We play God every day… why not when we’re suffering?
Having watched the final agonies of her mother-in-law, The Fizz star Cheryl Baker is backing Esther Rantzen and the Daily Express in calling for assisted dying to be legalised
FORMER Eurovision Song Contest winner Cheryl Baker has thrown her weight behind the Give Us Our Last Rights campaign by Dame Esther Rantzen and the Daily Express for the legalisation of assisted dying. More than 200,000 readers signed an online petition, which triggered a three-hour parliamentary debate last month.
“And I’m one of them,” says the Bucks Fizz star from her home in Kent. “I didn’t have to think twice about it. Now, thanks to the Express campaign, the issue has been discussed in Parliament. Something has to be done about it – what people are put through at the end of their lives.
“We treat our pets better – you see a dog suffering, you do something about it. A few years ago, one of my German Shepherds could no longer walk because her rear legs had gone. She couldn’t eat and she could barely see. It was just wrong, so she was given an injection and she just went to sleep. It was beautiful. She was no longer in pain.”
Dame Esther, 83, who has stage four lung cancer, has joined the Dignitas assisted dying clinic in Switzerland and has said she may “buzz off to Zurich” if treatment fails.
“Why must we prolong people’s lives when they are in absolute misery because of pain or have a degenerative disease?” continues Cheryl. “If you know you’re dying and your body is crumbling around you and you have nothing left to live for, people should be able to die with dignity.”
Cheryl, perhaps best known for having her scarlet skirt ripped off as a member of the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest-winning group Bucks Fizz, speaks from personal experience. Several years ago, she and her husband, musician Steve Stroud, witnessed the harrowing and intensely painful death of Steve’s much-loved stepmother, who contracted a nasty bacterium, clostridium difficile, causing an infection of the colon.
“It was horrible. She contracted the infection in a hospital where she was being treated for breast cancer,” says Cheryl.
“It killed her by poisoning her own blood. The disease ate its way through her bowel, poisoned her blood and she died a terrible death. The medics tried to keep her alive at any cost – as they do – but what about her quality of life?What about her dignity?
“Action is needed and things must change, and I do think it will happen now, because so many people want it to.”
THERE is, of course, the argument that nobody has the right to play God. That it is not up to us humans to decide when our lives should end. That nature should take its course. It is an argument Cheryl has little truck with.
“They say no one should play God, but we play God every day. Every time someone breaks their arm and it’s fixed in hospital – that’s playing God,” she tells me.
“You take paracetamol to get rid of a headache, that’s playing God. My twin daughters were born thanks to IVF in 1994 – that’s playing God.
“So, you can disregard that argument. It’s ridiculous. The fact is that we can help people.
“Medical science can cure a brain tumour, help women have babies, and so on – and it’s marvellous. So likewise, if someone is coming to the end of their life and they are in abject misery due to pain or for whatever reason, then I think it is every person’s right to choose.
“Obviously, the right checks and balances must be put in place. That goes without saying. I’m not a controversial person, but I do feel strongly about that.”
This is not the only issue Cheryl – now 70, not that you’d know it – feels strongly about. She also strongly supports the WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) Campaign which is fighting for all women born in the 1950s – on or after April 6, 1950, to April 5, 1960, to be exact – affected by the changes to the state pension age for women.
In March, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman said the Department for Work and Pensions failed to fully inform thousands of women that the pension age had changed, plunging their retirement plans into doubt.
The Ombudsman has recommended that the department must do the right thing and
award necessary compensation. “It’s so wrong that the pension age for women suddenly went from 60 to 66,” says Cheryl.
“That was shocking and I’m fully supportive of what the WASPI women are trying to achieve. If it’d been men in this situation, it would never have been allowed to happen.
“It affected me personally. One of my best friends is 11 months and three weeks older than me, and got her pension at 60. I had to wait until I was 66. How is that fair?”
In an age of supposed equality, Cheryl agrees women should have the same pensionable age as men but says it should have been a more gradual process, with the changes made more transparently.
“For women of my generation to have thought they would get their pension at 60 and to have planned for that accordingly, only to then be told, ‘Oh no, sorry, you won’t get it for several more years’ – it’s shocking it happened.”
On a lighter note, it’s 43 years since Cheryl and her Bucks Fizz bandmates Jay Aston, Mike Nolan and Bobby G won 1981’s Eurovision, the latest final of which takes place tomorrow in Sweden, with the UK represented by singer Olly Alexander.
Does she think he has a chance? “I love Olly and I love the production of the song but it’s up against stiff competition. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll win.”
As for her own time in the contest, she chuckles: “I have so many great memories. What a time it was for us. I mean, it changed our lives. I wouldn’t be talking to you now if it hadn’t happened.
“To be honest, I don’t know if we would have won Eurovision back in 1981 if we hadn’t done the ripping-off-the-skirts gimmick.
“The idea came about purely by chance. We knew we would be wearing primary colours but Jay and I wanted different skirt lengths. Jay – who’s tiny – wanted a mini while I, with my chunkier, runner’s legs, wanted knee-length.
“Our choreographer suggested we could have both so it was decided in the line of the song that goes, ‘Do you want to see some more?’, the knee-length skirts should be ripped off, revealing the minis.”
Stardom beckoned and several top 10 hits followed.
However, there were difficulties amongst the band’s personnel, which culminated with various members leaving at different times.
In short, Bobby G fell out with Cheryl, Jay and Mike yet somehow retained ownership of the Bucks Fizz name. In 2016, Cheryl, Jay and Mike formed The Fizz. The band perform all over the country and are gearing up for a very special performance in June in the Indigo venue at London’s O2 Arena.
“We were asked to do it last year and it was such fun and such a success, they’ve asked us to do it again,” smiles Cheryl. “We do all our hits and a 1980s medley of songs, and the crowd love it – as do we.”
SADLY, Mike recently announced he’ll be bowing out of The Fizz by the end of the year for personal reasons. Cheryl and Jay, however, have no plans to retire. “Obviously it won’t be the same without Mike,” she says. “But we want to carry on and we intend to recruit a new male member of an, ahem, certain age! Maybe even two new guys! But I’m not stopping. I love it as much as ever.
“While I have aches and pains, when I’m on stage I don’t feel them. Performing keeps me young. While I’m still having so much fun, why stop?”
Cheryl doesn’t regard what she does as a chore, then?
“Not at all. It’s like I get paid to do a favourite hobby. The only downside is the travelling. That’s a pain, but being on stage is the reward.
“I’m 70 and I can’t quite believe it but 70 is not what it used to be. It’s the new 50! Forty years ago, you were over the hill by the time you were 60.
“Performing with the band keeps me young – no doubt about that.
“I still throw myself around on stage and am more than happy to have my legs on display when my skirt is ripped off when we do Making Your Mind Up. There’s no such thing, in my opinion, as retiring from the music industry.
“I’ll carry on until I just can’t do it any more. Most women of my age and a bit younger are retired but, for many of them, maybe, working was a means to an end. It’s not like that for me. I just love what I do.
“I keep myself fit and run half-marathons. I also think having my kids at 40 means they’ve kept me young. I think all these things combined help to keep me in a young frame of mind. I never think, ‘Oh, I can’t do this or that because I’m too old’.”
●●The Fizz play the Indigo At The O2, London, on June 28. For tickets and information, visit thefizzofficial.com