Crow's feet and feeling like an old bat

“LOOK at me,” I moaned. “My body is sagging, my crow’s feet are deeper than a mountain crevice, my thighs are like lumps of melting lard and everything on my entire body is heading south.” “Well mum,” said my 11-year-old kindly, “at least your eyesight is OK.”

After giving him a swift clip round the earhole, I internally reprimanded myself for being such a pathetic drip. It’s just that while men grow old and “rugged” (apparently, most women would like Sean Connery as a neighbour and he’s 77), women are seen as past it once they pass 25 (most men would like any blonde bombshell under 25 as a neighbour).

This means that, though we shouldn’t feel it, fading looks make some sensitive female souls feel devalued. As a colleague, 50 if she’s a day but she’s never told anyone her age, once put it: “Once you hit 40 you become invisible.” By that she means invisible to men. Which you might think is no bad thing, until the elderly tramps in the street have to avert their eyes because your haggard face makes them feel bilious. As a teenager and young woman you go through a period of time thinking that all wolf whistles are tediously rude.

In my 20s, I wrote a letter of complaint to a brewery in Burton because the workmen doing up a pub in the town always yelled at me when I strolled to the shops for my lunchtime sarnie. This, I pompously told Bass Brewery, was most distasteful and embarrassing and the men concerned should be severely reprimanded for their crude behaviour. If they did the same thing now I’d probably shin up the scaffolding and give them all a great big kiss. I would be ridiculously grateful.

Because, post-40, when an 80-year-old admirer tells you you’re looking good today you feel like skipping down the street. In fact, 35-plus chums start to regale each other with such incidents, because they become so rare. One happily married mum-of-two was staggered to be asked out by the bloke behind her in the supermarket queue as she bought a cooked chicken. He was buying the same thing and suggested they chewed on a leg together.

Another chum caught the eye of a passing motorist in Mickleover, who began the grinning and winking routine – until he spotted two car seats in the back of her motor. The smiles then vanished and he shot off in a Formula One heat haze of speed. Another pal was propositioned by her builder when he spotted her coming out of the shower clad only in a towel. This, she said, was the first time a man had looked at her “in that way” since 1985.

Workmen must be rather forward in an Adventures-of-a-Window-Cleaner type way because a chum was pinned to the wall by the plumber fitting her new sink. Utterly shocked, she did the obvious and offered to make him a cuppa. As if to underline to women that they are no longer attractive, when they hit 35 “beauty product” literature starts thundering through the letterbox. The letters begin something like this: “Now you have reached a certain age and your skin is maturing, it’s time to take action to hold back the passage of time.” The accompanying brochures are filled with innumerable time-defying lotions and potions to firm up sagging skin, smooth out wrinkly hands, conquer ugly cellulite, attack the ravages of time on “that delicate eye area” and even plump up your sagging backside.

This is accompanied by a picture of an offending bottom with its depressed owned looking over her shoulder in despair at her puckered posterior. Frankly, if you were depressed about your looks before the post arrived, your best bet is to dump any sales stuff for “women of a certain age” in the nearest recycling bag. My sister was so mad to receive one such brochure she stormed to my house, brandishing the offensive material, yelling: “I don’t want to look at this!

Why would I want to look at this? Why are people sending me this?” Time for a little message to the, no doubt, painfully young and rosy-cheeked marketeers out there. You may think we look awful, we may look awful, but don’t tell us we look awful or, if you are ever unfortunate enough to meet a mature-skinned woman, she will make you look awful, by biffing you in the chops. For any hapless male readers confused by the arrogant and rude reaction of younger women to their admiring glances and compliments, stop wasting your time.

Toss your compliments the way of anyone over the age of 35. They will be utterly delighted – and may even offer to share a cooked chicken leg with you.