Alexander Chancellor: I think my doctors are trying to frighten me

The date of this issue of The Spectator is 4 January 2014, which also happens to be my 74th birthday. There is nothing very special about being 74 except that it is the last year in which one can be described as being in one’s ‘early seventies’; for it is the last year in which one is closer to 70 than to 80. You may wonder how I am at this pivotal moment in my life? Well, to be frank, not terrific. I get short of breath after climbing the stairs. I have to sit down to put on my socks, and I usually need to take a rest in the afternoon.

My chief problem is something disspiritingly described by doctors as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which means that I cough rather a lot and make a sound like a little organ pipe when I breathe in and out. This ailment is blamed on many decades of heavy smoking.