WHICH birthday makes you think you are “getting on”? Or is it an event such as being passed over for a promotion?

Maybe a child becomes an adult, or your first grandchild appears. Perhaps an illness takes a bit more toll than any sickness has done before.

We all get red flags about our stage in life at some point. They are usually a shock. So far you have been healthy, happy, very busy, full of ambition and vitality. Retirement has seemed so far away that you have given little thought to your finances in old age, to doctors, hospitals or dying.