A positive attitude towards life is the secret to feeling young, says Gloria Hunniford

Gloria Hunniford believes there is a different attitude to age these days

 

HOW OLD is old? It’s a simple enough question but Gloria Hunniford is proof that there is no simple answer to this riddle of our times.

 

The television presenter, 75, is one of a growing number of glamorous grandmothers who may have collected their bus passes but clearly have no intention of letting life pass them by.

She says: “Our perception of age has changed completely. I thought my mum was old at 45 or 48. I suppose when you are young you think anyone 20 years older is really old. Eighty is the new 60, we are working longer or having to work longer and I think there’s a new attitude about age.”

Gloria has just finished filming a series of Rip-Off Britain: Holidays in Lanzarote, is a regular on Loose Women and has a programme on health and diet in the pipeline.

 

The irish TV presenter keeps young with busy schedules

The one concession I have made towards getting older is that I try not to work every day of the week

Gloria Hunniford

 

“Growing up in Northern Ireland, we were taught to work, it’s the work ethic and I know it would not be for everybody.”

When Gloria is filming, she is up by 6am for hair and make-up and is often filming until 6.30pm. “It’s not until you get home that you realise, ‘That was a really tough schedule’.

“It is tiring, but if you want to do something you always seem to find the energy to do it and I am lucky to work in an industry I really enjoy. I learn something new every day.

“The one concession I have made towards getting older is that I try not to work every day of the week.”

Official statistics show there are now more than a million people in the UK working beyond the accepted retirement age of 65 and a recent survey for Spring Chicken, a website which provides gadgets and advice to help silver surfers overcome age barriers, found that only five per cent of the nation’s over-65s consider themselves "old".

And it is an attitude that is probably helping to keep them young.

Sir Muir Gray, professor of knowledge management at Oxford University and author of the self-help books "Sod 70!" and "The Antidote to Ageing", explains: “A negative outlook on life, influenced by the negative and often incorrect portrayal of "old age" as a period of inevitable and irreversible decline, hastens the onset of ill health.

“You also need a bit of luck but only one fifth of diseases are due to your genes, most are due to the environment we live in and how we live in it.” Gloria agrees: “Everything to do with ageing is about attitude – whether it’s how other people view older people or how older people view themselves.

“When you are older it’s inevitable that you are going to have things go wrong but it’s really important to be as active as you can. I don’t like going to the gym. I do my best but I can’t profess to be a "goody two shoes" all the time. And health is in the lap of the gods,” she adds.

Having lost both her mother and her daughter, Caron Keating, to breast cancer Gloria is acutely aware that she is blessed with good health. She has regular mammograms but has not had genetic testing to check her own risk.

“I don’t want to dement myself about how likely it is.” Caron was just 41 when she died in Gloria’s arms, after a seven-year battle with breast cancer.

“Caron fought it so brilliantly and with so much tenacity my admiration for her is tremendous,” Gloria says.

 

Caron Keating was only 41 when she died

“Her attitude was always, ‘Don’t tell me the worst prognosis, tell me what I have to do and I will do it.’ She did chemotherapy, radiotherapy, everything.”

It is now 11 years since Caron died, leaving two young sons who are now young men but Gloria’s pain is still palpable. “Everyone deals with loss differently,” she says.

“We have the Caron Keating Foundation which has paid out hundreds of thousands of pounds to different charities.

“We do it in our own way. We don’t try to do millions of pounds in bricks and mortar but we have paid out lots of small amounts that really make a difference. It’s part of my healing. If I didn’t have that positivity to pour all my angst into, it would have been shattering.”

As a well-wisher wrote to her at the time: “There will be days when you will want to sit in a darkened room and weep for Caron but you can’t.”

The foundation and her extended family keep Gloria going, but she also had to make some changes to her diet to maintain her own health.

The TV presenter was diagnosed with pre-diabetes two years ago and her doctor advised her to stop eating white foods such as pasta, potatoes, bread and biscuits.

“It’s a brave man who tells an Irish woman to eliminate potatoes from her diet but I took his advice,” she says.

“Two stone just dropped off immediately.”

Then, after interviewing a heart specialist who likened sugar to poison, she eliminated added sugar from her diet, too.

“I never ever eat anything fat free because when they take out fat they pack it with sugar,” she adds.

  

The Caron Keating Foundation helps Gloria stay positive

Eating healthily is difficult when she’s filming, but Gloria says: “I have taken vitamin supplements all my life, they are an extra insurance policy. Now I’m nearly afraid not to take them, in case I fall apart.”

She says growing older has also made her more relaxed about asking for help when she needs it.

“I broke my shoulder in a fall some years back. I was playing tennis and trying to keep fi t which is a bit ironic. I was running for a ball and went into iron upright. People thought my neck was broken. The ball and socket in my shoulder were broken in 15 places, my arm hanging off and facing backwards,” she recalls.

Not surprisingly, movement in that joint is now restricted. “In the past, if I lifted a heavy suitcase it would unsettle my shoulder for days. I was reluctant to ask for help now it doesn’t bother me.”

Now, as Gloria looks forward to spending Christmas with her sons and grandchildren, she says: “When I was young I used to say, ‘I can’t wait for Christmas’ and my dad said, ‘Enjoy your one day at a time and fill that day with all the enjoyment that you can.”

It’s a philosophy she’s lived by ever since.

“My husband is always asking, ‘Are we sure we can’t squeeze something more into this day?'"