Never too late: life begins at 50

An increasing number of people are starting new lives at a point when most have settled down. Sally Williams talks to a mother, a divorcee and a surgeon who have reinvented themselves in middle age

Sarah Briggs, 50 is the mother of three children, Alexander, eight, Isabella, six, and Edward, one. She is married to David, 37, an accountant, and lives just outside Carlisle.

In the past 10 years, Sarah Briggs, a chartered surveyor, has fallen in love, got married and become a mother of three. What is surprising is that it has all happened in her forties. Edward, her youngest, was born when she was 49.

'It's just a number, isn't it? But, on the other hand, someone said to me, "When Edward is 20, you will be 70," and I thought, Oh God. But I hope that if I stay fit and active, I won't be too different from parents 10 or 15 years younger.'

The daughter of an aerodynamicist (her father helped design Concorde's engine), she studied English and music at Nottingham University and then spent the rest of her twenties deciding what she wanted to be. She tried accountancy, opera singing and publishing, and eventually settled as a chartered surveyor, qualifying at the age of 29.

Then, in her thirties, she lived a life that most people live in their twenties – being single and going to clubs. 'I had a very serious relationship when I was in my teens, from the age of 15 to 18. I think I wanted to emulate my mum at that point, get married and settle down and have kids, but I realised it wasn't for me.' Thanks to her taste for 'non-committal types' her definition of a long relationship was three months.