FACING a terminal illness is up there with all the stuff we'd prefer not to think about. We know it happens to other people but we hope it won't happen to us, at least not for a long time.

But when you're forced to confront it, particularly the later stages, you start to question what you've taken for granted.

The word "hospice" had always made me shudder - I imagined gothic-style buildings with grim Victorian wards and hushed voices. But having spent much of the pre-Christmas period visiting Bradford Marie Curie Hospice, I found the reality very different.

When my dad left hospital in December and wasn't well enough to go straight home, he was offered a room at the Bradford hospice. He arrived there with my sister and I at the end of a traumatic, exhausting day. Heartbroken that he couldn't go home, I felt that taking him to a hospice was some kind of betrayal, not least when he blinked back tears and said, in a quiet voice: "I like home".

But within minutes of walking into the Marie Curie building, it felt like someone was wrapping us up in a collective bear hug. Dad was soon settled in a cosy room and the staff were lovely. When asked what he thought of his new surroundings he said: "Heaven".

It is, simply, a wonderful, strangely uplifting place and as far removed from my dark image of a hospice as it's possible to get. When I visited Dad next morning to find him showered and shaved, sitting in an armchair with his newspaper, I could have kissed every member of staff there. After a stressful week of hospital visits, this place did seem heaven-sent.

Dad spent a couple of weeks in the hospice and we filled his room with photos, Christmas cards and decorations. We had a lovely meal with him one evening, on a beautifully-laid table complete with Christmas crackers.

Dad is full of praise for the hospice, and its superb range of care, but when he came home for Christmas he decided that was where he wanted to spend the time he has left. I was hugely impressed with the speed and efficiency of the Marie Curie care palliative care team, which put a home-care package into place, enabling us to bring him home.

Death and dying are taboo subjects in this country. My first experience of bereavement was my grandad's death, when I was 15, and all I recall is low voices behind closed doors.

But when you become involved with end-of-life care it helps you accept dying as part of a natural process. The sadness is still there, but thanks to palliative care there is also dignity, comfort and support.