‘I was made to feel worthless at the BBC, all because of my age’

I went into the toilets one day at work, looked at myself in the mirror, and I just started crying. I had been a broadcast journalist at the BBC for 30 years and, after a disagreement in the newsroom, blame had fallen on me, again. I remember thinking: I can’t do this, I don’t want to do this any more. At 60, after five years of being undermined because of my age, deprived of opportunities and training and being made to feel like I was completely worthless, I was broken and couldn’t take it any longer.

I welcome the news that a parliamentary report has recommended bringing in a commissioner for older people due to “culturally embedded” ageism across the UK. Things can’t go on as they are. In my case, things began insidiously. Around the time I turned 55 it was as if my value in the workplace had been scrubbed out. When I voiced my opinion, there was a rolling of eyes among younger colleagues; every time I spoke, I was made to feel like what I was saying didn’t matter. It was debilitating and embarrassing, to the point where I wouldn’t speak at all, fearing I’d be ignored or ridiculed. I didn’t fit in with the majority of my colleagues, who appeared to be getting younger and younger. As one senior manager told a colleague of his hiring attitude: “I don’t do fat and 40.”

It didn’t matter that I had just run the London Marathon, then climbed the Yorkshire Three Peaks a couple of years later, followed by the tallest mountain in Malawi. Many of my colleagues’ views of older people were that they were wrinkled and past it, and not worthy of attention. I remember we were doing a programme about stereotypes around ageing, and they were playing directly into them – using images of withered hands, and people shuffling around on Zimmer frames. I tried to explain that this was a completely outdated way to show how older people lived, but no matter how much I chipped in with my experience, or that of my peers, they weren’t changing their minds.

Every day involved humiliation of some kind. When my team started planning for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, I was confident that, having played a big role in the programming for the 60th anniversary, I would be an active part. Yet I wasn’t even asked to be involved. Suddenly I wasn’t allowed to do work I had done a decade earlier – it was as if I wasn’t fit to do my job. The same was true of voice-over work, which had always been a part of my role. As much as I volunteered myself, my seniors were having none of it. Some days I would sit alone while the programme [I worked on] aired. My team-members would watch it go out together, from the gallery, always excluding me – leaving me wondering how things had become so bad. When that happens repeatedly for years, you feel absolutely humiliated. Thinking of how I was so often belittled makes my throat close up.

The elephant in the room is also the menopause, which can make women much more insecure and emotional (as I was). Instead of there being any support, the reaction was: this old woman can’t do her job, so let’s push her out. I no longer belonged, and it was awful.

Some younger colleagues would try and make me feel better by telling me that I “looked good for my age”, but I don’t take that as a compliment. I’m not “young at heart,” I’m old at heart – and being old is great. I don’t have to be young to validate being vibrant; I’m an older person who is active and living an adventurous life, not someone who can be pushed into a box of what older people did many years ago.

Though many dismissive comments against me were made in full view of other colleagues, no one ever came to my defence, and I can only assume it’s because younger people are frightened to death that if they do highlight age discrimination at work, their own career prospects will be scuppered. The older ones can be just as bad. They hang in there, embarrassed to talk about issues that are affecting them too, knowing they’ll struggle to find another job at their age if they do speak up. At the time, I shared my concerns with two female former colleagues in their fifties who had been pushed out, but they had the safety nets of rich husbands; they didn’t need to stay in work like I did. I was a single mother paying a mortgage, and felt duty-bound to limp on for as long as possible.

Things reached a point where I was dreading coming into work, so I wrote an email to senior management. I explained that I was being treated badly and unfairly, and that I believed this was down to ageism, yet I got no reply.

By the time I stared at my reflection that day, after five years of awful treatment, I knew that I couldn’t continue there, or in any other workplace, if the view of older people was so poor.

I retired, got rid of my possessions and bought a motorhome, using it to travel around the country and give talks (including this week) on ageism and how to make the most of your later years. I also wrote a book, Retirement Rebel, and have started a podcast of the same name, intent on challenging the outdated narratives that are wrongly holding older people back.

I hate the implication that older people can’t do new things, or are stupid if they can’t operate technology straight away. At 65, I’ve got a combined following of almost 40,000 across TikTok and Instagram. My next project will be to launch a dinner party series mixing old and young people, where those from either generation have to ask the other questions. I’m embarrassed to say that when I was younger, I turned a blind eye to ageism, not realising it would one day happen to me. Now I see that it’s all around, and that we all lose out by dismissing people based on age alone.

All I ever wanted to do was a fair day’s work for a fair day’s salary; I didn’t want to be made to feel worthless, and that I wasn’t contributing to a career I loved. After the decades those like me have given to the workforce, the least we deserve is to be respected.

A BBC spokesperson said: “We take the welfare of our staff seriously and have robust processes in place to raise concerns, which are dealt with at the time. Should people want to reach out to the BBC directly, they will always be listened to.”

As told to Charlotte Lytton