Former Clacton Gazette journalist Phil Such is to feature in a new television series about unconventional approaches to life-threatening illnesses.

Mr Such died last year after a long and brave battle against motor neurone disease. He was just 38.

He took part in the filming of the BBC2 programme Kill or Cure just before he died in September.

It is a three-part series giving an intimate portrait of four people, beginning with HIV sufferer Warwick Powell.

The next subjects are two drug addicts, and the final programme tells of Mr Such's plight.

The journalist was diagnosed with MND in October 2000 just three years after his mother, Marion, died of the illness after a 14-month struggle in 1997.

Early last year, he campaigned for the right to an assisted suicide and went on a three-week hunger strike during his own battle with the degenerative illness to protest over current UK law.

He said that it denied him the right to choose an assisted death.

"Do not get me wrong, I am not clinically depressive, I am not being negative," he told the Gazette at the time.

"My life has always been full of fun but this disease has eliminated a lot of that. What I want to impress on people is that you do not have to be depressed to want to die."

Mr Such worked in the Clacton Gazette office in the 1980s, before going on to work in Colchester on the Essex County Standard, then to the Western Daily Press and eventually the Daily Mail.

His partner and carer, Sheryn Alexander, is hoping to complete a book which they started together about their lives.

Kill or Cure is screened on BBC 2 on Thursdays at 9pm

Published Wednesday, June 4, 2003

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