It's my belief that there are basically two types of women in the world today - those who own and wear a little black dress and those who don't.

I belong most definitely in the former category. I have three little black dresses, one short and two long.

Without these dresses I wouldn't dare to have a social life or accept any invitations, such as the one I received a few weeks ago asking if I would like to attend the Argus Achievement Awards ceremony.

In fact it went one better. I was invited to present one of the awards, in front of an audience of several hundred people.

"What are you going to wear?" asked my friends - and, of course, The Mother.

"Oh, the usual little black number I imagine," I told them.

The Mother wasn't having that.

"Think Joan Collins, that is the trick," she said. "What you need to wear is something red, something short and snappy that says 'look at me!' - a dress you can't ignore."

Do I need to tell you that The Mother is a woman who has never owned, or worn, a little black dress?

When I say she is a colourful character I mean that quite literally.

Even in her 80s, she still loves her pinks and purples, blues and greens and abhors anything black or brown or grey.

"Well, I'm afraid it's going to be black for me," I told her. "And it's going to be long, something that doesn't draw attention to any of my problem areas - above or below the belt."

The Mother tutted. "You'll simply get overlooked if you wear black," she said.

I shook my head but The Mother was not about to give up.

"Well you'll need some bright make-up if you're going to be in the spotlight, otherwise your mouth and eyes will simply disappear," she said.

"You'll need some red lipstick - and what about false eyelashes?"

What indeed. I have only worn false eyelashes once, courtesy of a friend in London who showed me how to fix them.

Returning home on the train I fell asleep and, when I woke, found that my right eye wouldn't open. The top layer of falsies had become entangled with my natural lashes.

The eye started to water, my mascara ran, and I started to sneeze. Then I made the mistake of rubbing my eye and an assortment of lashes, real and false, embedded themselves under my eyelid. My eye was inflamed for several days.

No, I told The Mother, I didn't think false eyelashes would be a good idea.

"You may be right," she said. "They would get in the way of your glasses."

I told her I had no intention of wearing my glasses.

"But you won't see a thing," she said.

"Good," I replied, already feeling nervous at the prospect of appearing in front of an audience.

Yet when the evening came it all went very smoothly. I didn't drink too much, trip over my long skirt or drop the award. And I made sure my nose didn't shine.

On Monday I handed The Argus to The Mother.

Inside were two pages of photographs and a report about the awards.

"I daren't look," I said. "Tell me what you think of my photo."

After a couple of minutes she said: "There is no photo of you . . . in fact, there is not a mention of you anywhere."

Next time, I thought, I will wear that red dress. No one ever overlooks a scarlet woman.