An 85-year-old man with terminal cancer is begging MPs to legalise assisted dying so he can pass away peacefully at home with his family by his side.

Tim Wardle has looked into booking into Dignitas in Switzerland but cannot afford the fees and is now contemplating taking drugs or poison to end his life.

He supports Dame Esther Rantzen’s campaign for a parliamentary debate and a free vote on the issue before the next election.

The retired architect was first diagnosed with cancer 14 years ago and has since had bladder, prostate and lung cancer.

Last year, doctors told him that he would be likely to die in December 2022 saying it was a question of “weeks not months”.

But he has survived despite the odds – which he puts down to “obstinacy”.

He now has kidney cancer and says his ideal death would be “an injection with my wife and son here”.

The grandfather-of-one said: “I have told palliative care nurses with our local hospice and my GP, that if the time comes and I’m physically capable of it, I will actually end my life one way or another.”

Tim’s mother and his younger sisters died after suffering long and painful cancer-related deaths.

He said: “I decided at that time that I didn’t want anybody that I knew, or anybody full stop, to have to go through that at the end of their life. I don’t believe that it should be limited to people who are terminally ill – I believe it should be auto-available for people whose quality of life has become intolerable.”

The conversation about his death with his wife and son went “very easily”, he says. “As the law stands, they can’t help me in any way and they will be sorry to see me go. But death is inevitable.

“I believe very strongly that the majority of the people, certainly those who come in contact with motor neurone disease or cancer or various other killer diseases would support assisted dying.”

Tim, from Newton Abbot, Devon, says the law should be changed to allow people to be given the right to die when they are suffering.

The current system means “people who have money and can afford to go to Dignitas against people like myself who can’t afford to go” he argues.

He has contemplated travelling to the Swiss clinic, but says he couldn’t afford the fee and would rather be with his wife and son at the time of his death.

Tim, who is currently not in pain, says if assisted dying is not legalised in the UK he will choose to end his own life when the pain becomes unbearable, either with “drugs or poison”.

But, as he is on borrowed time, that grim moment may not be too far away.