Diana Moran still has the leotard that made her famous as the Green Goddess in the 1980s. It still fits, but she says: “The elastic has got a little saggy.” Age has been far kinder to Moran, who at 85 has the poise and elegance that made her a role model to a generation of keep-fitters.
Today she is reaping the rewards of practising what she preached. And those who were sensible enough to have followed her advice will be doing so, too. But even for a goddess, there comes a time when you have to let the Lycra go slack. Moran is, in her own way, slowing down. What you won’t find her doing though is packing up and moving into a bungalow.
“We need our steps. Of course I often think, ‘Oh I left that upstairs’ but as I’m going up I know it’s doing me good. Not that I go up and down them as quickly as I used to. I used to leap up and down them. Now I’m cautious and holding on.”
Home is still the three-storey riverside house in Surrey that she has lived in for 28 years after divorcing her second husband (with whom she is still friendly). She lives alone with her rescue cat Kiki-De. It is Moran who has adapted to her environment, rather than the other way around.
Take the step from the kitchen to the conservatory, an obvious trip trap. I wince every time I see her approach it. However, Moran noticeably slows down each time and clears it with a considered step. “I do have to tell myself to stop moving as fast. Otherwise I do move fast.”
Moran is proud of her work with the Royal Society for Osteoporosis, of which Queen Camilla is a patron. Framed cards from the Queen are on the wall in her kitchen and she tells me in a hushed whisper that the Queen sometimes sends her a letter or two.
Falls are an all too common part of old age, often due to osteoporosis, but also due to types of medication or loss of balance. Sadly they are frequently the precursor to a downward health spiral. Moran has had her fair share. For her, it has often been as a result of over-confidence in her abilities; most notably a broken wrist in her 50s acquired on an ice rink. She hasn’t skated since.
More recently there was the accident getting out of the bath, which left her with three broken ribs. She hasn’t had a bath since. And the last fall, at a party where she tripped over a speaker wire whilst wearing high heels. “I came down with a bang!” And now she no longer wears heels.
When you’ve lived life at the pace of a speedboat, it can be mentally hard to adjust to being in a paddleboat, but Moran is sanguine about how the game of life plays out.
Not all of her habits have turned out to be quite so healthy. Back in the day she was a mad sun-worshipper. “Goodness me, I was the Bronze Goddess. I used to prepare family meals in the garden in a bikini with the boys running around.”
I look at her with alarm. “It got worse than that,” whispers Moran. “I had on me, olive oil mixed with vinegar. That was my sun cream. It was just like frying a chip!”
Her cavalier suncare routine has meant that she has suffered from skin cancer and today has melanomas on her legs and arms. Gardening is her therapy, but you won’t catch her toiling in the sun. “If I could change things, that’s what I’d change,” she says of her open-top sports car days.
Her other dice with cancer came in her late 40s when she signed up for an early trial of HRT (hormone replacement therapy). “I told them I didn’t need any of the tests, that I was fit as a fiddle, but they insisted.” The mammogram came back that she had breast cancer. Moran needed a double mastectomy and reconstruction. The first of three lots. “That stopped me wanging and banging with my tennis racquet.”
Life she says though has been richer for the cancer experience. “I remember coming round from the operation thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m still here’. I remember saying, I’m not going to waste a day of my life. And I like to think I have not. It gave me motivation to live.”
However, living life to the fullest today means taking it at the right pace.
“Once I hit 80 there are things that are just not possible anymore,” says Moran. “The biggest thing of anyone over a certain age is to have the handrails. That’s what’s really happened in the last three or four years.”
Similarly when she travels into London – something she does every Saturday morning for her appearance on GB News, doing the papers on Mark Dolan’s show – she resists being swept along by the furious pace around her. “I have to say the Underground in London is a bit more frightening than it used to be. But I will slow down and let the crowd go in front of me to make sure I have a rail.”
