For Tom

and in memory of Kathleen and Cyril

Contents

Introduction: Why is Retirement Hard?

1   Decisions

2   Preparing

3   Leaving Work Behind

4   Finding New Purpose

5   The First Year and Beyond

6   Identity and Status

7   Good Health

8   Money

9   Couples

10 Friends

11 Grandchildren

12 Home: Moving, Downsizing, Staying Put

13 Living Alone

14 Time to Think and Be

Conclusion

Resources

Further Reading and References

Acknowledgements

Index

Introduction

Why is Retirement Hard?

Retirement is a time of new opportunities, of finally being able to say yes rather than no, of spending time doing all those things you always wished you had more time for during the working week. It’s a time for huge personal growth, when you can discover the real you, untrammelled by the demands of a working existence that has helped to shape the way you have thought, felt and behaved for decades.

So why do so many people find retirement tough? Why should giving up work, which is stressful, exhausting and relentless, be such a challenge? Why do people feel lost, overwhelmed and even depressed without it? It’s almost as if we’re addicted to work. In some ways perhaps we are. Work is such a big part of our lives for such a long time that it’s hard to leave it behind. And for all its negative aspects it’s a source of deep satisfaction, independence and personal development. Midwife Linda Abbott, whose retirement was watched by millions on BBC1’s One Born Every Minute, says, ‘Work gives you a huge sense of fulfilment which is almost impossible to get from anything else. I think the shift from that sense of purpose is a very difficult one to make.’

I share Linda’s view. That’s partly what drove me to write this book – to find answers to a question I’ve wrestled with for years: how do people find fulfilment and meaning beyond paid work? Earning a wage doesn’t just pay the rent; being paid gives what you do a seal of approval, it says it has value. So when money is taken out of the equation, how can individuals find meaning in what they do? This seems to me one of retirement’s fundamental questions.

As a child of the Sixties I’ve always liked to think that money is less important than the other things that make a job worth doing. But increasingly I’ve had to admit that for me, and I suspect for many people, money is not only a powerful motivator, it’s almost inseparable from job satisfaction and a sense of fulfilment. The problem is that because work takes up so much time and energy it’s easy to lose sight of the infinite possibilities that lie beyond it. Ellen Langer, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, says, ‘Retirement is a dirty word because people see it as the end, a phase where you do nothing. If you change jobs you go from Job A to Job B. Retirement has no B attached to it. So before they retire, people think about all the things they won’t have to do. They say, “It’ll be nice not working, not being stressed, not having to get up early, not having to write these reports…” That’s very different from “It’ll be nice to read more or learn photography or spend more time with friends.” The antidote is to see retirement as a change rather than a movement towards nothing.’

You may well be reading this because you or your partner, or both of you, are about to retire, which puts you at about my age – 64. If so, you’ll be aware of how much retirement has changed since our parents and grandparents stopped work. It’s no longer a single, easy-to-grasp concept; instead, it’s become a mind-boggling mixed bag of possibilities that is as likely to include a combination of paid and unpaid work as no work at all. It’s become a whole new life stage rather than a brief coda. Retired people today are a force: they won’t give up trying to change the world, they’re still dancing round their kitchens, still working, still trying to find themselves.

Yet the image of retirement remains firmly stuck in the past. The word still conjures up pictures of elderly people enjoying a well-earned rest – think ‘retirement’ homes. ‘When people say they’re retired I feel sorry for them,’ a friend said to me the other day. She made me do a double take, because that’s how I used to feel myself – until the people in this book turned my ideas upside down, that is. Part of the problem is that attitudes to retirement have failed to catch up with the new reality. So it’s not surprising that people are in denial about the ‘R’ word, and it seems to get worse the nearer they get to retiring themselves. Tavistock Relationships in London, which has an international reputation for its couples therapy and counselling services, recently advertised counselling as part of a new programme to prepare couples for retirement. Initially they were shocked by the poor response. It was only when they took out the word ‘Retirement’ and renamed it ‘Couple 50+ MOT’ that more people came forward.

Retirement feels out of sync in a world that places a high premium on being purposeful and busy, and where being stressed out is not just the norm but almost a marker of success. Ian Stuart-Hamilton, Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Glamorgan, says, ‘We have become so obsessed over the past few decades with working hard and the idea of the “go-getter” that retirement – because it’s the antithesis of that – is seen as giving up. There are more than enough role models now of people who are ploughing on long past retirement age, like Warren Buffett. The danger is that once you get trapped into that mindset retirement then seems like a kind of failure.’

