My advice on inheritance? Give it away: it’s one of life’s last pleasures | Joan Bakewell

The choice is yours: risk the state spending your taxes unwisely, or gift it to charities and help make Britain happier and more equal

Now that I'm in my 90s, my thoughts increasingly hover around what I shall leave behind and what will become of it. As is typical of middle-class women who've had a career, there is a good deal of stuff: property, goods and chattels accumulated over decades, much of it now gathering dust in cupboards and corners, waiting to go. But where? And who decides?

I have already disposed of what are considered significant papers" to the British Library. Of the rest, I have a proprietorial wish to in some way control what happens to things I have loved: I imagine favourite books going to favourite people and attractive jewellery hanging round attractive necks. I know such things can give genuine pleasure as I have myself inherited such. Yes, time to draw up the lists.