‘pur pose is so important as we age’

I regret smoking in my youth, because now I’m repulsed by it.

Back then, I had a very complicated relationship both with food and cigarettes. If I was happy, I ate normally and would be reasonably slim, and if I wasn’t happy, I ate anything and everything I could lay my hands on, and would then be even more unhappy that I’d put on lots of weight. That awful, destructive cycle of self-loathing and self-harm was very prevalent until my mid-30s, when I got sick of living like that. If you’re lucky, the whole process of maturing is about gaining confidence in yourself and developing resilience, and both of those things started to kick in during the middle of my 30s, when I started making better choices.

I now live in the country and walk our dogs every single day, which keeps me active. And once every couple of weeks I go running with some girlfriends – but only for three kilometres; I’m really lazy!

I’m not very good with big birthdays. When it comes to changing decades, I get slightly overwhelmed and a little bit retrospective; I start looking backwards and find it hard to think about what I’m going to do moving forwards. My 40th birthday was amazing because I was in the Seychelles and, on the eve of my birthday, at midnight, I got engaged [to her human rights lawyer husband Jason McCue, whom she married in 2003]. I had my children (Molly, 18, and Danny, 17) shortly after that, so my 40s dealt with a mass of activity. Fifty felt as if it came along way too early, so I refused to celebrate it, then I was rescued by two girlfriends who arranged a surprise dinner party. Turning 60 last November, I just wanted it to pass. I’m very conscious of the fact that, particularly as a woman in the public eye, I risk becoming defined by my age. I don’t feel any different, so I find that frustrating. At 60, I’m full of energy; there are a million things I want to do, a million places I want to go, and a million things I want to achieve!

Purpose is incredibly important as we grow older. Although there are days when I think to myself, ‘What happened to that retirement idea?,’ I had my children late and so I need to see them through school and university. Also, if I don’t have a project on the go, I don’t know what to do with myself. Plus, a report last year revealed that if you’re imbued with a sense of purpose, you’ll have less chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease, which was really interesting to me,