Professor Stuart-Hamilton makes an important point. Where are the good role models for retirement? There is no shortage of inspiring images of people in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Meryl Streep and Richard Branson and the entire cast of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel are fine examples, but they are all still working their socks off. It’s great to have such positive images, but the unintentional side effect is to make retired people feel even smaller than they do already. Meanwhile, the standard images of handsome silver foxes and women with stylish grey bobs on pensions adverts bear little relation to what retired people really look like these days. And it’s rare to read positive stories about real retirements in the mainstream media. There’s a gap, which this book sets out to fill.

People have been slow to grasp that what sets retired people apart is a fierce individuality in the way they think and dress and choose to spend their time. That’s because, perhaps for the first time in their lives, they no longer have to conform to the expectations of the workplace, which influence our behaviour more than we like to admit. Retirement is a fantastic opportunity to be yourself.

The people I interviewed for this book have a vitality, an inner spark; they may look their age, they may look younger, but none of them looks like the images of retirement we are fed. Take Geraldine Forster, aka ‘Backpacker Granny’, who travels the world at 73. Before we met I assumed the photograph of the feisty blonde woman in a leather jacket riding a motorbike had been taken a few years ago. I was proved wrong when I met her. Backpacker Granny is an inspiration. She might colour her hair occasionally but she doesn’t need make-up; she’s lit from within by curiosity, an interest in other people, a love of life, basically. And that attitude is a great advantage for anyone when it comes to retirement.

The fashion designer Betty Jackson is equally inspiring. For forty years her whole life revolved around her work; it was her passion, her identity. So when we met to talk about retirement, I was surprised to discover how much she loves it. She explained, ‘We come from that brilliant generation who had it all. If you lived through the Sixties and Seventies why the hell would you ever consider being old? If you wore a mini skirt and burnt your bra and dyed your hair pink you’re certainly not going to wear a woolly hat and shuffle about in your slippers. It’s not about looking younger – I don’t give a toss about that. We were the first generation to have the world at our feet, and we still have. We’re still interested in art and theatre and music and politics because it has always been a huge part of our lives. You don’t give up all of those things when you retire, because they don’t just come with the job. In fact in my experience you actually make more of them.’

Betty is so right. The automatic link between retirement and old age is unhelpful. It totally misses the point and diverts attention from the real issues people face, especially when they first retire, which have nothing to do with ageing. The challenges are to do with change, not age. People in their 50s and 60s don’t see themselves as old. That’s not just vanity; generally speaking they are in better shape than their parents’ generation were at the same age. They have a more upbeat attitude about what lies ahead, and with good reason. When the state pension was introduced in 1948 a person retiring at 65 could expect to live on average another 13.5 years. Now a 65-year-old can expect to live on average for another 22.8 years – well into their eighties.

The latest research recognises that the challenges of retirement are not to do with ageing. It focuses instead on retirement as a major life transition, on a par with leaving home as a young adult, getting divorced, or coping with the empty nest. Dr Sabah Khan, who developed the pre-retirement course for couples at Tavistock Relationships in London, says, ‘Retirement is a transitional stage. You’re too young to be old. It’s also a point in life where you are evaluating where you’ve got to. It’s the same as when parents have just had a new baby.’

This is a new and illuminating way to view retirement. It highlights the way in which qualities like resilience and conscientiousness that people have developed during previous life transitions stand them in good stead for this latest challenge. It points to the need for support during retirement that goes far beyond existing retirement education, which barely scratches the surface. While it’s true that some employers offer retirement courses, most focus almost entirely on pensions and money. That’s important, of course, but there is a growing need for practical and psychological help when it comes to coping with the wider changes. It’s ironic that as retirement gets more complex there is less support than existed thirty-odd years ago, when the whole business was more straightforward.

