‘Botox won’t make me look 25 again’

Frances Hardy lives with her partner of 22 years, Iain, her daughter and two stepchildren.

Among the joys of reaching the milestone of 60 last summer – aside from cut-price off-peak travel – is reduced-rate entry into cinemas, theatres, stately homes and gardens. I don’t mind requesting a senior’s ticket. The only thing that rankles slightly is when I’m swept through the turnstile unquestioned, without so much as an arched eyebrow.

I’ve always been happy to own up to my age. Why be coy about it? Far better, in my view, to be considered good for 60 than shave off a decade and have people think I’m raddled for 50. I’m quite glad to be my age.

I’ve never raged against the passing of youth. What’s the point? I can’t bring it back. Botox (I’ve never had it) won’t make me look 25 again, just a preternaturally youthful version of myself. And once I succumb to it, I reason, I’ll never be able to stop or my skin will crumple like a screwed-up paper bag; the ravages of time I’ve been fending off will suddenly manifest themselves in a network of rivulets and wrinkles.

It would be disingenuous to pretend I don’t try at all to ward off old age. Of course I do. I wage an incessant battle against weight gain: once you pass midlife, so the saying goes, you become either a pin cushion or a pin. (I’ll never be a pin.) Superfluous pounds have gathered in unexpected places I’ve got a fat back, for goodness sake! So, as often as I can, I attend gym classes full of younger women, which taxes and tests me.

I’ve dyed my dark hair, too, since I was 34, when a Cruella de Vil stripe of white appeared on one side of my head. So, for almost three decades, I’ve been in thrall to the tyranny of the six-weekly tint. Often I do it, inexpertly, myself.

Following the example of my mum, whose cleansing routine is a brisk wipe with a coarse flannel, soap and water, I don’t spend much on face creams, figuring the claims they make are largely baloney. That said, I swear by Boots No 7 Lift & Luminate serum and M&S Formula Absolute Ultimate Sleep Cream.

There is plenty to love about being 60. I didn’t believe the cliché until I got here, but age really has brought the self-assurance and confidence I lacked in my youth.

Of course, there are things about being 60 that don’t fill me with delight. I’m not mad about the bags under my eyes. However, there’s a lot to be said for countering the signs of ageing with cheerfulness. ‘Wear a smile and have friends. Wear a scowl and have wrinkles,’ wrote George Eliot, long before a multi-billion-pound cosmetics industry had convinced us serums and moisturisers were the route to contentment and eternal youth.

I’m 60 and, touch wood, I’m healthy. My only regret is I’ve fewer years ahead of me than I have behind. But that’s all the more reason to savour every moment.