A WRITER and playwright who moved from London to Petersfield to help cope with having motor neurone disease died peacefully at home on November 30, aged 50.

After he was diagnosed with the illness towards the end of 2017, Joe Hammond and his teacher wife Gill moved them and their sons Tom and Jimmy, now seven and three, from a flat in the capital to a bungalow in Petersfield which they extended and adapted for Mr Hammond’s needs.

He began to plan for his children’s future without him by writing 33 age-appropriate birthday cards which will express his love for them and tell them more about him every year until they both reach 21.

Last year he penned an article for The Guardian about the cards which attracted huge public interest.

This year he wrote the story behind that piece in the book A Short History of Falling: Everything I Observed About Love Whilst Dying, published by 4th Estate on September 5.

It chronicles Mr Hammond’s experience of saying goodbye to his body and family, and living with – and dying from – motor neurone disease.

Mr Hammond took part in the Royal Court Studio Writers’ Group in 2012, having previously been mentored by the theatre and the BBC.

His debut London production Where the Mangrove Grows played at Theatre503 in 2012 and was later published by Bloomsbury.

Helen Garnons-Williams, associate publisher for 4th Estate and William Collins, said: “Joe Hammond was a remarkable person, and it is our great honour – and pleasure – to have been his publisher. His memoir is a lasting legacy: a book of consolation, wisdom, and – most astonishingly – wonder.

"Above all, it’s a celebration of love. Joe was hugely loved, and will be hugely missed.”

Will Francis, literary agent at Janklow and Nesbit, said: “Joe’s mind only seemed to become sharper as his disease progressed. He finished writing another extraordinary piece – a dispatch from the very end of life – just a few days ago.

"I hope Gill, Tom and Jimmy will draw comfort from the book he left, which is full of both his wit and his love for them.

"He was a deeply original writer who used his own mortality as a lens, to see familiar things anew.”