End of the Road Show kickstarts important end of life conversations

As part of Dying Matters Awareness week, Dorothy House Hospice hosted the ‘The End of the Road Show’ at the Royal High School, Bath on the 10th May.

Making death a part of life across our community

At Dorothy House Hospice, it is our mission to make ‘death a part of life’, and we were delighted to have been able to bring people together from across the South West, for an evening’s performance of such a pioneering piece of theatre in Bath.

Even more exciting were the honest and open conversations around death and end of life wishes that came about as a result.

Kickstarting conversations and connections

Almost 100 members of the public, third sector representatives, colleagues in hospice care from across the South West, our staff, Ambassadors, the Lord Mayor and Mayoress of Bath and the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Somerset gathered at a drinks reception, to hear from our Chair of Trustees, Stephen Taylor and Royal High School, Headteacher, Kate Reynolds.

We then moved to the aptly named Memorial Hall to witness a heartfelt and thought-provoking piece of theatre that blended spoken word and sound with audience participation. ‘The End of the Road Show’ is produced by a touring theatre company called ‘Off The Twig’ and is inspired by real-life discussions around the end of life.

“The use of the torch to answer the questions during the performance showed us both that we have both thought about our own death and also showed that we have not….but need to, have the death admin chat that we can then just file away. So thank you.”

Inviting audience participation during the piece led to a deeper discussion afterwards. The honesty and generosity of the conversations that ensued was humbling. Likewise the in-memorium messages left on the End of the Road Show tree and the pebbles placed on the symbolic grave.

Measuring the impact – What the audience said

Alongside the creation of our new Part of Life website, this event was designed to host honest and positive conversations about death and dying. As a hospice charity, we believe that by destigmatising death, we can reduce anxiety about the end of life and dying process.

Invitees were therefore invited to complete a feedback survey after the event and the results have been extremely positive.

Before attending the event only 20% of people had discussed their end of life wishes with their loved ones. After attending, however, this number raised to 90% and their rationale for this change was inspiring.

“To make things easier for them and to stop them worrying about end of life – I won’t worry; I don’t want them to. It happens to us all. We just want it to be as good as it possibly can be.”

“The performance prompted me to want to put my wishes in writing and not postpone conversations with loved ones.”

“Life is short and talking about what they and we want at the end is important.”

“Losing our son to cancer was so hard, but he had fully expressed his wishes to us which made all the arrangements for his death and funeral so much easier to deal with, as we were following his direction and respecting his wishes.

Not all of us will have the ‘time’ outside of a terminal diagnosis, our own death may be sudden and unexpected, so the importance of sharing our wishes with those we love is crucial, and my husband and I have already set aside time this coming weekend to share our thoughts with each other.

Our son died 4 years ago… and although both of us have given thought privately to our own death, we have not shared with each other. My feeling is that one huge loss within our family has already been too much and the thought of another deep loss has been too much to consider. But consider we must.”

Have you discussed your end of life wishes with your loved ones?

Have you written them down anywhere, got a will and is it up to date?
If not, you can create a FREE will here.