Britons at 90: healthier, wiser, more independent – but it helps if you’re rich

As the Queen celebrates her birthday, she joins a growing number of people living - and thriving - in very old age. So what makes a happy nonagenarian?

On Thursday, the Queen celebrates her 90th birthday after 64 years of running the royal show. On 10 June, her official birthday this year, her husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, turns 95. Neither appear to be significantly slowing down. The Queen still embarks on royal visits, rides a horse, endures state banquets, walks nimbly backwards (from the Cenotaph), dresses stylishly and generally confounds the notion that ageing is one long continual slide into senility, if the Grim Reaper doesn't claim you in your middle years.

The Queen does, of course, have certain advantages when it comes to ageing. Income and class help. According to the charity Age UK, life expectancy at 60 for those from a higher income bracket is 23.3 years; those living on a lower income are likely to live almost six years less.

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