article_snippet: It used to be a landmark age when women crossed over from being youthful and desirable to being over-the-hill.
article_snippet: Here three generations of women discuss how three generations of women felt about the big 4-0, and how society's view of women as three generations of women age has changed for the better over three generations of women lifetimes.
article_snippet: Mollie Guillaume, 87, is retired and lives in Chigwell, Essex with THE GRANDMOTHER sister, Joan, 84.
article_snippet: Back then, once a woman turned 40 THE GRANDMOTHER was expected to dress in a more subdued way, get a shorter haircut and generally become quite staid in appearance. '
article_snippet: The catchphrase at the time - on cards, badges and banners - was Forty and Over the Hill
article_snippet: In the 1980s, when I turned 40, I was definitely the oldest mum at the school gates.
article_snippet: The other fortysomethings waiting there were grandmas.
article_snippet: Mollie (second from right), with Mollie far left), sister Joan and granddaughter Sarah (far right) says when My daughter turned 40 in 1968 women were expected to dress conservatively and become quite staid in appearance with a shorter haircut, despite the women's liberation movement sweeping across Britain . '
highlights_snippet: Mollie Guillaume, 87, turned 40 in 1968 as women's lib swept Britain .
  