Katie Piper is right, ageing as a woman is like a bereavement – but most of us are stuck in the denial phase of grief

Age is just a number”, goes the old adage. The new version should perhaps come with an addendum: “Age is just a number – but one that your face and body should never reflect.”

It was the recent words of presenter and activist Katie Piper that prompted this musing on our collective endeavour to erase the visible passage of time. “Ageing can be compared to a bereavement,” the Loose Womenpanellist said at this year’s Hay Festival while promoting her new book, Still Beautiful: On Age, Beauty and Owning Your Space. “Sometimes we know we’re losing somebody or something, and it’s slow, it’s gradual – and when it’s ageing, we look down at our hands, we see they look different. We catch ourselves in the shop window, and everything’s changed.”