“The way my wife was, there was no pleasure in life in the last 12 months and I don’t see the point of living like that, to be honest,” he said.
“But we don’t have assisted dying in England yet, so you don’t have the option, do you?”
The former cricketer has already had two doses of radiotherapy to treat the cancer.
He finds out in December whether or not the treatment has been successful.
“I don’t want to have the last 12 months that my wife had,” Ray Illingworth said. “I would rather go peacefully. I believe in assisted dying.”
The sportsman continued: “She had a terrible time going from hospital to hospital and in pain… I don’t want that.”
Losing Shirley in March of this year, her loss has greatly influenced Ray’s views on living with cancer.