'In a strange way it was a good day. We were able to share things. I read to Mark. I gave him his last bath. Then early in the evening he kissed me and said, " Let's call it quits, Pooh." And he died about half an hour later.'

Sandy, a pretty young widow, describing the last day of her husband, Mark. She had been warned some months earlier that he had no more than five months left to live. This programme tells her story, and the story of three other people who have been given a sentence of death by their doctors.

The way they cope with the knowledge is sometimes heartening, sometimes puzzling and sometimes horrifying, but it shows clearly how the way you face death reflects the way you have lived, and how important are human relationships and a sense of family continuity.