Diagnosed with cancer in his 40s, the aid worker looks back on his life and offers advice on confronting death

You’re diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 46. How do you react? In all likelihood with rage, grief and self-pity, especially if, like Simon Boas, you were told it was only acid reflux, and cancelled scans and bureaucratic cock-ups further delayed treatment. You love your wife, you have a great job, you’re addicted to cheese fondue and muscadet, and death will take all that away. A nightmare, it seems, but far from bewailing his lot Boas tells us how insanely contented he feels and “how lucky it is to have lived at all”.

His book began as a trio of articles written for the Jersey Evening Post: he moved to the island (“one of the most caring, safe and close-knit communities in the world”) not as a billionaire tax-dodger but to be its director of overseas aid. The articles were plain about his impending death, though he had some fun with euphemisms: he was “hopping the twig”, joining the choir invisible, on a one-way trip to the south pole. As the tumours spread, along with his readership, he continued to be upbeat. The last article appeared in May this year before his death, aged 47, in July.