Like all of life’s big transitions, retirement brings challenges as well as opportunities. It’s stimulating, it questions assumptions about yourself and the world around you, it gets you out of your comfort zone. It forces you to look back and take stock as well as to think hard about your core values and what matters most in the years ahead. And that’s all good, but it may not feel too good when you’re in the middle of it. The positives may take a while to emerge. Retirement is a departure with no destination: you abandon the security and familiarity of the workplace for the unknown, a future where nothing is certain, and it takes time to work out how you fit in. Professor Ellen Langer of Harvard University says, ‘Transitions are typically hard because you’re not where you were and you’re not where you’re going to be. And that is uncomfortable. So given the two things together, that retirement has a bad name, and that this period of transition is to some people necessarily uncomfortable, you have the expectation that retirement is bad, and that it’s going to stay bad. And you drive yourself to bad places.’

What’s daunting is that, perhaps for the first time in your life, it’s entirely up to you whether you make the next phase work. For as long as you can remember there have been people to goad and inspire you: first parents, then teachers, and finally bosses. Now you’ve got no one but yourself to blame if things don’t work out. There are literally no goals apart from the ones you set yourself. There are no qualifications or promotions or pay rises to aim for. You are no longer on automatic pilot.

On a good day that feels liberating, but on a bad day it feels too free, too unstructured. ‘People talk about wanting freedom in life generally,’ says Owen, a semi-retired production manager. ‘But it’s frightening. Work gives you a framework, because you know you’ve got to achieve certain things by a certain time. You’ve got a function. Suddenly it’s all down to you to decide what to do.’ There’s a temptation to retreat straight back into the cage, like a creature released from captivity. Some people do exactly that: after a period of retirement they can’t wait to get back to work. Or they beaver away as hard as they did before, as volunteers or mentors or by acting as consultants. At the other extreme, people cope with the lack of structure by crawling under the metaphorical duvet, and spend their days watching box sets and playing computer games.

It doesn’t help that as yet the road map for negotiating the bewildering new routes through retirement is sketchy. Many of the women taking their pension now are the first generation to retire from full-time employment. In previous generations married women, who usually either were full-time housewives or worked part time, generally accepted that their retirement would be shaped by their husband’s. They often had little control over their future. When my mother retired from part-time teaching, her life was dictated by what my father wanted to do. Sadly, that wasn’t much: he soon sank into deep depression and died in his sixties. After his death my mum upped sticks to live near my brother’s family in Derby. She made the most of her new life, making good friends and loving living near four of her thirteen grandchildren. But my dad’s ill health cast a long shadow. The broadening horizons and new opportunities I’m looking forward to were never on the cards for either of my parents.

At the same time, the certainties that previous generations could rely on, like a fixed retirement age and ‘cliff-edge’ retirement (when people stop work overnight rather than reducing their hours gradually), are disappearing, along with jobs for life. The default retirement age was abolished in 2011, making our generation the first to be legally entitled to carry on working for as long as we choose. Current predictions indicate that my daughter, now in her twenties, may not qualify for her pension until her seventies. That’s a bit of a U-turn since I started work in 1976. ‘“Retirement is good for you”, that was the slogan in the 1980s,’ says Christopher Phillipson, Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology at Manchester University. Because of the economic crisis back then there was a rush to get people out of the workplace through voluntary redundancies, whereas now the drive is to extend working life.

In her 2015 report on baby boomers – the generation born in the years following the Second World War – the Chief Medical Officer threw down the gauntlet when she suggested that people should consider working into their late sixties and even beyond because of the beneficial health effects. The report pointed to promising evidence that staying in ‘good quality work’ may defer the onset of cognitive decline and dementia through continued social engagement. It also highlighted the significant contribution that work can make to self-esteem, and the impact that having control over retirement can have on general health and well-being. Still working at 68 herself, Professor Dame Sally Davies is a shining example of the benefits that staying in ‘good quality’ work can offer people who make a positive choice to continue. ‘Clearly everyone’s ability and desire to continue to work differs; however, those who do want to remain in, or gain, employment should be supported,’ she concluded.

If working into your sixties and beyond is good for you, where does that leave retirement? It seems that a well-deserved rest is no longer on the cards. Surely people who’ve worked in tough jobs deserve a break. Chris, who drove high-speed trains for twenty-five years, chose to retire at 60 so that he could make the most of the next phase. He says, ‘I loved driving trains but I wanted time to myself while I was still young enough and fit enough to enjoy it. As I got into my mid-fifties the irregular shifts were beginning to become more of a strain, and I was worried that they would take a progressively greater toll on my health as I got older. The nature of my work meant that I didn’t feel it was going to be beneficial to my well-being to carry on into my sixties.’

