Having just turned 65, I enjoyed a week of firsts. My first ever facial and my first ever yoga class progressed to my first ever impedancemetry session, my first ever photobiomodulation session, my first ever hyberbaric chamber session, my first ever cryotherapy session, my first ever sensory deprivation session, my first ever neurofeedback session and my first ever revitalising wave session.

I was at the Nescens Clinic Centre for Aesthetic and Regenerative Medicine near Geneva, marking my milestone birthday by attempting to defy age. It was Mrs Ray’s idea. Concerned that I was beginning to look and act like the old soak that I am, she wanted them to break my bad habits and help me shed ten years. So I signed up for the £10,000 ‘7-Day cure reset’ – and it proved to be a salutary experience.

The brainchild of the deliciously named Professor Jacques Proust, Nescens Clinic is a discreet establishment for the (very) well-heeled – in search of lost time, seeking not only to look young but also, according to Prof P, to stay young.

‘You can’t prevent physiological ageing, but you can prevent pathological ageing,’ he told me. ‘We consider ourselves immortal in our twenties and don’t learn the things we need to know to protect ourselves........

© The Spectator