I’m all for growing old disgracefully
ANGELA RIPPON
Angela adds: “I get nuisance calls all the time but it is a wonderful thing to be able to say, ‘Well, thank you very much for calling but my name is Angela Rippon. I work on a programme called Rip Off Britain and we work with people like you all the time.’ Usually the line goes dead very quickly.
“We have all had the PPI calls and the calls trying to sell you stuff or ask you about an accident that you have never had. But we had an elderly lady on Rip Off Britain who had so many unwanted calls that she was terrified of picking up the phone so she was missing calls from friends and family.
“After my 86-year-old mother died in 2010 I stayed at her house while I sorted her affairs and received countless nuisance calls on her landline. The worst are the scam calls where people have been tricked into parting with money, sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds, often because they believed it was their bank calling.
“Scammers no longer just target vulnerable people. They are so savvy that others are getting caught out too. We are terribly British about putting the phone down but if you have the slightest doubt about a caller then that’s what you should do.”
Angela lives between houses in London and Devon. She plays tennis and attends dance classes at the Royal Academy of Dance where she is the ambassador for its over-55s Silver Swan ballet programme, launched last August.
THE respected presenter says: “Studies have shown that dance versus exercising in the gym is the most effective overall mind and body workout for people over 55. It is aerobic, good for flexibility and core strength. It is social and it uses the brain because you have to remember the steps.
“The RAD spent a year training 500 dance teachers in barre exercises derived from ballet moves, designed to improve balance and posture, plus core and muscle strength.
“We don’t expect our Silver Swans to go floating across the floor like Carlos Acosta but our classes can be done by pretty much anyone over 55.”
Angela also works tirelessly championing awareness of dementia, which her mother suffered from. She is an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society and coaches a government committee on dementia but says she doesn’t live in fear of the disease. “I’m 73 and I can still do a piece to camera without a script. My brain gets a workout every day.”
Then there is the business of growing old disgracefully, something Angela says she is on a mission to do. “Although I hope I’m graceful in many ways I have no intention of fading into the background.
“I continue to do the things that give me pleasure. Age should absolutely not be a full stop to work, fashion or fun.”
So if you spot an immaculately groomed septuagenarian whizzing down a zip wire in leather trousers you know who she is.