Why I use my will as a weapon to keep my family in line. If they offend me, they're out - and I've already videoed the contents of my parents' house in case my sister liberates anything when they die

Whenever I hear the word 'will', I'm afraid I don’t feel a sentimental pull for a departed loved one. Rather, I see pound signs and want to know what I'm getting out of it.

My husband Kevin calls me mercenary. But I know from bitter experience how vital a clear will is. That's why I tweak my own on an almost monthly basis.

In theory, I’m leaving almost everything to my daughter, Hannah, who’s 33, with small bequests for my five granddaughters.

But mercurial should be my middle name, because I am known to refine the details after every family spat or fallout. (My older sister has been written out entirely. I was going to leave her some jewellery but we’re currently not on speaking terms.)

To me, a will is an insurance policy to ensure I get decent geriatric care from my daughter and grandchildren, and it gives me a lot of power to wield over my loved ones.

To Emma a will is an insurance policy to ensure she gets good geriatric care from her children

That’s why I’m stunned that TV presenter Anne Robinson says she has already given away all her money to her daughter and grandchildren, insisting ‘they may as well enjoy it now’. Where’s the leverage in that?

At 57, I hope I still have decades ahead of me. But all the same, inheritance is a term peppered into everyday conversations with my grandchildren, aged six to 16.

Kevin believes it should be an equal distribution regardless; however, they have had it drummed into them that if they don’t visit me, they’ll get nothing.

You might think they’d be offended or upset at such morbid talk, but my grandchildren are used to these occasional rants and power grabs. They’ve heard it since they were toddlers. I don’t feel guilty at all — my 90-something parents do the same to me to make sure I’m running around after them.

And though you often read about high-profile will disputes, with families arguing over whether a will really conveys a dead relative’s true last wishes, when I go, everyone will know for certain that my will was bang up-to-date with exactly what I wanted.

Whether they’ll be happy about the contents is another question.

I threaten to leave Hannah nothing all the time; she thinks it’s tongue-in-cheek and that I’m using it as a darkly humorous bargaining tool, but I’m not.

The first time I removed her was when, in her late teens, she cut ties with me and decided to play happy families with her first daughter’s father.

Inheritance is peppered into everyday conversations with her grandchildren, aged six to 16

She threatens to leave her daughter Hannah nothing, and has cut her out of her will before

So I left everything to their baby, Elise. Two years later, when she left him and returned to the family fold, I proudly popped her back in as the main recipient. Truth be told, I’d happily leave the lot to Elise, my eldest and favourite grandchild, but Hannah has made me promise not to do that.

Mind you, at 16, Elise is already more mercenary than me, and is forever walking around my house asking ‘When you die, Gran, can I have that?’

She’s always eyeing up my jewellery and expensive perfumes. I’ve caught her stroking my Murano glass collection as well. Elise might only be a teenager but she’s canny enough to have priced it all up on the internet.

I don’t find her approach upsetting, though. It makes me laugh, rather proudly, to see her do it. She’s a chip off the old block.

However, while I may drop hints at who’s getting what, none of them knows exactly what is in my will. I protect my own interests at all costs.

Many would see my obsession as macabre, but I think about death and dying most days. And with good reason, because my beloved husband of 18 years Kevin, now 63, has stage four cancer that has spread to his lungs and lymph nodes. While there are times I spend hours sobbing at the thought of losing him, I try to remain strong.

Even so, the first thing I said after we got the terminal diagnosis is ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ Not my finest hour, I know.

The poor man automatically assumed I was planning on getting married again. But the last thing I want is another husband (I’ve been married twice before).

Instead, I was worried that as a widow and a woman who took early retirement from a career in the civil service aged 48, I would need to look for another job.

I was terrified, wondering how on earth I was going to be able to afford to stay in our house. I’m very settled in our four-bedroom home and don’t want to leave it.

Of course, Kevin is leaving everything to me in his will, as he has no children of his own.

Emma drew up her first will in 1994 not long after becoming a single mum

I know this because I’ve seen it in black and white. I even helped him write it. Perhaps I was a bit too pushy, because at one point the solicitor asked me to leave the room.

