Cause of Death

I popped into the Bereavement Office at Ealing Hospital to collect the medical certificate; armed with this I set off to Ealing Town Hall to register my father's death.

The medical certificate gave the cause of death as 'ischaemic heart disease' and secondary cause as 'chronic kidney disease'. My father had indeed suffered a heart attack on Tuesday morning and died at 16:40 that same day in hospital.

At Ealing Town Hall, things have changed since I registered the births of my children and the death of my mother. No longer high-vaulted Victorian corridors resounding the the echoes of footsteps along marbled floors, no oak-panelled offices or antique desks - the Registrar has moved next door into the relative modernity of Perceval House, built in the 1980s. Here, I'm surprised that the system for being seen is identical to that in use at Urząd Dzielnicy Ursynów in Warsaw! You get a ticket with a number and queue up for a multiplicity of services and someone will pop out and collect you from the relevant cubicle.

After a wait of no more than about 20 minutes, I'm ushered into a tiny glass-sided room by the Deputy Registrar, and we go through the formalities. One slight shock - each certified copy of the entry into the register, which cost £4 when my mother died four years ago (and according to the leaflet What to do when someone close to you dies, given to us at the hospital still costs £4), now costs £11. And you need lots of these for various institutions - the Grant of Representation from the Probate Service, for example. Plus most of the private-sector institutions with which the deceased had a relationship - shareholdings, banking, insurance.

But somethings have become simpler. The UK government's wonderful Tell Us Once service allows you to enter into one webpage all of the government services used by the deceased and cancel them with one click - passport, council tax, driving licence, NHS, National Insurance - really easy. Compare this to Poland where the bereaved need to set off on a trek around various government offices in person.

Once I had the green form from the Registrar's Office, I could arrange the funeral. Here I must warmly praise funeral director Artur Galla, who arranged my mother's funeral as well as those of many of my friends' parents' funerals. Everything sorted out with efficiency and decorum.

One thing we discovered from the hospital about the circumstances of my father's death was that in February this year, he had had a heart attack - but he didn't tell us! A few months later, when he received an appointment to see a consulting cardiologist, he told us that there had been some mistake, and that really he should be seeing a dermatologist for some minor skin condition rather than a heart specialist.

His final visit to the OPRAC (Old People's Rapid Assessment Centre) last month was very positive. The swelling of his feet had subsided, he had a higher blood iron count, he reported less trouble with swallowing (indeed, this was much better) - overall he was in far better shape in the summer than he had been in early spring. But he didn't tell the OPRAC doctor about any heart attack in February... [I suspect it was because he knew it would curtail his trip to Warsaw for the 75th anniversary of the Uprising. He went, his wish fulfilled; he died three months later.]

The upbeat OPRAC report and his overall improvement in health over the summer had led us to believe that he could indeed make it to a hundred - his stated goal. His recent feats were legion. In September, he pushed his wheelchair all the way home from Lidl in Hanwell, a distance of a mile and half (2.5km). Without stopping. He filled two wheelie bins of garden waste with leaves and twigs. His mind was active to the end too. Looking at his browsing history, I could see that three days before he died he'd spent the evening reading about the latest discoveries in quantum computing.

The funeral will take place on Saturday 9 November at Św. Andrzeja Boboli church, Leysfield Road, Hammersmith, at 11:15, followed by cremation at Mortlake.

This time last year:
Opole in the late-October sunshine

This time two years ago:
Work begins in earnest on the Karczunkowska viaduct

This time four years ago:
Sublime autumn day in Jeziorki

This time five years ago:
CitytoCity, MalltoMall

This time six years ago:
(Internet) Radio Days

This time seven years ago:
Another office move

This time eight years ago:
Manufacturing a City of Culture

This time nine years ago:
My thousandth post

This time ten years ago:
Closure of ul. Poloneza

This time 11 years ago:
Scenes from a suburban petrol station