By most standards, Prof Velandai Srikanth is at the peak of his career. He is the director of the National Centre for Healthy Ageing; his decades of highly regarded research have led to work being published in leading scientific journals; and he has been awarded funding from some of the world’s biggest scientific funding bodies. He has also turned 60 and says that, as soon as he did, “somebody said ‘so when are you going to retire?’” The comment shocked him – he realised this was the stigma of ageing, and it was coming for him. As a geriatrician, Srikanth sees the full spectrum of attitudes to