As things stand, I’ll automatically receive half of his private pension. He’s got another private one worth £250,000. He’s started talking about drawing down on it, but I’m encouraging him to leave it there for now.

A quarter-of-a-million-pound pension pot might sound a lot but I could very well be alive for another 40 years, so it’s only natural I’m worried. After all, my great gran lived until she was 105, my gran until 95 and Mum and Dad are still here at 91 and 90 respectively.

As there is just my older sister and me, when our parents die we stand to inherit their home and another property but we have both been taken out and put back in a few times, which has brought us to heel, as intended.

As much as I respect my sister, I have videoed the contents of their home so nothing accidentally goes missing when they die.

My so-called ‘mercenary’ attitude has been fashioned after seeing the harsh realities of how an inheritance is divvied up first-hand over the years.

The first time I went to a reading of a will was 30 years ago when my poor mother found out she’d only been left £3,000 from her great uncle’s £1million estate. They’d been close, so she was upset and thoroughly blind-sided.

Then there was my great aunt who died, I discovered, last year leaving a farm worth more than £1 million.

As the family sleuth, I rang the solicitor because my mother was her last living descendant. But there wasn’t a stick left to Mum, my sister or me. The estate went to charity. We’d lost out on a fortune and that is, I believe, due to my mother marrying an Englishman.

On Mum’s side of the family, they prefer to keep the money in Wales. Once again, I was spitting feathers because each of my great aunts did exactly the same, they left their money to one another.

I’ve also come a cropper when it came to a friend’s will. I cared for a neighbour in her final years, often bathing her legs because she had cellulitis — an infection of the deeper layers of skin and the underlying tissue — and running errands for her. She was one of the family, I even invited her to share Christmas with us.

So, in front of her daughter, she announced that she was leaving me £5,000 (which I’d mentally spent). But as this wasn’t included in her will, the daughter wouldn’t honour her wishes and I didn’t see a penny. I sobbed my heart out and it was a harsh lesson to learn. Keep your will up to date!

That probably explains why I found a scheme where, for £200 a year, I can change my will up to four times a year. I drew up my first will in 1994 not long after becoming a single mum and since then, some years it’s a bit like the hokey-cokey.

Whenever I fall out with Hannah, the first thing I threaten to do is disinherit her — and out of the will she comes. It might only be for mere weeks, and I usually put her back in sharpish as I worry I’ll drop down dead before changing it back again.

She used to get very upset but now she says she doesn’t want my money. I don’t believe that for a minute.

Hannah says it’s too morbid to make a will in her 30s. But that didn’t stop her saying to Kevin one night when drunk: ‘If Mum dies first, will you leave all your worldly goods to us still?’ She knows perfectly well she will get everything.

What will she inherit? Well, there is our four-bedroom home, and Kevin and I own a rental property each. Mine is my pension plan.

There are also valuable items of jewellery I keep in the bank — I’m too worried to have them at home.

My gran’s opal ring is worth a small fortune. That’s going to Elise. They’re both Librans and Elise was born three months after Gran died. I have five engagement rings (no, I never returned them as I believe I earned them) and my second grandchild Isabella is getting the nicest of those.

There’s also a sapphire necklace and earrings for the younger ones, also kept under lock and key.

While my granddaughters and daughter know about these jewels, they know that to receive them, they need to look after me. They don’t question my choices — not at the moment, anyhow!

When the worst happens with Kevin, I will never marry again. How can I be so sure? I don’t want anyone else’s adult offspring conniving to get their hands on my money or my grandchildren’s inheritance.

When I die I want to be cremated and my ashes buried with Kevin’s. His only stipulation is that his ashes aren’t buried with any of my ex-husbands’.

At my funeral, Hannah wants Moon River played (the lines ‘Two drifters, off to see the world’ reminds her of me always going my own way in life) but I intend to write my own eulogy if I get enough notice. No one knows you like you know yourself, do they?

I’d like to think I’ll be remembered as a generous person, but I suspect I’ll be remembered as a lovable, interfering pain in the backside instead. 

As told to Samantha Brick