MARY EVANS YOUNG (pictured above) explains why she prefers ageing with attitude to polite oblivion. So she’s off to Cropredy...

A woman should never reveal her age, apparently. Being a woman of a certain age, in a youth-obsessed culture, I should sedately fade into oblivion. It’s called ‘ageing gracefully’.

But, whatever it’s called, I’m not buying. Age alert: I’m 67! Getting old is not a sin and, for the most part, age is irrelevant. I only mentioned it to make a point. I don’t consider myself old and I’ll never be younger than I am today.

There’s so much negativity about ageing that we’re in danger of believing that’s how things are meant to be. Growing up in the fifties, I wanted to look like Grace Kelly and Doris Day – glamorous, blonde with red lips and nails, jewellery and furs. I still like the style (minus the fur).

My grandmother was toothless by the time she was 60. I suggested she got false teeth. She said, “It’s not worth it at my age,” which seemed wrong.

At the other end of the spectrum, my Aunty Gerty was a lingerie buyer for Harvey Nichols. She travelled from Brighton to London twice a week, enjoying breakfast on the train, dinner at the Mirabelle and holidays in the south of France.

I visited her during school holidays, trying on her shoes, hats and scarves, playing the elegant sophisticate. I wanted to be like Gerty and still do: she died in her 80s of a heart attack in her bathroom, enjoying a drink as she put on her makeup to go out to dinner.

In the 1960s my focus was my appearance until the 1970s and women’s liberation. I attended consciousness-raising groups where we discussed careers and shaving our legs. Later I became a staff development trainer, coach and psychotherapist.

Women’s self-esteem is closely linked to self-image. Many of my clients were perfectly competent women holding themselves back because of the pressures to look and be perfect. These pressures don’t disappear with age – hence the surge in cosmetic surgery. So we must help ourselves.

I want to look good for my age, but age appropriate (not trying to look like my daughter). I’ve resolved to wear colourful, eye-catching clothes and shoes. Dull is dull. I’ve just bought some bright red-framed reading glasses. I feel better already and get noticed – an ageist society expects invisibility, and I’m not playing.

Several years ago, despite being vehemently un-sporty, I got a personal trainer. He asked me what my goals were. To lose weight? “No,” I replied, “I want to live and be fit and well until I’m 95.”

I am an optimist with an expectation that life will be good and personally enriching. Being open to change and new ideas, and welcoming the unknown, helps retain our vitality and love of life.

For me, ageing with attitude is about balancing the need for adventure against too much caution and common sense. So, I’m off to Cropredy for Fairport. I’ll run barefoot in the summer rain if I get the urge and I’m booked on to a Learn to Sing workshop (despite always being told I can’t) to the music of Queen. I’m wondering if I’ll ever grow up. But then, I come to my senses and ask, “Why bother?”

I haven’t decided what to do when I grow up and, besides, the child in us is where we have fun.

Banbury writer MARY EVANS YOUNG is co-author of Ageing with Attitude – a guide for baby boomers not ready to hang up their boots. See ageingwithattitude.co.uk.