I once worked with a woman who would proudly proclaim that she detested all old people. When questioned, she would list their deafness, their slowness and, ironically, their prejudices. Her grandmother regularly featured in her diatribes, committing the crimes of drinking her glass of sherry too slowly, forgetting where she had put her glasses, and worrying about how much longer she would be able to stay living alone in her flat.

Yesterday I saw an old woman shuffling along the road, her back bent right over almost at right angles. Would she have been a target for my colleague’s venom, committing the joint crimes of deteriorating health and getting in people’s way on the pavement?

Another friend of mine has recently been researching living options for her elderly and widowed father. Unable to look after him herself, she needs to look at what else is available to make his future as comfortable and happy as possible, as he becomes more unable to remain independent as his body fails. His mind still active, he reads the Times, watches the financial markets and knows who won X-factor on Saturday night. Yet because he is no longer able to walk to the end of the road, and as his arthritic fingers mean making a cup of tea is becoming a challenge, it seems that he is being inexorably pushed towards the edges of society, perceived as just another old person rather than the interesting, funny and intelligent man that he still is. His choices for the future seem bleak – a live-in carer costing £80,000 a year, or a residential home where the highlight of the day is the afternoon game of bingo and the evening meal is a slice of ham and a lettuce leaf. For this retired company director, with a lifetime of City meetings and dinners at Claridges, neither seems a particularly attractive prospect.

We learn from our experiences and grow and develop as we progress through life. So when do we stop admiring people for their achievements, their experience and their knowledge and instead see only their glasses and trembling hands? What is the tipping point where they suddenly become old? An old body clearly doesn’t have to mean an old mind, so why do we mock and think less of people because they have lived for 80 years?

Other societies and cultures revere their old. In many European countries grandparents and great-grandparents are embraced as part of the family, playing an active part in everyday life while they are still able and looked after with love when they need more help. Jungle tribes know that the years their elders have lived have provided them with invaluable experiences and knowledge for which they are admired, not criticised.

For things to change, our society needs to change at a fundamental level, something which will not happen overnight. But next time I see an old woman on the bus, I will try and look beyond the grey hair and stick and imagine the life she has lived, the things she has done, and the stores of wisdom that may well be stacked in her mind. And if my colleague is lucky enough to live a long life, I wonder if she will take a different view of old people?