Film and book of Philip Gould's final days released
Film and book of Philip Gould's final days released
Philip Gould, the New Labour strategist, chronicled the last few weeks of his life before succumbing to oesophageal cancer in November last year at the age of 61.
Lord Gould's writing has now been published in a book, 'When I Die: Lessons from the Death Zone'. A film of the same name has also been released. The film, an intimate and moving portrait of Lord Gould's quest to find purpose and meaning in what he called 'The Death Zone', was shot by photographer and director Adrian Steirn, who spent two weeks filming their conservations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2eUw0CUuMc&feature=player_embedded
At one point Lord Gould, who was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in 2008 and given six months to live in summer 2011, says: "It is only when you are told you are going to die ... [that] life screams at you in its intensity."
He describes his final journey as "the most exciting and most extraordinary period" of his life and talks about having “more moments of happiness in the last five months than in the last few years".
"As long as I look death in the eye and as long as I accept that I can choose the death that I seek and the death that I choose I have some freedom. I have some power," he says.
"I have some possibility to shape for myself my own death and at that moment I have a kind of freedom."
Lord Gould's book 'When I die: Lessons from the Dead Zone', is described as 'courageous, profoundly moving and inspiring'. He writes about how he realised something he had never heard articulated before: death need not be only negative or painful, it can be life-affirming and revelatory. When Philip could no longer write, his daughter, Georgia, took over, writing the final chapter of the book.
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