To the Editor: Your editorial comment1 about the fact that the "Death and Dying" issue of the Journal [19 November 2001] contained no obituaries because "the obituary tray was empty" prompts me to make a suggestion.

Having, over the years, written obituaries for colleagues, including one for my own father, I have always believed we would do colleagues a great favour if each of us wrote our own obituary and left it in the keeping of a colleague, to be dealt with at the appropriate time. Not only would it ensure that the obituary included services for which the departed would like to be remembered, but it would also save the writer of the obituary a great deal of time in research.

PS. Now in my own 91st year, I've not yet written my own obituary.