EVEN in a cynical trade like mine, there is a shorthand tag given to a certain type of story that makes me gag.

It is called a "good weepie" and it is often put forward as an excuse to probe into some terrible happening in some innocent family's life: a tragic accident, a brutal crime, an incurable illness.

Well, this is by no means a "weepie" although it will have an unhappy ending - and quite soon too.

Just the opposite, it is a story about a brave and still busy woman who refuses to plunge into self-indulgent misery just because she may not reach her next birthday - and as she will tell you with disarming bluntness - will almost certainly be dead by Christmas.

Deirdre Cokell is a remarkable woman who has led a remarkable, and not always easy, life. She has had more than her share of criticism for speaking her mind about issues which some would prefer to be hushed up.

On the plus side, she has had the love of a large and talented family, having been blessed with five children, 11 grandchildren and a great grandchild.

These are the blessings she counts every day because, having suffered from multiple sclerosis for 30 years, she is dying of terminal cancer at the age of 72.

"I am having chemotherapy but it is only a palliative. I have multiple tumours and there is no hope of a cure.

"The doctors say the treatment should keep me alive until my birthday in August but there is little chance that I shall make it until Christmas."

The extraordinary thing about this statement is that it was made without the slightest hint of self-pity as we sat in the sun in her garden behind the family bungalow in Settle.

She announced it in a bright, steady tone with a smile as bright as the sunlight.

"There is no need to be embarrassed about this, Mr Sheard," she said with infinite courtesy. "I am willing to talk about it because there may be other people in my condition whom I can help.

"You see, there is no need for the terminally ill to fall into depression.

"We all have some blessings to count and there is one rather unusual bonus to my situation: I have been given time to say my goodbyes properly. Life is what you make out of it and it would be silly to spend my last weeks moping."

Deirdre Cokell doesn't do moping.

She never has, even though her younger life was spent in considerable turmoil - a turmoil that came to a happy ending when she moved to Settle 52 years ago. Even then, she was a bit of a rebel.

She came from a once-wealthy family in Blackburn which was soon to go through hard times. The family owned an iron works and a large department store and Deirdre was privately educated to become a young lady of fashion.

But the arrival of the Second World War put an end to those easygoing days.

Her father went off to war as a captain in the Manchester Regiment and suffered terribly as a prisoner of war under the Japanese.

"He never recovered, even after he had come home," she recalled.

In the post-war years, the family businesses ran into problems and Deirdre's life as a lady of leisure were over. They wanted her to be a doctor but she couldn't pass the required Latin exam.

She wanted to be a nurse in Blackburn where all her friends were, but instead she was packed off to a posh teaching hospital in London where she suffered debilitating home-sickness.

In desperation - and because an uncle was director of a large brewery - she was packed off to catering college in Blackpool to train in hotel management.

And that's what brought her to the Dales more than half a century ago to work at the Ashfield Hotel - now a social club. To her family's despair, there she met husband Ernest, a local lad who had set up as a painter and decorator using his wartime annuity from the RAF. It was not, Deirdre admits with a chuckle, the sort of liaison her family expected but it led to, and still is, a long and happy marriage.

As well as bringing up a large family, the couple worked together in several businesses - including a painting and decorating store and a shop selling haberdashery - yet Deirdre still found the time for local politics.

"There were things going on in the town then that were kept hush-hush from the locals. I didn't like that so I started to speak out."

That, of course, did not make her very popular. She stood for the town council, became a school governor, later worked with the Yorkshire Dales National Park and - after the foot and mouth crisis - helped launch the Settle Area Regeneration Team, which she still chairs.

"With a lot of people moving into the area, there was a danger that the old community spirit might be lost," she says. "I think we have overcome that danger now and we are on our way to making Settle a green, clean, pleasant town which is welcoming to both locals and visitors alike."

Deirdre Cokell is still thinking about the future - even though it is a future which she is fated not to share.

I hope she makes Christmas but, whatever happens, she will leave behind good memories.

Even for an old cynic like me.