By Quentin Letts Television reality shows normally pulsate with optimism. Participants greet one another with air kisses and whoops of delight. They look ahead to fame and riches. That's reality TV, right? Not quite. Not in the case of a new Channel 4 series called My Last Summer. Its participants hobble and weep. Not for them the possibility of years on the Hello! magazine circuit and chat shows. For all these people are - or were - terminally ill. All the participants from My Last Summer suffer from a terminal illness, left-right: Andy, Jayne, Ben, Lou and Junior They decided to talk about their shared predicament in front of the cameras and the result is powerful, emotionally draining television. It may also help us as a society to be a little less distant about death, something I wish I had known earlier.
@highlight
A new series on Channel 4 documents the last months of the terminally ill
@highlight
Quentin Letts discovers that people's coping methods can be very different
@highlight
The experience made Quentin revisit his last few months with his father
Folksy mother of four @placeholder, whose motor neurone disease is expected to kill her within a year, is just 38.