Although my mother was still alive and well, the care home staff convinced me to participate in a dry-run of their ‘death routine’.

A carer showed me into a small room that contained a low, blue plastic platform.

‘This is where we lay the body’ she explained. ‘Now you wait here’.

As the walls of the room began to move, she stepped out of the way. I was now trapped alone in a thin corridor, listening to the squeak of trolley wheels nearby.

Then, when the walls were brought back to their normal position, I saw my mother’s corpse laid out on the blue plastic platform.