FORGET being young, wild and free in the swinging sixties.

Virginia Ironside has been there and done that and says that being a pensioner makes her much happier.

The journalist, author and agony aunt is now 71 and told Weekend that people often forget the joys of growing old.

"Everyone talks about the miserable bits about ageing so I’ve decided to set the record straight," she said.

"I think people spend too long bemoaning the loss of their youth. I’m not saying that I’m not aware how horrible it is ageing. The other day I couldn’t get into a taxi without being helped. That was a very nasty moment.

"But there are plus things and one of those things is you no longer care about asking for help. Before I would have felt humiliated and wouldn’t have taken the taxi.

"You have a lot more confidence when you’re older and you have grandchildren which are absolutely lovely.

"What else is there? Getting a pension and people getting up for you on the bus.

"Also being off the sexual rat race is a great relief. I was very much on the sexual rat race in my youth.

"I have so many male friends now and I could never have had those when I was young because they would have all been seen as potential sexual partners."

Virginia will be sharing tales about her life as part of her Growing Old Disgracefully routine at Lymm Festival.

Her stand-up shows started around a decade ago which stemmed from her regular talks at literary festivals.

"I saw how many people would come and laugh," added Virginia, author of 13 books.

"I also saw how these literary festival people were raking in the money and all the authors got was a very nice thank you and a bottle of wine if they were lucky. I thought it was ridiculous."

Virginia was convinced to give stand-up a go after bumping into Nigel Planer from The Young Ones on a cruise.

She said: "We got together and he taught me an enormous amount about how to pace and make a shape out of a show rather than just go on and chat.

"There’s a huge amount of skill involved but it’s not difficult to pick up once you know how.

"Then I just got out my cheque book and paid for myself to be on at Edinburgh. How I had the gall, I’ve got no idea."

With a strong career behind her, was she ever tempted just to retire instead?

"I’m not very good at retiring," Virginia added.

"When you’re older it doesn’t really matter what you do. That’s why I had the courage to try it out. If I’d been younger I would have been terrified.

"But when you reach a certain age and you’ve already had a reasonable successful career you think you can scale Mount Everest or whatever.

"You know it doesn’t matter if you fail. This is why so many older people do these kinds of challenges.

"They’ve already had their life so this is just an extra bonus. This is where they can try out all the recipes for life that they never did when they were young.

"I have been nervous in the past but not so much now as I have a list of prompts. If I do forget something it all adds to the amusement because I’m old.

"That’s my great advantage because everyone laughs sympathetically. It’s also a show which I don’t think young people could do because they would be seen as ageist.

"But as I’m 71 I can make cruel jokes about old people because people think I’m laughing at myself which I am."

Virginia was just 21 when her first book, Chelsea Bird, was released which she said happened by chance.

"They were very different days," she said.

"I wrote a book which was pretty autobiographical.

"I never thought of showing it to anyone but then I did a piece for a magazine called About Town and the features editor at the time was Michael Parkinson oddly enough.

"Literally the week after a publisher contacted me and asked if I’d like to write a book because there was a huge interest in young people in those days.

"Being a 60s chick was a new phenomenon and was considered a new species.

"I said I had one in my drawer and they published it. Then I got a job pretty easily as a girl Friday on a diary column for the Sunday Telegraph and then I heard the Daily Mail wanted a rock correspondent and I applied and got it.

"I feel like I’ve been extraordinary lucky. It was an amazing time to be young."

But Virginia, who has interviewed Paul McCartney, is best known as an agony aunt – a post she still holds as a columnist for The Independent.

Virginia has previously had psychiatric help and therapy for depression while her mum Prof Janey Ironside, who ran the Royal College of Art, battled alcoholism.

She added: "I took to being an agony aunt like a duck to water because I think my whole childhood had been spent, in a way, caring for my mother who was very vulnerable.

"I’d also been through a lot of the problems my readers had been through so emotionally I connected to people in pain.

"So for me it’s always been a fantastically fulfilling job."

Virginia even has a Warrington link as 60s fashion designer Ossie Clark, who grew up in the town before designing clothes for the likes of Mick Jagger, was one of her mum's students.

"He would have been successful anyway but he credited a lot of his success to her," she said.

"Nobody could cut like he could cut. People would look at an Ossie Clark dress and their heart would leap."

- Virginia Ironside presents Growing Old Disgracefully at Lymm Hotel on Wednesday. Tickets are £14. Visit lymmfestival.org.uk