A SOLIHULL community choir has featured on a television programme about experiences dealing with terminal illness.
Made over three years, My Wonderful Life follows four people as they make plans for the end of their life and set out their final wishes.
The four also plan personal, and often emotional, surprises for their loved ones to be carried out after they die.
Solihull Pop Chorus was asked by the programme makers to perform a very special surprise for Ian Edmunds, who died in 2016, for his wife Christine.
The 56-year-old sent his wife Christine back to the place where he proposed – the historic Ironbridge in Telford.
Walking along the towpath, she looked up and saw more than 100 members of Solihull Pop Chorus singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Ian and Christine’s favourite song, from the bridge.
She then joined the choir on the bridge to release yellow balloons in his memory.
In the programme Anya Small, choir director of Solihull Pop Chorus, presented Christine with a book, written by Ian, celebrating their life together.
She said: “It was an honour and a privilege to be asked to do this and to be part of Ian’s surprise for Christine.
“I think we all found it to be a very emotional and thought-provoking day; to be part of their love story and to realise how important it is to say everything you need to say to those that you love.”
The series also shows participants planning for their own personalised funerals and the impact this has on their friends and family. Solihull-based National Association of Funeral Directors has warmly welcomed the programme’s contribution to the wider campaign to encourage people to talk about the end of life.
NAFD president Alison Crake said: “This is a wonderful and uplifting programme and I hope it helps to reduce the taboo around discussing the end of life.
“We’ve found that, although Britons say they feel increasingly comfortable talking about death and dying, it’s still not happening nearly enough.
“Talking about dying doesn’t make death happen any faster, but it does make it a little bit easier for those you love, when the time comes – not just on a practical level, but emotionally too.”
My Wonderful Life continues on Sky One on Thursdays at 9pm and Episode one featuring Solihull Pop Chorus is available to watch on NOW TV and on Sky.
