02 June 2023 , 18:36
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Linda Robson has revealed she wants her kids to end her life if she is diagnosed with dementia.
The Loose Women star said: “I want them to put a pillow over my face.”
Linda watched her mum, Rita, suffer from dementia and stomach cancer before she died in 2021, aged 75.
Linda said: “I said in the meeting [with producers before Loose Women]I want them to put a pillow over my face and they said you can’t say that on TV.
“That’s what I feel like. That’s my biggest fear – dementia.
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“Some friends’ mums have died of it, my mum died of it. She went down to five stone. She was Catholic Irish and would have been traumatised if she knew she was having bed baths.”
Linda with songwriter son Louis (INSTAGRAM)But Birds of a Feather star, Linda, 65, said she won’t get tested for the early signs of dementia.
The mum of three, from Islington, North London, added: “I would rather not know if I had it.
“I start worrying if I’m putting strange things in the fridge.
“My mum would still be shopping for a big family and I’d go ‘Mum there’s only you and Johnny now, you don’t need to do all this shopping.’
“Then she would forget she’d cooked a chicken and she’d be making lamb chops so I’d be like ‘there’s chicken in the oven’.”
Despite her request to her kids, she wouldn’t consider using an end-of-life clinic such as Dignitas in Switzerland. She said: “I told my kids, put me in a home.
Linda with daughter Lauren and granddaughter Lila (Getty Images Europe)“You hear of horror stories of people in old people’s homes so its always best to make sure your relatives are OK.”
A matter close to Linda’s heart is the use of medical cannabis, and her desire to reduce the stigma surrounding it.
She first came along the subject in ITV show Gone to Pot, in which she travelled to the US with stars including EastEnders actor Pam St Clement to investigate legal cannabis.
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Since then, she has teamed up with Releaf, a cannabis e-clinic, which promotes its benefits.
She said: “When I was younger, I remember having a puff of a joint.
“Recreationally, I don’t enjoy it – but medicinally, I think it’s amazing.
“I haven’t taken it since I was in America.
“It did help with the jet lag and arthritis.
“Pam St Clements has hip problems and it definitely helps her too.”
She added: “What they are selling on street corners is not what they are making in the labs.
“If someone tells me that someone in their family isn’t well, I tell them they should get some medicinal cannabis.
“I think after Gone to Pot went on television, everyone in the country changed their mind about cannabis.”
* For more information on Releaf, visit releaf.co.uk.