She is known as “The Queen of Mean” thanks to her acerbic presentation style on The Weakest Link. Yet even someone as tough and resilient as Anne Robinson found divorce to be an extremely painful process.

Miss Robinson divorced her husband of 27 years, John Penrose, last year at the age of 63. In a magazine article to promote her return to the BBC’s Watchdog consumer affairs programme, she says of the experience: “It was like having a car crash every day once we parted. I was taken aback, since I’d decided it was what I wanted. I didn’t expect it to be quite so emotional, so that really took me by surprise. You delude yourself. You think you’re not going to pick up a tab from it, but you feel you’re walking round in someone else’s reading glasses.”

She continues: “I think we were both very sad...You just feel quite low. You feel quite joyless for a bit for no good reason. It’s not because you want the marriage aback or you feel you’ve made a bad decision, but you do have those first times when you do this or that.” She cites hiring a car on her own and having to zip up the back of her dress.

But despite the emotional and practical upheaval and the fact she is facing her later years on her own, Miss Robinson says she was determined not to stay in a marriage that was no longer working.

“I think most people settle for something that isn’t working because they’re too frightened to do something about it. That’s alien to me. I’m not very good at accepting just rubbing along.”

A year on, the TV presenter has bounced back from the divorce. “Look, it was hard and a big step to take, but the good thing is, once you recover from it you feel terrific.”

Miss Robinson’s experience is typical of many people – especially women – who take the brave step to end a long marriage at a time in their lives when starting afresh can seem like a daunting prospect. Yes, the process is a tough one – and at times can seem overwhelming – but plenty of older divorcees will testify that it was worth it in the end. For such people, life begins not at 40 but with the issuing of the decree absolute.