The main thing I learned from talking to people for this book is that everyone responds in different and often unexpected ways to retirement. So while expert opinion and, indeed, common sense indicate that people who work long hours in high-status jobs will find retirement hardest, that’s not always borne out by reality. People who loved their work, like David, often love retirement just as much. Yet friends of his are struggling. ‘People say: you worked in telly, you must miss it. But I really don’t. I had thirty-two years of great fun but there are more things in heaven and earth. I don’t just cope with retirement, I relish it. People constantly ask how do I fill the day? Every day is a delight. When I stopped work life became full of yes-es. Yes, we can go to a gallery on Thursday, I can take my drawing more seriously, I can spend more time cooking. Little simple pleasures that I couldn’t do when I was working a fourteen-hour day with little downtime.

‘I’m very aware how fortunate I am, because I’ve seen friends and acquaintances go downhill quite quickly when they retire. I’ve got a chum who’s really withering. He’s aged ten years since he stopped work two years ago. He’s depressed, he’s been to the doctor for sleeping pills. He’s younger than me, well qualified and intelligent, but somehow he didn’t have the wherewithal to build on what he had and make something of it, or simply enjoy the freedom to do nothing. It’s so sad because he’s missing out on so much.’

My poor dad sank into a similar slough of despond. My hope when I embarked on this book was that I might discover ways to help people who get stuck in the way he did to find a way out, and to stop them going downhill in the first place. A tall order, I realise. But the many men and women who share their experiences in this book provide plenty of food for thought. Clues came as much from the people who struggled through dark times and wrestled with difficult emotions as they did from the handful who have found retirement a joy from the start.

They all confirmed my original hunch that it’s not enough to offer pat suggestions to volunteer or find a new hobby or stay active. For most of us, the search for new purpose and structure is more complicated and requires deep soul-searching. Many people go through a chrysalis of uncertainty before things fall into place. Mark Vernon, a psychotherapist at the Maudsley Hospital’s Older Adults’ Unit in London, says, ‘Maybe retirement is a struggle, maybe you wonder what on earth you’re going to do now, maybe you feel lonely for a while. But it’s in tolerating that period of uncertainty that you re-form yourself as a person.’

Skills and qualities people have naturally developed by this stage in life stand them in good stead, according to Oliver Robinson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Greenwich University, whose research focuses on major life transitions, including retirement. ‘The range of experiences in retirement varies from euphoric all the way through to deeply depressed, and everything in between. There is certainly no singular response. There are personal qualities that are helpful, and they can all be learned. Our study on personality and retirement found that conscientiousness, which is broadly the capacity to plan and be self-motivated, is more important in retirement than earlier in life. That’s the sort of trait that can be learned: managing your time and setting goals and prioritising.’

I’ve structured the main body of this book around the eight keys to success, as I see them, based on what people have told me about their experiences of retirement: making the right decisions; preparation; purpose; adjusting to change; new identity and status; good health; spending wisely; and relationships. The remaining chapters deal with where to live and who to live with, spirituality and grandchildren.

For train driver Chris, the key was a proactive approach to preparing for the change ahead. He is now in his fifth year of retirement and determined to squeeze the most out of every precious minute. ‘When I took my driver’s key out for the last time the thought that I would never drive out on the main line again, rolling along through the countryside, did give me a twinge of regret. But the overwhelming feeling was “Good, the time has arrived, I can now look forward to a new phase of my life.” A few days later I went on holiday with my wife; it was a lovely sunny week in Dorset. Walking on the coast path I thought, this is the start of the rest of my life. This is my time now. That was a really, really wonderful feeling. With the right approach retirement can be one of the best times of your life.’

