'I can deal with leaving' Woman tells of ending life at Dignitas

Paola Marra's social calendar has been packed recently.

- Robert Booth

The 53-year-old has been dining at some of London's best restaurants, enjoying grand afternoon teas and meeting old pals at hedonist hotspots such as the Groucho private members' club.

The Canadian-born former music industry and charity worker has lots of friends from 35 years living in England - but not everyone can get a slot to see her.

"My diary is full," she said. "It's hard because there are people who want to get in there. But I have a date."

That date came this week. On Monday, she left home in East Finchley, north London, and flew alone to Zurich. At 10am yesterday she was due at Dignitas, the Swiss assisted-dying organisation. There, after having terminal stage 4 bowel cancer since 2021 and following months of planning and paperwork, she ended her life.

"Bowel cancer has been brutal and non-stop," she said from her hotel room overlooking Lake Zurich a day earlier. "I just feel ready...

The thing that makes me break down is talking about my friends and having to say goodbye to people. The rest of it I can live with, or die with. I can deal with leaving." Marra decided to speak to the Guardian because people in Britain "need to talk about assisted dying ... they need to talk about choice", she said. "I'm not scared to die," she added. "I'm scared of dying in pain."