Husband slept in same room as wife’s body for six days

A man has revealed how he slept in the same room as his wife’s body for six days after she died. Wendy Davison, 50, died at home in Derby last month after a 10-year battle with cervical cancer. Russell Davison, who has been left “heartbroken”, said he did not want her body to go to a mortuary and he wanted to challenge attitudes towards dying. It is legal to keep a body at home and Derbyshire Coroner’s Court confirmed Mrs Davison’s GP reported her death. Mr Davison said: “Death seems to be such a taboo subject in our society; no-one seems to want to talk about it. “I did not want her in the mortuary or handed over to a funeral director, I wanted us to take care of her ourselves at our family home, have her in our bedroom so I could sleep in the same room.” When Mrs Davison was diagnosed shortly after the couple’s joint 40th birthday party in 2006, they decided to take a “natural” approach to her healthcare. “We were not prepared to hand her life over to doctors. We wanted to do our own research and do the very best job we could to keep Wendy alive,” he said. He believes their approach, which included refusing chemotherapy and radiotherapy, extended Wendy’s life “by a very long time”.