TOP TEN RETIREMENT ANXIETIES

According to Tony Clack, who ran LaterLife retirement planning courses for fifteen years, these are the things people worry about most:

• Health

• Money

• Relationship with partner

• Loss of identity/self-esteem/confidence

• Boredom and lack of purpose

• Lack of structure

• Loss of skills because they are no longer being used

From my own research I would add:

• Brain health and staying mentally sharp

• Having nothing to talk about

• Depression

QUALITIES THAT MAKE FOR A GOOD RETIREMENT

• Resilience

• Adaptability

• Flexibility

• Open-mindedness

• Self-efficacy: a ‘Yes I can’ attitude

1

Decisions

There are big decisions to be made when you retire, not just about what to do with the next twenty or thirty years, but about how and when to stop work. There’s so much choice, and the onus is increasingly on the individual to make the right decisions. Of the following retirement options, which is best? Phased in: reducing your hours gradually by working part time before leaving work completely? Cliff edge: stopping work overnight? Portfolio: a mixture of part-time, consultancy, self-employment and/or voluntary work? Should I defer my pension? Should I take it as a lump sum, or as an annuity, or draw down? The new flexibility in pensions has made decision-making more complicated and it’s hard to feel confident about making the right choices without guidance.

Where to live, how to spend your time and how to use your pension are covered in later chapters. This chapter deals with the two fundamental issues that need to be addressed before you retire:

• When to retire

• How to retire: whether to opt for old-style cliff-edge retirement, or for a gradual, phased version.

Retirement has changed dramatically. When the retirement age was fixed at 65 for men and 60 for women, the decisions about when and how to retire were made for you. Everyone knew when they were due to stop work; the date lurked reliably in the back of the mind, shaping your working life. And when the golden handshake finally came, there you were at your leaving party one day, and the next you’d fallen off the proverbial cliff and straight on to the sofa, slippers at the ready. Easing into retirement by gradually reducing your hours was virtually unheard of.

These days, if you don’t want to retire, or can’t afford to, you can postpone it, indefinitely if you like. In 2011 the law did away with the default retirement age for all but a few occupations. In theory we can all carry on until we drop. The numbers choosing to work on after 65 have doubled to a record 1.19 million over the past ten years.

There is also more choice about how you go into retirement. People are no longer stuck with the traditional cliff-edge model; working part time, either for a new employer or for yourself, is now seen as a legitimate part of ‘retirement’, and you have the right to ask your employer if you can work part time or flexibly – although they have the right to turn you down.

Owen, a production manager, spent a long time agonising about whether to retire at 65 or to keep going for another couple of years. Money was a big part of his anxiety, because he was still supporting two daughters in full-time education. In the end he decided to start winding down by going freelance. He says, ‘The decisions I’ve made in the past haven’t always been good ones. So I’m more risk averse than I used to be. I was very nervous about making another bad decision, and then finding that it would be difficult to unpick. I kept thinking, have I done the right thing? Should I have carried on another two years? You wish there was someone else helping you decide these things, but suddenly it’s all over to you. My partner and I went for pre-retirement counselling, and that made me feel much more confident that I’d made the right decision.’

It’s generally agreed that greater choice and control over when and how they go into retirement gives people a head start. Research shows that the extent to which the retirement decision is voluntary is key in determining how well people adjust. A sense of control is important to well-being because it allows the individual to pursue their own agenda into this new stage of life and plan for the changes that lie ahead.

But while in theory people have more control over their retirement these days, that’s not always the reality. Sometimes the decision is taken out of your hands. Some people can’t afford to retire. Others are forced into early retirement by redundancy or ill health or caring responsibilities. Employers may exert subtle – or not-so-subtle – pressure, perhaps by sidelining workers into jobs they don’t want to do. One 65-year-old woman I know is in the unenviable position of having been asked to leave even though she is desperate to stay in the job she loves. Knowing that it’s her right to stay doesn’t make her situation any easier, although any employee who believes they’ve been treated unfairly can take their case to an employment tribunal. Several studies have shown that people who felt forced to retire went on to have generally lower levels of well-being.

It’s not always easy to find a new job at sixty-plus. As one former senior manager told me bitterly, ‘On the one hand the system is saying you’re not retired, we won’t make you pensionable. On the other it’s bloody hard to get a job.’ Yet she is highly qualified and experienced and has never had problems finding work throughout her illustrious forty-year career. She’s not alone in the predicament she finds herself in now. There is a growing awareness that as the state pension age continues to rise, many workers, particularly those in tough manual jobs, will need to retrain.

Greater choice is welcome, but without the right support and advice, it’s a poisoned chalice. The trend towards greater individual responsibility in retirement throughout the developed world puts the onus on individuals to make decisions they often feel ill-equipped to make. Chris Phillipson, Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology at Manchester University, says, ‘In the past there was certainty. Now you don’t know when or how you’re going to retire. One of the challenges of the present time is that people are often being pushed into an unpredictable environment. Perhaps they don’t want to work, or they would prefer a different type of work, or are considering self-employment. These are big decisions to make, all of which pose risks – especially for those with limited resources to manage their retirement. The stakes are quite high.’

