It took years to reconcile myself to being a boobless wonder. And just as I was getting there, just as I had comforted myself that I’d never have saggy tits (insufficient to defy gravity), just as I was okay with buying the smallest bra in the lingerie department of M&S (standing alongside giggling prepubescent girls), just as I had talked myself out of gazing longingly at the 34B cups, aesthetic surgery became de rigueur.

You’d think I’d be only too keen to join the ranks of women shelling out good money for a better bust (6 out of 10 women in the UK would consider a boob job, apparently), but you’d be wrong. It isn’t that I haven’t thought about it. With bodies being sculpted to near-perfection and, more particularly, boobs spilling over the tops of blouses so that they’re more than metaphorically in my face, the cosmetic-surgery boom has been hard to avoid. But the thought of surgically enhancing what little I have (very little: at 34AA, I can hardly claim that my cups runneth over) lasted only as long as it took me to read this sentence on a certified plastic surgeon’s website: “Side effects of breast implants can range from minor irritation to death.” Death? Not much point in having big tits if I’m dead.

And why would a woman of almost 40 want the bust of an 18-year-old anyway? It won’t match the rest of her: the comparative youth of pert breasts will throw face, décolletage, backs of hands, feet even, into ancient relief.

I’ve decided to be thankful for the little I have. My tiny breasts are assets, not liabilities. I can depend upon them. They won’t let me down by sagging or threatening to merge into one enormous, middle-aged unichest. My small bosoms never give me backache or cause discomfort. Unencumbered by enormous protrusions, I can exercise freely, in a nimble, light-footed way, and can lie comfortably on my front for as long as I like. Dressing AAs is also a darn sight less complicated than dressing DDs. My big-busted friends look on in envy as I slip into strappy, backless, elegant, flimsy frocks, the kind that work better if you don’t wear a bra. And I can wear such daring styles safe in the knowledge that I will never look like a barmaid. It is nigh-on impossible for me to look tarty. Indeed, when it comes to style, it’s not bodacious stunners such as Jessica Simpson, Pamela Anderson or Kelly Brook who inspire me. I take my tips from Kate Moss, Audrey Hepburn and Charlotte Rampling — all A-cups, all chic, stylish and sexy in their own fabulously alluring way.

And while it is hard for a large-chested woman to disguise her assets, my sweet nothings are versatile. They work with me, not against me. If I want cleavage, I wear a padded bra. In fact, you could upholster a three-piece suite with the contents of my underwear drawer. I sometimes purchase bras from Rigby & Peller (by royal appointment, so I can believe I’m regally endowed where I’m not). And perversely, paying an exorbitant price for a small (and it is small), pretty piece of lace with a few centimetres of underwiring, quite a lot of foam and a couple of hooks and eyes, makes me feel better about having remarkably little to put in it.

In any case, I can create the illusion of fullness with a few adept strokes of a blusher brush or, on extra-special plunging-neckline occasions, the padded-bra effect can be amplified further with the addition of a couple of chicken fillets. As a consummate expert in DIY breast augmentation, I no longer fear that they will slip to the floor and plop like dead fish at my feet.

And therein lies the real beauty of my unadulterated bust: I can add to it, or downsize by going au naturel, should fashion dictate, at will. Being AA and proud, I shall initiate a global reawakening that the best things in life really do come in the tiniest packages.

Anyway, small boobs are life-saving. How else do you explain why I did not die of embarrassment when my 12-year-old daughter yelled helpfully (if insensitively) across a shop floor swamped by voluptuous 36Cs: “Oh, look, mum, here’s the one you’re looking for — 34AA, with that funny padding inside”?

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