Who decided old was a dirty word? Suzanne Noble didn’t wait for an answer, and for a decade, she’s built a career out of proving it wrong.
It all began with a hot tub and a few proseccos. Suzanne and four other women talked about feeling creative, vibrant, sexy in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, and questioned why the media narrative around older people was so dismissive.
What began as an impulse to push back became something much bigger: a mission to rewrite the tired rules about what getting older is supposed to look like. Three months later, Suzanne and Rose Rouse co-founded Advantages of Age, now a registered social enterprise that celebrates ageing through positive stories and discussions related to getting older, “gracefully or disgracefully!”
“I had no idea where it would go,” says Suzanne. “I’d had a few too many glasses of prosecco (!), bought the website name, and that was it. It was only when Rose came on board, and we started working on the website together (and I set up a Facebook group to gather more interest in the site) that it became apparent there was a real appetite within our community to reconsider how we age. The rest is history!”
Suzanne hasn’t exactly followed the conventional script for ageing herself. Alongside her work with Startup School for Seniors, helping older adults turn ideas into businesses, Suzanne has built an increasingly unapologetic platform around sex, dating, and desire. Her Sex Advice for Seniors podcast and Substack tackle everything from erectile dysfunction and dating apps to the question of whether your sex life really has to wind down just because you do. The podcast has been featured by the BBC, The Times, The Telegraph, and The Guardian, a sign, perhaps, of just how much appetite there is for conversations that were once largely kept private.
And that spirit runs like a thread through pretty much all of Suzanne’s work. She’s interested in the questions that tend to get pushed aside once we’re supposed to have “settled down”: who do we want to live with? What do we actually want to do with our time? What might we still want to try? And, ultimately, how do we want to be remembered?
Suzanne certainly isn’t a woman easing into retirement – not in the traditional sense anyway. She’s a woman building a movement, and we couldn’t be more here for it.
Suzanne Noble and Rose Rouse
Rebel Later Life – an event built for over 50s who aren’t done yet
Now, at 65, Suzanne’s bringing many of those ideas together at Rebel Later Life: The Ideas Party, an event asking what life after 50 might look like if we stopped assuming it had to follow the outdated formula for getting older.
“The format was inspired by listening to and learning from our community over the past decade, and from what concerns them most”, says Suzanne.
That means a programme that refuses to put later life into one neat box. There are sessions on working beyond retirement age, finding a partner, co-housing and ageism, alongside a panel on how to have a “funky funeral”.
“We’ve tried to juggle serious topics with a bit of humour,” explains Suzanne. “I’m especially keen to hear Lynne Franks’ keynote speech, ‘Who am I going to be when I grow up?’, and the panel I’ll be joining about ‘How to Redefine Relationships after 50’.”
If Rebel Later Life: The Ideas Party is anything like Suzanne’s other work, we can expect raw, real, and relatable conversations. She’s never been particularly interested in smoothing off the edges of later life – and nowhere is that more obvious than in the way she talks about sex.
Let’s talk about sex…
For years, through her podcast Sex Advice for Seniors, Suzanne has been having the conversations most of us swerve. Erectile dysfunction, vaginal dryness, dating, desire, intimacy: none of it is easy to talk about at any age, and it’s trickier still when the world keeps telling older people they shouldn’t be thinking about sex at all.
“Talking about sex and older adults is one of the last taboos, isn’t it?” says Suzanne. “I first wrote two books about my sex life in my 40s, and the topic is of endless fascination to me.” Then Sex Advice for Seniors, she says, started on impulse and took off. “I now have over 250 episodes, which just goes to demonstrate how much there is to say about sex, dating, and relationships in later life!”
And yet, for all her openness, Suzanne knows many others are still struggling with sex behind closed doors. “I feel that most older adults aren’t keen to talk about sex, not openly, in any case. The majority of messages I receive come via direct messages, or one-to-one after an event at which I’ve delivered a talk.”
