Retirement

Retiring? Really? This is what many of my younger colleagues asked me one year ago when they learnt that time was up for me. Some even thought I was pulling their legs, they claimed that everybody could see I was still too youthful to retire. Of course, this went down like honey, as the saying goes, but youthful is not the same as young, and I had indeed reached the official age of retirement after teaching for 38 years at secondary grammar schools. The change wasn't abrupt, I can't imagine how people feel who're made redundant from one day to the other. I glided from my summer hols into my retirement, the hols just never ended ...  Read the complete review

When I was young I used to visit my Mum in the hospital where she was a Senior Ward Sister, one of the wards that she had to oversee was a female geriatric ward and I often spent my time chatting to the patients. I was old to enough to have a reasonable conversation, but as I was still in single figures, I understandably had a limited knowledge of the world of politics and finance. There was a recurrent theme that ran thru the conversations- how they used to be able to do something but could now longer afford to when they retired e.g. " I used to have a shampoo and set once a week- I'm lucky if I can afford it once a month ...  Read the complete review