Notes from heaven's anteroom: Janet Mace reflects on the discovery that she is getting old.

As I stood in a crowded underground carriage the other day, a middle-aged woman offered me her seat. I accepted it gratefully, inwardly muttering, `For heaven's sake--does she think I'm old?'

The next shock came on a suburban train. A fellow passenger and I were trapped by an automatic door which refused to open and we were carried on to the next station. When we eventually got back to our target station, he went off to complain to the authorities. `There was this old woman and me ...,' he began.

Occasionally I have observed to someone, `I am growing old,' and they have retorted in horror, `Oh no, you're not old,' as though I was talking about moving into some terrible disaster area. At 72, I am beginning to wonder if the reverse may be true.

Of course, ageing has its trials--the loss or diminution of hearing, sight, agility, energy and memory, and a tendency to do dotty things.

A few years ago a friend of mine--vigorous, intelligent,' in her sixties--lost her glasses. Ultimately we found them in the fridge. Nowadays I don't find that so extraordinary. Only a few days ago I went to unlock the passenger door of my car for a friend to get in--and found myself with the key in the lock of the petrol cap.

There are methods one can employ to combat the unreliable memory. One of my relations used to jot down memory-joggers on scraps of paper which he kept in his pocket. When I forget why I have gone into a room, I stand and ask aloud, `Now, why on earth have I come here?' It usually works.

As my memory begins to fail, I will need God's protection more--and the help of other people (galling though that is).

Earlier in life, the need for trust--and the tendency to fear--can be masked by activity. In my seventies, that choice between trust and fear begins to present itself daily. I can sense the fears on the horizon--physical and mental frailty, what will happen to me if I cannot look after myself.

There are two possible attitudes to growing old. One is to deny it is happening. The other is to embrace old age so wholeheartedly that we give up the struggle and just sink back and concentrate on our waning powers. The wise path lies between these two.

They say that you don't grow old till your sense of comfort overtakes your sense of adventure. I have bought a new car which is kinder to my arthritic knees and wrists, but has a more powerful engine than I have ever possessed before. Recently I invited 40 friends and neighbours to an At Home to raise money for young people going to a conference in Lithuania. I'm all in favour of the spirit of adventure--but it needs to be God's adventurousness, not a defiant `I'm not growing old: so there'.

My father regarded old age as a time to learn something new every day. When he was in his mid-seventies, after a full and hard working life, he couldn't lay down the activities and stress of the years. Various medical difficulties manifested themselves. A doctor told him, `Take twice as long to do half as much.' An old friend, well into his eighties, wrote and told him how he had found that `the old instinct to do something has been mastered by the grace of God'. This letter became one of my father's well-thumbed learning aids and I still have it.

Another octagenarian, Dr Jim Dyce, for many years a busy Harley Street dentist, gave me a good hint: `As you grow older, keep your sense of humour and learn to decide which out of 27 things to be done is the thing to be done first.' The theologian Baron von Hugel put it this way: `Surround every action with a circle of "non-hurry".'

The first sentence of the Catechism is, `Man's chief end is to love God and enjoy him for ever.' As I grow older, I hope to make up for lost time on that one, and to learn more about that enormous source of power, prayer. As I have learnt over 70 years, this is never easy.

The old can bring out the qualities of care, patience and unselfishness in other people. Sometimes, it must be admitted, we bring out the opposite--impatience, irritation, exhaustion. But on a rail journey recently it was touching to see how many people stepped forward to help me when my luggage got disorganized.

We also have experience. One danger is that we keep banging on about that experience with a mind closed to fresh insights. The other is that, having perceived the first danger, we never mention our experience at all. Most of us have acquired nuggets of wisdom--and made mistakes--which might prove useful to others.

Many of my generation have experienced pain and sorrow as the ideas and certainties we grew up with have been criticized or debunked. But some of these ideas and certainties may be just what the world needs--if we dare to find ways to re-articulate them.

Some of the pitfalls of ageing are well expressed in a prayer, attributed to a 17th century nun. `Keep me from getting talkative and particularly from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.... Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally it is possible that I may be mistaken.... Help me to extract all possible fun out of life. There are so many funny things around us and I do not want to miss any of them.'

So if old age is not a disaster area, how may it best be defined?

I have never been received by a head of state or royal personnage. But I imagine, if I were, I would be taken first to an ante-room where I would prepare myself for the unknown experience ahead. I believe that old age has been designed as an ante-room to heaven.