'My mum was jailed for helping her pal die - she never regretted what she did'
It was an emotional moment when novelist Deborah Moggach was asked to write a script about assisted dying, because her own mum was jailed for aiding a suicide.
The moving drama about a woman accused of murdering her husband after a failed suicide pact is a subject close to Deborah’s heart. It will be called Goodnight Darling, the last words the woman spoke to her terminally ill husband after they took an overdose together. And Deborah, 75, who wrote The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, hopes Goodnight Darling will be as influential on the issue of assisted dying as Mr Bates vs The Post Office was for highlighting the injustice of the Horizon IT scandal.
Dame Esther Rantzen, 83, who has terminal stage-four lung cancer and is calling for a law change, yesterday gave her backing to the drama. In 1985, Deborah’s mother Charlotte Hough, a children’s book author, aged 60, was convicted of attempted murder for assisting in a friend’s suicide. She served six months of a nine-month prison sentence. Annetta Harding, 83, who was blind, deaf, in chronic pain from arthritis and depressed, was a member of Exit, which advocated legalising voluntary euthanasia and assisted dying.
She asked Charlotte to sit with her while she took pills and, if after several hours she was still breathing, to put a plastic bag over her head. Which Charlotte did. After helping Annetta to die, Charlotte left undetected. But Deborah said: “She was very indiscreet. I remember she came home and told me and my sister, and I told her to keep it quiet. As a Samaritans volunteer, we think she told a colleague, as a few days later, she was arrested.”
Tried at the Old Bailey, she pleaded guilty to attempted murder, to avoid being sentenced to life for murder. Deborah said: “It was a ghastly time, but I don’t think my mum regretted what she did. She was bullied mercilessly while in prison but, on the outside, a lot of people thought it was a courageous thing to do.”
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After her mother’s experience, Deborah became a patron of campaigning organisation Dignity in Dying, as she believes passionately in the freedom of choice.
Mavis and Dennis Eccleston with family (Eccleston family)Goodnight Darling will tell the story of Dennis and Mavis Eccleston, who made a joint suicide pact. He had been diagnosed with stage-four bowel cancer in 2015. Dennis refused treatment and told his wife and children he wanted to end it all when the pain became unbearable.
Devoted Mavis, who met Dennis at a dance in 1958, also told the family she did not want to live without him. On February 20, 2018, she found him collapsed and howling in pain on the bathroom floor. They each took an overdose of painkillers. Mavis said: “Goodnight darling” and he had replied “Goodnight my love,” as they drifted off. But their daughter Lynne Eccleston, 64, arrived unannounced at their bungalow in Huntington, Staffordshire, and called 999.
Ex-colliery manager Dennis, 81, had signed a do-not-resuscitate order, so was allowed to die peacefully in an adjoining hospital bed to his beloved wife of 60 years Mavis, then 79. Although she had left a 13 page suicide note, she had no DNR, so doctors saved her.
She stood trial at Stafford Crown Court for two weeks accused of murdering Dennis by giving him a potentially lethal dose of prescription medicine without his knowledge. But the jury believed that they had planned to die together and cleared her of all charges. Grantchester star Tom Brittney, who plays Rev Will Davenport, read the Ecclestons’ story in a newspaper and was moved to tears.
Tom, 33, said: “It just broke my heart. I was in floods of tears. I wanted to try and help bring it to the screen, so the story could reach the mainstream and people could see what happened to the family and the tragedy of Mavis’s case. It was a heartbreaking love story – but also a courtroom drama. At the centre of it is the love that everyone in the family has for each other.”
Mavis with daughter Joy and son Kevin (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)
Mavis and Dennis on their wedding day (Eccleston family)Tom has a production company but took the project to a bigger concern, Corestar Media. The team there was also moved by the story and knew it had to be made and immediately thought of Deborah.
Executive producer Ross Murray, said: “When we heard about Deborah’s own experience we knew she was the right person to write this moving yet harrowing story.” The Ecclestons’ heartbreaking experience brought all Deborah’s memories of her mother flooding back.
She cannot believe Mavis, frail after a failed heart bypass, was subjected to a murder trial after simply carrying out the wishes of her husband. She said: “The law on assisted dying is as tough as it ever was, even though the mood of the nation has changed. It’s clear to the vast majority of the country that people shouldn’t be punished for being the relative, or the helper of someone in pain with a terminal illness. People need to have the freedom of choice on this most personal matter.”
She said of Goodnight Darling: “I hope it could help change the law, I think it stands a chance after watching how Mr Bates caught the nation’s attention.”
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Dame Esther said: “I hope and pray that the tragic power of this drama will persuade law-makers and the medical profession that criminalising assisted dying is cruel and wrong.”
'At the centre of it is the love that everyone in the family has for each other' (Eccleston family)The Ecclestons’ children Lynne, former miner Kevin, 65, and Joy Munns, 58, now an ambassador for Dignity in Dying, were all appalled by Mavis’ treatment. After meeting Mavis, now 85, who lives with Joy in Burton-on-Trent, Staffs, and her family, Deborah said: “I was moved to meet them and privileged to write their story, I was asked to make it a love story, and I think we did that.”
Tom will be an executive producer on Goodnight Darling and Joy described him as being like a “second son”. She said: “From the minute he came in, the empathy he showed was incredible. My mum adored him from the start. He was in floods of tears and we knew he was the right person to do it, as it is a very sensitive subject”.
“Tom got it, he wanted the world to know what had gone on and so do we.” Richard Hart, managing director of Corestar Media, said: “Having secured the funding for a script and working with Deborah Moggach, award-winning author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, we are now in talks with potential partners to help bring the Ecclestons’ story to the screen.”
Deborah has written 19 novels and adapted The Diary of Anne Frank and Pride and Prejudice for the screen.
Critics fear legalising assisted dying could be open to abuse, with people being pressured into decisions.
The Catholic Church opposes it, instead calling for more palliative care. In 2021, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said changing the law would be unsafe and leave the vulnerable at risk.
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