‘When he stopped smoking and drinking in hospital,’ Ophelia recalled, ‘that was a clear indication to me the end was near.’ She and Dahl's other children felt he was suffering too much as the days dragged on, but Liccy couldn't bear to let go. Ophelia felt her father was fighting on just for Liccy.

It had been another awful day for Dahl: his blood pressure had been low, his temperature up and down, and his bones aching terribly despite the analgesics. When I came on the ward in the early evening, he was more comfortable, and by midnight everything seemed settled. Dahl was asleep, and Liccy and Ophelia were with him, so I decided to go and get some rest, but at one in the morning I was woken by a bleep from the nurses.

Could I come down? Roald was in distress.

I examined him, and talked with Liccy and Ophelia. Dahl was in pain, especially when he was turning. I altered his medication, upping the doses of his painkillers. He relaxed again, and after twenty minutes was sleeping.

But an hour later I was called back. The discomfort had returned. I adjusted the drugs once more, adding oral opiates, the strongest painkillers short of morphine.

Again he settled. Liccy and Ophelia had been upset by his distress, but were also calmer now. It was four in the morning. I thought we were through the worst of it. Once the sun came up things would be brighter. We could talk with Weatherall to see if we should move onto a morphine drip. I offered to stay but Liccy said I should rest; they would be fine now.

However, I was called again about half an hour later.

Even as I entered the ward I could hear Dahl's distress echoing down the corridor: a low-pitched howling sob, loud at the start, and then becoming fainter. It spoke of pain, anxiety, sorrow and disappointment.