Charlotte Wood: 'What are we really afraid of, when we think of old age?'

In a black-and-white thinking culture, how should we consider the richness of who we are in old age?

A few years ago, a pretty young woman approached me in the lunchroom of the building where I began work on my novel, The Weekend.

You're writing about ageing, aren't you?" she asked. I was, I said, smiling.