Slowing down is not the same as stopping though. Moran still keeps herself up to a high mark of activity. Her life sounds like a whirl of cruises (where she gives talks), garden parties and work engagements. There’s also plenty of fun, with Moran showing me pictures of herself at Ascot. “We didn’t win a thing this year”.
Where she does feel despondent is the changes she has seen happen in society. “I don’t remember any fat people when I was at school.” Of the obesity crisis she says: “It’s so obvious now. It’s about one in eight people. I find that really worrying.”
She worries that children aren’t as active as they used to be. “I lived a good three miles from school and there was no lift from mum or dad! Before you came home there would be sports practice. That was all part of school.”
Mix in the lack of home cooking, and you have a ticking time bomb for the future of the country. “They’re eating the wrong foods, basically. Mum and dad are working, so they pick up some fast food on the way home. And all those children are growing up and that’s the only food they know.”
Her fear is that not only will obese people not make it to a healthy old age: “They’re probably not going to be able to do a lot of jobs.”
If you are rueing not following her advice three decades ago, then do yourself a favour and take heed of what her advice today.
Diana’s morning move – ‘The Monkey’
Stand with your feet hip distance apart and your knees softly bent.
Lift your arms up and then slowly fold forward and swing your arms behind you like a monkey. Come back to standing and stretch your arms up. Repeat as many times as feels good.
Moran also likes to add a couple of standing side stretches: “I always have a loose knee on the side I’m going over to.” And she will then finish with a standing spinal twist. Finger tips together, elbows out to the side.
“The monkey sets me up for the day,” says Moran.
Diana’s give osteoporosis-busting moves
1. Wrist wind ups
Any stick from the garden will do – Diana is using a part of her pressure washer – a piece of string about 60cm long, and a water bottle.
Tie the string around the bottle top and the other end on the stick, and then with a hand at either end, start to twist the stick to wind up the bottle. To lower the bottle, twist the wrists in the opposite direction.
Repeat five times in each direction. If you want to stand up to do this, you can or, but it works sitting as well.
2. Towel floss
Hold one end of the towel or a band with your right hand and drop the other end down behind your back. With the left hand, reach behind you and grasp the other end and pull the towel taut. Extend your right hand up high, then pull the towel back down again with your left in a sawing motion.
Repeat 10 times. Reverse hands and continue 10 times on the other side.
3. Bicep bottles
Sit or stand with feet shoulder-width apart and tuck your elbow tightly into your waist. Holding a bottle in each hand, palms facing upwards, simply lift the bottles on your shoulders and then lower.
Repeat 10 times with control.
4. Calf stretch
Stand with feet hip-width apart, facing a wall or using a chair for support. Take your right foot back behind you and keeping your leg straight, press your heel down hard, with your arms straight. Feel the stretch in your calf.
Hold for 10 seconds and then repeat on the left leg.
5. Standing balance
“If you want to help prevent osteoporosis then sitting doesn’t work,” says Moran. “It’s got to be weight bearing.”
Standing on one leg will not only test your balance, but is weight bearing. “It’s just so easy to do when you’re cooking, having a phone call or waiting for the kettle to boil.”
Diana’s golden rules for slow ageing
1. Keep abreast of young people
Moran stifles a laugh when she mentions “the boys”: “I’ve a son of 64 and one of 62, but they’re still my boys.” Thanks to them she has four “glorious” grandchildren aged 30 down who call her GG, short for Granny Goddess. “I love being with them. I love the clothes they wear. Recently, because I’m conscious of being more steady, I’ve passed on my high shoes to them. Fortunately the two granddaughters take size 7, the same as me.”
She also talks about music with them and current affairs. “That keeps you ticking and young,” says Moran. “The worst thing for us older people is to say: ‘It wasn’t like it in my day’. That’s such a turnoff.”
Some things have got better with time, a case in point being that her grandchildren are far more careful about the sun than Moran ever was.
2. Understand your limitations… to a point
As somebody who walked for miles uphill and down dale, played tennis and loved skiing, acknowledging she can no longer do those things can be tough.