Yet these days you’re lucky if your employer offers a one-day pre-retirement course. It seems strange that in the days when retirement planning was relatively simple there was more help on offer from various sources, including employers and further education colleges. Now that the need is much greater, because retirement choices are increasingly complex, there is much less advice available on making difficult decisions about timing and coping with the change.

WHEN TO RETIRE

When it comes to decisions about the timing of retirement, the biggest factor for most people is money, and how their pension will be affected by the date they stop work. If redundancy is on the cards, the possibility of a lucrative package often prompts people to think about retiring earlier than they’d anticipated. In the end it often comes down to a tussle between time and money. In this respect it’s enlightening to hear how people who’ve been retired for several years view their decision with the benefit of hindsight. One of the most common regrets when people look back on their lives is that they worked too hard. Graham, 70, who retired when he was 62, says: ‘If I had my time again I wouldn’t have worked that extra year, even though I got more money by staying on. Time is much more important than money. I’ve realised that as my perspective has changed. At 60 you think you’ve got forever, you just carry on as normal. But when you get to 70 you’re more aware of your mortality, and you realise how precious time is.’

Timing – together with feeling ready for the next stage – is crucial. It’s the same with other big changes in life: if the time is right, you approach them with enthusiasm and energy. Karen’s decision to take early retirement meant losing half her pension, but ultimately she decided that the pay-off – freedom and time to fulfil her ambition to set up as a hypnotherapist – was worth it. Five years on she has a mixed portfolio, backing up the income from her hypnotherapy business with temping for an agency. She loves her new life. ‘I had all my hopes pinned on early redundancy. When my application was turned down it was a huge blow. In a fit of temper I booked a week-long F**k It! retreat in Tuscany.

‘That week turned out to be the catalyst: it gave me the absolute certainty that I wasn’t staying at work, whatever happened with my pension. Money was a major concern; I was really worried about losing my regular income. But the retreat helped me to work out my priorities; it made me ask important questions about whether I was devoting enough time to the things that mattered to me, and what I would find genuinely fulfilling, and how important money was in all this. It was clear that my job wasn’t allowing me to participate in all the things I wanted to. Once I’d made the decision to retire I stopped feeling scared. Colleagues kept telling me I was mad because taking early retirement meant losing half my pension. But I just thought: you’ve made this decision, go with it.’

These days you don’t have to retire until it suits you. You don’t have to stay with the same employer; you could find work elsewhere, or have a go at being self-employed. But don’t leave it too late if you don’t want to miss out on making the most of life after work. The main argument for retiring in your mid-sixties or earlier is that there’s plenty of time, and you’ll arguably have more energy, to launch into a whole new direction – if that’s what you want to do. Meanwhile, the major downside of delaying retirement is that your late sixties might feel too late to embark on something big. After years in a demanding job, many people are either worn out or want a change. It’s one argument against raising the state pension age, which is currently 65 for men and, from November 2018, 65 for women. The UK government plans to raise it for both men and women to 66 by 2020, to 67 by 2028, and 68 by 2039.

Decisions about timing aren’t just about money, and they are as individual as retirement itself. People are influenced by all kinds of random factors, from health scares to memories of their parents’ retirements. A vet I once met told me he had always set his sights on retiring at 65, but everything changed when his wife was diagnosed with cancer when they were in their early fifties. Together they decided that he would bring his retirement date forward to 60. It’s a decision they have never regretted.

It often comes down to a combination of circumstances, both negative – such as difficult colleagues, or a gruelling commute – and positive, such as a burning ambition to set off in a new direction. Fashion designer Betty Jackson, who ran her highly successful company for over thirty years with her French husband, David, says: ‘We decided to make the business dormant because of a sequence of events that we hadn’t seen coming. It meant that I was in danger of falling out of love with what I did, and that would have been awful. I sometimes think I could have gone on another year, but what finally clinched it was that I had two close friends who both died of cancer that year. It was totally devastating. And of course it gives you pause for thought about your own health. It all came together in one particular moment and it was obvious what we had to do. It was important that we were in control of making the decision and the timing of the whole thing, which took about eighteen months. I would have hated it being thrust on me.’

