The young woman sitting in front of me on the bus nudged her husband and pointed to a white-haired man who was standing. Reluctantly the husband got up and awkwardly manoeuvred forward. He caught the man’s eye and indicated his vacant seat.

I held my breath. The older man’s face was a vision of disbelief followed in quick succession by rage and humiliation. He shook his head and, now mortified, the younger one shuffled back to his seat.

To the young women, the standing man was old. I’d have put him about 60 and I bet, by his own reckoning, prematurely white.

When does "age" happen to us? At what number on the clock do we tip over from mature into "elderly"?

It is important that we pay close attention to how those at present at that stage are being treated because, like it or not, we’re all inching towards the check-out on life’s conveyor belt.

And I do mean inching. How long after the first grey hair does the telephone directory become a blur, even at arms length? When does a man spot the first hair in his ear? When do women’s handbags start to swallow keys and hide purses?

We kid ourselves we haven’t changed even when invisibility in shops becomes the norm. Then someone takes a photograph only it looks like our mother. Aaargh!

We are the cleverest generation yet at out-running time but it always wins. However, even when the body creaks, we hope to retain self-determination, strong opinions and an independent attitude. We hope to retain our identity. So when, if ever, will we be happy to embrace the "elderly" category? I wonder when, if ever, will we accept being called "darling" by strangers hired to assist with our care?

I wonder because a residential home has just been reprimanded by the Care Quality Commission because its staff habitually addresses inmates in terms of endearment. They are "sweetie" or "handsome" or just "love".

The home is unrepentant. It’s in Yorkshire so it says such terms are in keeping with colloquial custom. It’s not patronising, according to the management; it’s just homely.

Is it? And if so, at what stage in a person’s decline do such terms of endearment shift from being demeaning to being welcome?

Would the man on the bus happily answer to "sweetie" if, heaven forfend, a stroke landed him in residential care? If I am right he was about the same age as Kim Cattrall, star of Sex and the City and a decade younger than Helen Mirren who is the face of L’Oreal.

If he is lucky with his health he could have years of being a silver fox ahead of him. I bet that’s what he is anticipating. But technically – like all his contemporaries – he is entering the "third age". It’s the one when it seems you become everyone’s pet.

It doesn’t matter whether you are as gifted as Alan Bennet, as crotchety as David Starkey or as feisty as Germaine Greer, once the eyesight fades, the balance goes and fumbles set in, you’d better prepare to be babied by people in disposable plastic gloves because "It's homely".

But will you think so? Will you hate it? And if you do, what will you do about it?

It’s true that some parts of Britain don’t discriminate by age when using friendly terms of endearment. When I lived in Glasgow, I learned to answer to "hen". I didn’t mind it. It spares taxi drivers, tradesmen and shop assistants the need to establish anything more than the gender of the person with whom they are doing business.

Hen takes care of Mrs, Miss, Ms or any other title. There is a degree of goodwill in it. It’s cheery, quite pally and, although it’s sexist, on balance I prefer it to being called Jimmie.

"Love" and "darling" are a degree more intimate. In most people’s lives they start by being familial, romantic, familial again and finally institutional.

I’m not saying that being on the receiving end of such terms is the worst fate. But how people are treated in that last stage of life does really matter. Just by being in an institution, a person’s individuality is already in danger of slipping away.

Doesn’t "love", "darling", "dearie" said to every person in a bed or day room just hasten the process? If every client is "darling" how would a care worker fail to lose touch with their individual identities?

As we know from the various scandals there have been, this is crucially important.

Surely most adults prefer to be known by their name.

We use such terms of endearment with babies and small children. We hope it is imbues them with the knowledge they are loved. But as soon as they reach school, as soon as they enter the wider world, they are identified by their individual names.

I think that is important to all of us. I know it’s important to me. However large a crowd I am in, however far from home, the calling of my name will make me turn my head, will make me respond and thereby reconnect.

So if I, for example, ever find myself in a residential home, once I’ve overcome the shock, I feel it would matter to me to retain my name. It would matter even more in an institution.

It’s not so long ago that the debate concerned whether hospitals and homes should use the relative informality of a first name. That was more an issue for the last generation. Most of us are on first-name terms now but we are not all on terms of endearment even when those terms are delivered on automatic pilot; even when they are threadbare from over-use.

Age Scotland, which has looked into the use of language, is clear that what really matters is that residents are consulted, asked for their preference and addressed accordingly. Where this doesn’t happen they encourage families to contact the Care Inspectorate.

And we must remember that there are people who will be comforted by the warmth these terms imply. Loneliness is too often the companion of very old age. Spouses die, contemporaries are outlived and families are scattered. In the absence of such relationships the warmth of being called everyone’s darling might even be craved.

Worse things happen to the elderly.

It’s shocking to read at the weekend a report from the charity Action on Elder Abuse charting a 10-fold rise in financial abuse. It has had reports of 146 instances of houses being sold or taken without consent. The total worth was £24 million. A further 196 houses, with a value of £34m, were given away under duress. In all, the charity reckons £78m a year is taken.

The culprits are mostly relatives and the most common excuse is that they were "taking their inheritance early".

It makes grim reading. It is a blow from those who should be offering terms of endearment and meaning them. But the longer the elderly retain their individual identities, the less likely it will be that such abominations will occur.