“My grandchildren will say ‘we’re going to do a walk in Snowdonia, do you want to come?’ I want to do it. I’d love to do it, but I know I can’t.”
3. Never stop learning
As well as her media work and teaching some exercise classes in local care homes, Moran is a member of the University of the Third Age (u3a) and attends talks and lectures on all kinds of subjects. “I’m interested in philosophy. Last time we discussed the idea of beauty.”
She will be officially opening the u3a’s first ever festival on Friday 19 July, in York. “People are there because they want to learn, but in a social way.”
4. Activity, not exercise
Moran prescribes 30 minutes of activity a day, five days a week. “As far as I’m concerned at this stage in my life, I don’t do exercise, it’s activity.” The garden is her main activity. She also loves the river and enjoys nothing more than a walk to one of the river pubs. One daily activity happens first thing each morning: “When I get out of bed, I do my absolute favourite stretch, which I call the monkey.” (See above.)
Moran has osteopenia, which is the beginning of osteoporosis. “It’s inevitable that a woman my age will have osteopenia or fully blown osteoporosis.” So twice a week she works on muscle strengthening. “If I have 10 minutes I’m down on the floor, feet hooked under the end of the bed or the sofa and knees bent, and I do my sit ups.”
Afterwards she will lie on her back with her knees bent and do some very slow spinal twists on each side. “That’s when I know I’ve got older. But by the time I’ve done it six times the aches that you feel in your shoulders start disappearing, and then suddenly your knees are practically on the floor. So you can work with what you’ve got.”
5. Move little and often
Moran weaves little “snacks” of movement into her day, When watching television she circles her ankles in one direction and then in the other. “I also point and flex my feet, flip-flapping between the two. That gets your calf muscles going, and is good for your heart and lungs as well, because it gets the circulation going.”
6. Live for the day
This goes back to Moran’s experience of cancer when she was in her late 40s. “You damn well do it and now! Live it while you’ve got it,” she tells her grandchildren. She never puts off seeing friends. “It’s tremendously important. It would be very easy to say I’ll see you in a couple of weeks time, but if I can, I will be in touch the next day.” She had 60 cards for her birthday in June: “And I like to think I’ve contacted every single one of them.”
7. Be social
Loneliness is a killer. In 2021, 3.3 million people aged 65 years and over were living alone in England and Wales; 30.1 per cent of the older population. “I’m totally used to living alone,” says Moran. “The garden keeps me busy. My lovely rescue pussycat keeps me busy. And of course I paint and sew. I’m pretty self-contained.”
However, socialising remains a central part of Moran’s life. “I’m fortunate because a gentleman near me lost his wife, who I knew as well, eight years ago. Now we are companions. We do everything together. We make a nice partnership, which is lovely at this point in our lives.”
Moran also has a list of people she calls every day. “At this age some of my friends are in residential care, many of them are having falls, which then necessitates a long time in hospital. And there the downward spiral starts.”
8. Follow the four Ss of exercise
What are the benefits of being active? For Moran it comes down to the Four Ss: strength, stamina, suppleness and skill. “The last one is about coordination,” explains Moran. “I could add a fifth one. And it’s not sex! It is shape. If you’ve been active the chances are you will still be in shape.”
Seeing as Moran brought it up, I ask a cheeky question: “Are you still having sex?” “You can say I failed to answer that one.”
9. Stick to the the four Fs of diet
Fish, fruit, fibre – “I get this from my muesli or granola at breakfast time; and of course fruit has a lot of fibre” – and as much fresh food as you can lay your hands on: “I don’t do McDonalds or ready meals, ever.”
Moran has found herself eating less in her older years. She always prioritises a good breakfast, but will usually subsist on healthy snacks until her evening meal. There are certain supplements she makes sure to take: Vitamin D, calcium, magnesium (“for the joints and muscle spasms”) and B12.
She drinks plenty of water throughout the day, and has a weakness for coffee. While she never touches red wine or spirits, “I’m a dry white wine girl. And if anybody wants to give me bubbles, then I’m a very happy white wine girl.”
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