A promise to be together,in life and in death

The controversy over the ethical and legal issues surrounding assisted suicide for the terminally ill was thrown into stark relief on Tuesday with the announcement...

The controversy over the ethical and legal issues surrounding assisted suicide for the terminally ill was thrown into stark relief on Tuesday with the announcement that one of Britains most distinguished orchestra conductors,Sir Edward Downes,had flown to Switzerland with his wife and joined her in drinking a lethal cocktail of barbiturates provided by an assisted-suicide clinic.

Although friends who spoke to the British news media said Sir Edward was not known to have been terminally ill,they said he wanted to die with his ailing wife,who had been his partner for more than fifty years.

The couples children said in an interview with the London Evening Standard that on Tuesday,last week,they accompanied their father,85,and their mother,Joan,74,to Zurich,where the Swiss group Dignitas helped arrange the suicides. On Friday,the children said,they watched,weeping,as their parents drank a small quantity of clear liquid before lying down on adjacent beds,holding hands.

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Within a couple of minutes they were asleep,and died within 10 minutes, Caractacus Downes,the couples 41-year-old son,said. They wanted to be next to each other when they died… It is a very civilised way to end your life,and I dont understand why the legal position in this country doesnt allow it.

Sir Edward,who was described by Downes and his sister,Boudicca,39,as almost blind and increasingly deaf,was principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra from 1980 to 1991. He was also a conductor of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London,where he led 950 performances over more than 50 years.

Lady Downes,who British newspapers said was in the final stages of terminal cancer,was a former ballet dancer,choreographer and television producer who devoted her later years to working as her husbands assistant.

After 54 happy years together,they decided to end their own lives rather than continue to struggle with serious health problems, the Downes children said in their statement.

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Scotland Yard said in a statement on Tuesday that it had been informed that a man and a woman from London had died in Switzerland,and that it was looking into the circumstances.

Even if they arrest us and send us to prison,it would have made no difference because it is what our parents wanted, Downes said.