In 2000, when he became seriously ill, a special benefit concert was recorded and filmed at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, featuring the many diverse talents of a number of Ashton's friends and colleagues over the years, including Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Micky Moody, Bernie Marsden, Howie Casey, Chris Barber, John Entwistle, Zak Starkey, Pete York, Zoot Money, Joe Brown, Geoff Emerick, Mike Figgis and Ewan McGregor. In the early nineties, Ashton also wrote the first of a planned trilogy of books, which has tales of various aspects of his career including Paice Ashton Lord, the Gastank TV series, and his love of Zermatt in Switzerland, which he first visited with Ashton Gardner & Dyke in 1970, and which gave him the title for the book: "Zermattitis: a musicians' guide to going downhill fast". It has been recently published by Wymer Publishing, as a limited edition with a DVD of rare and previously unreleased film of Ashton Gardner & Dyke, including a live performance from Montreux Jazz Festival 1970.