She gets questions like: How do you find a partner using dating apps in your sixties? What actually helps with soreness during sex? Is there a solution for erectile dysfunction that doesn’t mean a trip to the chemist? And, from a striking number of older men, how do you understand a partner who no longer wants to?
“Despite my enthusiasm for the topic, I recognise that there are a significant number of older adults who struggle to maintain a pleasurable sex life, and many of the challenges they face are issues that can be solved by seeing a sympathetic healthcare professional.” But not all healthcare professionals are experienced in talking about sex and older adults, she says – her own GP included.
“It’s unfortunate that too many men and women are far too ashamed to seek help and suffer in silence, and it’s one of the reasons I’m so passionate about talking about sex frankly, honestly and without shame.”
“Employers need to look past age and see the value people bring…”
But it isn’t only in the bedroom where Suzanne thinks we’re too quick to write people off. The same tired assumptions follow us into the workplace, where being older is too often treated as a problem to be managed rather than an asset to be used.
Ask her why over 50s get overlooked as a workforce, and she doesn’t pretend there’s a simple answer. “That’s a big question, and a complex one to answer,” she says. “Over 50s are not a homogeneous group, despite often being treated as one. Some may have health issues that mean they need more support than a younger, healthier person. Some may have caring responsibilities, meaning they need employers who are flexible around their schedules. Some employers may, rightly or wrongly, feel that over 50s won’t pick up technology as quickly as someone younger. And there’s also the problem of what to do about all the younger people currently out of work.”
But strip all that away, and Suzanne’s belief is unshakeable: “Most over 50s want a job, and are incredibly capable and reliable, often willing to accept a pay cut to stay in their current role. Employers need to look past age and see people for the value they bring, not a number attached to how many birthdays they’ve had.”
Suzanne has helped over 500 people turn ideas into something real
As we’ve seen, Suzanne’s own life is a brilliant example of how an idea can be the start of something incredible, at any age.
Advantages of Age started almost by accident. So did Sex Advice for Seniors. And through Startup School for Seniors, run with her colleague Mark Elliott, she’s spent years helping other people turn a half-formed idea into something real. Since 2020, more than 500 people have gone through the programme hoping to build a business of their own.
One moment recently brought home just how much that can mean. At the Hammersmith & Fulham Business Awards, Suzanne and Mark ran into a former student who was up for an award and won a Highly Commended.
“She said that had it not been for Startup School, she would never have started her business, and, having done so, would not have made it the success it had become,” Suzanne says. “That was great to hear.”
It’s moments like that which keep her going, along with messages like the one she received recently from a podcast subscriber: “I support your work because at the age of 81 I have found a renewed vigour in intimacy and relationships that has been missing for far too many years. Thank you, Suzanne.”
As Suzanne puts it: “It’s comments like these that make doing what I do all worthwhile.”
It's never too late to start again
So what would Suzanne say to someone in their 50s or 60s who feels it’s too late to try something new?
“The fear you may feel at starting something new is inevitably short-lived,” she says. “I know it’s a cliché, but you never know until you try. Keeping an idea going around and around in your head is never going to make you any money!”
If you don’t know where to start, her advice couldn’t be simpler: find someone who’s already done it. “Some good ideas start impulsively, like Advantages of Age, and then you have to work out the rest as you go. Others start with a good idea and are then backed by proper research. If you’re thinking about changing direction, find someone who’s already done something similar and ask for their advice. You’d be amazed how many successful people are happy to help someone else take their first step.”
And Suzanne isn’t just handing out advice; she’s living by it herself. Even after everything she’s built, Advantages of Age is in the middle of a “big refresh” of its website, to make it more community-led.
“I’m very excited about that,” she says, “and about the chance it gives us to put more of the smaller organisations we’ve supported over the years in the spotlight.”
But first, there’s a party to throw…
Rebel Later Life: The Ideas Party takes place on Saturday 10th October at Cecil Sharp House, London NW1 7AY, with an opening keynote from Lynne Franks OBE and panels on money, relationships, ageism and more. Tickets start from £29.99 and are available on Eventbrite.