Tim Leeson, spirituality lead at St Helena Hospice, said:

“Death and dying are subjects often not spoken about until we’re suddenly faced with them, and it can feel uncomfortable, or even scary, to talk about them. But death and dying are universal experiences, and being able to talk about them can help to demystify them, and even make them feel less frightening.

“Conversations about death and dying can be heavy, and hard. But they can also be liberating and joyful. Exploring this stuff might be scary at times, and it might feel uncomfortable, but the rewards are huge.

“The good news is that you don’t need to start this alone. While it still feels new and uncomfortable, we are here to support you. Download our dying matters conversation starter pack from our website or come along to one of our free Compassionate Conversations workshops.”

St Helena Hospice has been encouraging people to randomly pick out dying matters conversation starter questions from a goldfish bowl, and here is how some of the conversations went:

New parents Hannah and Greg

Hannah: Do you think your family would know what you want for your funeral if you died suddenly?

Greg: I suppose it’s not my choice if it was suddenly, because I haven’t put any plans in for any sort of celebration of life after the ceremony, but we both know it would be very quick for us how things moved along.

Hannah: There is the religious aspect that will factor into some of our decisions; we are of a faith that requires burial within 24 hours. I don't necessarily have a need for there to be a party or a wake afterwards. I hope the idea would be that we'd have plenty of celebrations in our life to celebrate our life.

Greg: How do you feel knowing you have limited time left?

Hannah: Even though some people might have been given a finite timeline because they’ve been given a terminal diagnosis, as bleak as it sounds, we're all terminal in a sense. Death is coming for all of us. I think we've always tried to live our lives in a way that we know we're not always going to be here; so try to do our best, be good people, experience as much as we can of this world. I think we've all got to be cognisant of the fact that we're here for a limited time.

Colleagues from Colne Radio, presenters Tim and Matthew

Matthew: What song would you want played at your funeral?

Tim: Probably my favourite song that could be appropriate at a funeral, because I don't want to upset people, would be Little Richard's ‘Tutti Frutti’, because it embodies everything that I love about life, which is just that exuberance and that slight wackiness. The music that we used at my mother's funeral came out of when I was clearing the house a few days later. I opened up a book and out fell a list of her favourite songs, but there are certain pieces of music on there now that I find quite difficult to listen to. It just goes to show you the power of music. Whatever that piece of music is, it can take you back to a moment. Next question, what is your idea of a good death?

Matthew: I'd like it to be peaceful with my loved ones with me. I'd want to have achieved everything I wanted to achieve by then. I suppose then I could die with quite an amount of peace. To me that would be a good death. I think it's about what I've done before the death and there's so much I still want to do.

St Helena Hospice patient Rosie and her sister Jean

Rosie: Burial or cremation?

Jean: Cremation. That was easy. Do you want a wake before you die?

Rosie: I’d only heard of this the other day. I think that sounds like a really good idea, but I'm not in the state to do that now. I've had a couple of parties where I’ve had friends around and sat in my garden, and I'll probably do that again if the weather is nice enough. Last year I couldn't even get out bed whereas this year I could sit in my chair in the garden. So yes, if I could go back and plan it, then yes, probably that is something I would think about.

Jean: Would you call it a wake?

Rosie: No, I would just call it a party; a ‘Rosie’s any reason for a party’ party. I'm not even going to have a wake; I’m having an after show party. People tend to think of wakes as everyone sitting around, talking about the person who's died, quite rightly, but I want people there talking about me but with disco music playing in the background, and if people want to get up and have a dance, get up and have a dance, have a party. That's what I want; an after show party.