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Now on the BBC World Service. In the Fairy Tale Snow White and the Seven

Dwarfs, the Wicked Queen responds to the onset of middle age by trying to destroy her youthful competition with a poison apple.

I'm Kathy Fitzgerald and I wanted to find out if there are more productive ways to deal with grey hair and crow's feet.

This is Snow White and the seven signs of aging.

Once there was a lovely virgin called Snow White.

Her stepmother, a beauty in her own right, though eaten of course by age,

would hear of no beauty surpassing her own.

The stepmother had a mirror to which she referred, something like the weather forecast,

a mirror that proclaimed the one beauty of the land.

She would ask, looking glass upon the wall, who is fairest of us all. And the mirror would reply,

You are the fairest of us all.

Pride pumped in her like poison.

There was a phase in my 20s where you do think there is a little bit of power in this beauty.

It can be intoxicating. It can be wow.

All the guys are looking at you and you have the mesmerized. This is where it happened. London Marlabone Station, Platform 3 just a year or two ago.

I was walking towards the ticket barriers.

The rush-hour commuters were streaming in the opposite direction towards home.

I noticed the women coming towards me seemed young.

A new generation, a new crop.

And then a thought popped into my mind from who knows where

...