Wendy Mitchell obituary

Writer and dementia campaigner who believed that people should have the right to choose their own death

The writer-activist Wendy Mitchell, who has died aged 68, won hearts and minds advocating for living positively with dementia. She was determined to remind people that those living with the disease are not “sufferers” and that there is “a beginning, a middle and an end to the disease – with so much life to be lived in between”. She held strong beliefs that people should have the right to choose their own death, and campaigned for assisted dying laws in Britain – one of the subjects of her final book.

Wendy wrote three bestsellers, Somebody I Used to Know (2018), What I Wish People Knew About Dementia (2022) and One Last Thing: How to Live with the End in Mind (2023) – I was fortunate enough to be her ghostwriter on all of them. They were translated into dozens of languages, and her advocacy work won her honorary doctorates from Bradford and Hull Universities, and a British Empire Medal last year.

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