When my youngest daughter told me what she had bought for my birthday my face fell.

It wasn’t that I was ungrateful - I was delighted that she had taken the trouble to buy me something - but I could not understand why she had chosen such a gift.

Knowing that I have a fear of heights, she paid for my husband and I to go up The Shard, Western Europe’s tallest building at 1004ft.

She can see the building from her university hall of residence, has worked as a waitress on the viewing decks and wanted us to go up. She said she wanted to look at the building at our allotted time and think of us, at the top, enjoying the panoramic view.

But as I thanked her I knew deep down that it was probably not going to happen. Knowing how much the treat had cost her, I did make an effort, trying to stay calm as I went through security, and trying not to panic as I approached the lift. But when the doors opened, my legs felt like jelly and I felt queasy.

I couldn’t go up. Thankfully my sister, who lives virtually in the shadow of the building, came quickly to step into my shoes.

I sat in the lobby with a group of height-phobic people all of whom were waiting for partners or friends who had gone up. There were men and women of all ages - I was heartened to speak to the man sitting beside me, a strapping German in his twenties, who said that he would rather run the London Marathon naked than go up The Shard.

No-one really knows why some people are intolerant of heights and others aren’t. It’s got something to do with our thought processes. I don’t suffer from acrophobia - an extreme or irrational fear of heights - but I feel sufficiently uncomfortable to avoid being up high.

Over the years this feeling has prevented me from taking part in activities I would have really enjoyed - a balloon ride, a trip up the Eiffel Tower, a ride on a big dipper and a walk up the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

I remember being sent by work to Blackpool when the tower was being painted gold for its centenary. While the party of journalists had fun at the top, I sat at the bottom with a cup of tea.

A few years ago I was persuaded by my family to go on the London Eye, and spent the whole time crouched on a seat in the middle of the pod, only daring to move as it neared the ground.

And once, while climbing Pillar in the Lake District, my dad had to lie across a traverse after I froze while looking down the almost-vertical slope below.

A fear of heights often develops later in life, due to the deterioration of our sense of balance. We feel more physically vulnerable and, says Kevin Gournay, author of The Sheldon Short Guide to Phobias and Panic, older adults also tend to have people who depend on them, making them more worried by the possibility of falling.

I’ve never been comfortable with heights and now have a medical condition causing more severe balance problems, so I’m never likely to see the amazing views from The Shard, which on the beautiful, pin-sharp day my husband and sister visited, stretched across London and out as far as the North and South Downs.

I’d love to have seen that, but my husband, who is fine with heights, admitted that even he was a little shaken, especially at level 72 which is open to the elements. “You really wouldn’t have liked feeling fresh air up there,” he said. “And you definitely would not have been able to go to the window and look down the edge of the building.”

Just thinking about that is enough to give me the shivers.

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