Skinny Nude

What do Homer Simpson, Dame Edna Everage, Sir David Frost and Lesley Brain have in common? We have all posed naked astride a chair in the style of the Christine Keeler iconic photograph taken in 1963. Dame Edna believes that she brings a 'spooky dignity' to an otherwise potentially tacky shot. Dear Edna! We are 'women of a certain age' - in my case 63 - and best kept covered, in my opinion. But having been asked to support the opening of the new Cotswold Care Hospice shop in Tetbury by being its poster girl I couldn't really say 'no'. It's such a wonderful cause. It did get me thinking. Nudity has never been much of an issue with me. The post-war diet with its emphasis on three good meals a day, eaten at the table as a family, meant we were healthy and slim. Later I was too busy to dwell on my weight and, luckily, clever Mr Brain prefers women who don't know their own weight – or care. Lately I have been more concerned with health than beauty and would trade a thin body for a healthy one of any weight. None of this prevented me from going into a right old panic at the news that I was to be nude in public. After all, I have never made a secret of my contempt for girls who choose to make a living from selling naked images of themselves. And the poses are just so naff! I also hate the Gok Wan and Trinny and Susannah ethos that you need to take your clothes off to show that you love yourself. My self worth doesn't lie in making money for television presenters. But most of all I resist any idea that we must all be perfect. This relatively recent trend has hit young girls, and now young men, very hard. The thought that you have to get first class exam results, excel at sport, be popular with peers and parents, have a talent that will get you instant fame, and above all be beautiful. And you can never be too thin. An impossible and undesirable ambition. No wonder half the world that isn't starving is mal-nourished. Whatever happened to 'being happy' as the most enviable state? And we are all critics now. Egged on by a relentless series of television programmes we judge and vote and 'real' people with real bodies come nowhere. My body has seen good service, I tell myself, and it shows. They say you are what you eat. I am a bread and butter pudding, inside and out. In the event I am offered a Cotswold Care Hospice sash to wear. I grasp at it gratefully. It is four inches wide. I ask if they have a Cotswold Care Hospice marquee instead. I feel faint from breathing in. It is agreed that my hair looks lovely and my toenails have been painted red. It is the area between those two points that most worries me. The generous make-up girl, who clearly has a policy of working from strengths, compliments me on my lower eyelashes which she says are particularly long. I am feeling so insecure that I now add upper eyelashes to my worry list. In the photographer's studio something magical happens. The camera clicks and I remember a quote from Alan Bennett. 'In a few moments I shall ask you to remove your clothes in their entirety...I shall be as far from desire as a plumber uncovering a manhole.' The resulting photograph shows that moment and reveals my most desirable asset. I am a happy woman.