'Legal or illegal, I will do it': Melvyn Bragg says he'll kill himself rather than succumb to dementia Bragg will ask a friend to alert him to signs of dementia when he reaches 80 He will then start arranging his affairs and proceed to end his life The 73-year-old watched his mother struggle with dementia until her death Veteran arts broadcaster Melvyn Bragg has revealed that he plans to kill himself if he ever discovers he has dementia. The 73-year-old presenter of BBC Radio 4"s In Our Time said he would go ahead with his plans whether or not the law banning assisted suicide in this country has been changed. He will ask a close friend to alert him to any signs of dementia when he reaches 80. If he displays any symptoms, he will tell his three children of his plans, spend three months arranging his affairs, then seek help to end his life. Bragg watched his mother struggle with dementia until her death last year Speaking to the Sunday Times, Lord Bragg said: "Legal or illegal, I will do it." The TV and radio star - who presented the South Bank Show on ITV until 2010 - watched his mother struggle with dementia until her death last year in a nursing home aged 95. He defended the right to die, saying: "We can't keep sending people to Switzerland or the Netherlands. I think we should say, given certain conditions, it's fine. "It's happening to my generation - they see what happens when people get close to death, and we're saying, "We don't want that."" Speaking about his mother Mary, Lord Bragg said: "She was attentive, but she didn't kiss you and never said, "I love you." I miss her terribly. I used to phone her every day. I will always be close to her" Lord Bragg's first wife, Lisa Roche, killed herself in 1971. Bragg said that he would ask a close friend to alert him to any signs of dementia after the age of 80, and will then start the process of ending his life He later said: "I could have done things which helped and I did things which harmed. So yes, I feel guilt, I feel remorse. Assisted suicide is outlawed in all European countries apart from Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Under the 1961 Suicide Act in the UK, anyone guilty of aiding or abetting a suicide can be imprisoned for up to 14 years. Several terminally ill and desperately disabled Britons have journeyed to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to gain help in ending their lives, and there is growing pressure for similar actions to be allowed in the UK. As well as presenting, Lord Bragg has found fame as a novelist. The presenter has also criticised Richard Dawkins (pictured) for the way in which he has attacked religion His latest, Gracy and Mary, is based on his mother and grandmother. Another, Remember Me..., was inspired by Miss Roche's suicide. Lord Bragg said her death left him unable to write fiction for a while. He said: "I scribbled lots of ideas, but they never turned into anything. I must have been depressed. I think the business of Remember Me..., all the business about these things being therapeutic, wasn't the case for me. It was the opposite, it just stirred everything up again. I think sometimes the best thing is to cover it up, forget about it. It's risky letting everything erupt. Lord Bragg - who was made a Labour peer in 1998 - had one daughter with Miss Roche. He has a son and a daughter with his second wife, Catherine Haste. The presenter also criticised atheistic scientist Richard Dawkins for the way in which he has attacked religion. He said: "The intellectual slackness and terrorism of these atheists, people who I otherwise respected - Richard Dawkins as an explainer of zoology is peerless, and AC Grayling is a great explainer of philosophy. But when they start discussing religion, it's disgraceful. Religion is basically a great body of knowledge, and we don't have many bodies of knowledge. It has sustained people for 1,500 or 2,000 years. You've got to be interested in it. Their arguments become really offensive when Dawkins says teaching children religion in schools is child abuse. It took your breath away.