yourself on a manslaughter charge'. So he obviously knew what the score was and was giving me a hint to be careful."
Mr Grosvenor Myer feels lonely without his wife, but a burden has also been lifted. "Her death has cut me up terribly, but I also feel 40 years younger since she died. I feel I could fly through the air. The last three or four years, when I was nursing her, were bloody tough – not the best years of our married life." In the final months of her life, his wife fell repeatedly and had trouble talking and writing.
After her death, Mrs Grosvenor Myer was cremated and her husband scattered her ashes on their garden. They were both atheists, although he is a lapsed Jew, and earlier in their marriage both had been regular Anglican churchgoers.
He treasures the memories of his wife and the suicide note that she left on their computer screen after taking her final overdose. "Do not think of this as a suicide note, rather as a thank-you for half a century together," she had typed. She described him as her "lover and my best friend", adding: "Parting is such sweet sorrow."
Mr Gosvenor Myer's eyes start to mist over again. "I miss Valerie enormously. There is a great hole in my life. We have this big study. I always sat in the corner by the window and she always sat quite a long way away on the other side. To this day, I will be reading the paper and say: 'Have you seen…?' And I realise I am talking to myself – she is not there."
Michael was in my opinion an incredibly brave man, when I read this about him 8 years ago, and saw him here on Mudcat, I made allowances for him, he had to overcome such tragedy, I judge him ON HIS RESPONSE TO PERSONAL TRAGEDY , not on anything else. R.I.P, MGM, Brave Man