It's easier to open a safe than a tub of washing powder

You know you’re growing old when you can’t hear the TV unless it’s on full volume.

And you know you’re growing old when you would rather watch Great Railway Journeys rather than Love Island.

But I have never before associated growing old with opening a jar of instant coffee.

On Sunday I missed the first ten minutes of Antiques Roadshow - another sign I’m growing old - to open a jar of coffee.

It was one of those with a glass lid with plastic suctions. In the end it flew off, sending coffee all over the kitchen floor.

“What’s going on in there?” my husband called from the living room after hearing me cursing. “You should have given it to me,” he said. So, I put the lid back on and handed it to him. He opened it, but not without gritted teeth.

It wasn’t the only battle I had with packaging last week. I reckon I could crack open a Hatton Garden safe more easily than open a plastic tub of washing capsules.

If I ever need anywhere to store my Tiffany diamonds, that’s where they will be going. Fair enough, I understand the need for child-proof locks, but why make them adult-proof too? I am sure it’s not just us oldies who find this product impossible to open.

More and more, I find myself struggling to open goods, from canned food to cleaning products, in cartons, jars and boxes.

A coffee jar like this had me beaten

As you age, packaging is definitely more of a challenge. I had never considered packaging to be ageist, but it certainly is. Older people should given the same consideration as the youngest in society. For young children, packaging on certain products should certainly be designed to make them hard to access, but for the elderly the opposite is true - they need things to be easier to access. There’s no simple fix.

My 95-year-old neighbour came over recently with a bottle of bleach she had been struggling to get the child-proof top off. I managed it, but it wasn’t easy.

A tub of fat balls also had her foxed. I eventually worked it out, but again it was tricky.

A survey of 2,000 retired and semi-retired people carried out by The Design Age Institute at the Royal College of Art found packaging left many elderly people feeling ‘old’ and ‘incompetent’.

Sixty per cent found food and medicine packaging the most frustrating household items. Other issues were child-proof catches on boxes for washing capsules, resealable packs, the foil on toothpaste tubes and sachets that state ‘tear here’.

Some pensioners reported using everything from knives and scissors to pliers and nutcrackers to try to access packaging, but often gave up or waited for family help.

I cut myself recently trying to open a pack of cheese slices, tightly bound in thick plastic, with a knife. It was a stupid thing to do but I couldn’t find the chainsaw and was exasperated.

A few years ago I broke a front tooth trying to open a small sachet of tomato sauce that said ‘tear here’.

The Design Age Institute is working to end ageism in packaging. It has launched a petition on minimum packaging standards and is calling for improvements to include square jars that are easier to grip, ring pulls that require less force and tamper-proof plastic rings that are less firmly attached.

You would think that in the 21st century, there would be a solution that covers all bases. It’s appalling that there isn’t.