Trust your instinct

It may sound strange, but some of the best retirement decisions are not entirely rational. It goes against what everyone tells you about carefully considering all the options, but sometimes a risk pays off. By this stage in life, with years of rich experience behind us, we’re in a good position to trust our instincts. If you follow your heart, things often fall uncannily into place, as they did for Penny. An impetuous decision to stop work eventually led to a life of deep contentment and daily challenge on a co-housing scheme in Lancaster.

‘By 2003 I had got to the stage where I’d had enough of working for other people and wanted to move away from Norfolk, where I’d brought up my two children. I really felt I’d got to the end of the road. I was in the middle of a freelance contract writing a technical report for the Soil Association and without really thinking about the implications I happened to ask a colleague if he felt like taking it on. It never occurred to me that he would say yes, but incredibly he did.

‘I went home that night thinking, that’s put me on the spot. What am I going to do now? That evening I went to a meeting of the local organic growers’ club and said to the room “I don’t suppose anyone needs a house to rent?” By another amazing fluke a hand went up and someone said yes. So that was all fixed. I had no plan at all. I had just four weeks to get my act together and get rid of stuff. That was a wonderful month, because it was a kind of closure opportunity. But you have to be at the right moment, and I was. I was ready to leave it all.

‘I enrolled on a master’s course in Lancaster and moved up here. It was pretty much the only plan that presented itself. It helped that I was offered a houseshare by an acquaintance who was also going to Lancaster to do an MA. I’ve never looked back. I’ve been in the area ever since, and it led to a whole new direction in my life. It was a leap in the dark, but at the same time it felt like lots of different things led me to the same place.’

HOW TO RETIRE: CLIFF EDGE OR EASE IN GRADUALLY?

There are three main ways to approach retirement:

• Cliff edge: the traditional way;

• Phased retirement through a reduced workload with your existing employer;

• Phased retirement through new part-time work or becoming self-employed.

These days, cliff-edge retirement is often dismissed as too sudden, a bad start. A more gradual transition via part-time work is widely seen as a less traumatic way of adjusting to such a big life change. But there are arguments in favour of both approaches, and it’s worth going beyond the assumptions and looking into what would suit your personality and individual circumstances.

Cliff edge

On paper, stopping work overnight sounds like a seriously bad idea, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s true that many retirements get off to a bad start when the change is too sudden. Yet the surprising truth is that for many other people it works very well. Lily, who took early retirement from the Department for Work and Pensions in Sheffield, says, ‘You remember that wonderful feeling when you were a child and the summer holidays seemed to stretch in front of you endlessly? That’s how I felt the day after I left work. It was almost as if I’d been given a gift. I’d suddenly been given time and freedom. To begin with it felt like annual leave. But after a few weeks there was the realisation that I didn’t have to go back. This is it now. This is normal life. It felt wonderful.’

The key to making cliff-edge retirement work is preparing for it (see here). Chris Phillipson, Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology at Manchester University, says, ‘The assumption that cliff edge is bad is just that – an assumption. It may not be bad if you’re supported, it may well be bad if there is no support. Nowadays most people have been thinking about retirement and preparing for it before it comes up. So it might be a cliff edge in one sense, but not in a psychological sense. Governments like to use the phrase now because they want to extend working life. There was nothing about “cliff edge” retirement in the 1980s when they wanted to get rid of people. “Retirement is good for you”, that was the slogan in the 1980s.’

Phased retirement

It seems entirely sensible to have a period, lasting anything from several months to many years, in which to wean yourself off work by reducing your hours gradually. There are two ways to do this: either by negotiating phased retirement with your employer, or by leaving your full-time job and finding new part-time work or self-employment. The idea is that you get used to having less money slowly. Meanwhile, winding down at work allows time to experiment with different possibilities that you might pursue in retirement, to join classes and sign up for courses and dip your toe in whatever you fancy. These provide continuity when you give up work completely, which helps people cope with the transition.

Research suggests that retiring gradually is associated with a more successful adjustment. One study of American retirees who were taking phased retirement found that it maintained their sense of status, gave their life meaning, and kept them connected to the social networks of work. It can also contribute to the sense of control that everyone agrees is the key to a good retirement. Crucially it makes it feel like a new beginning rather than the end of an era: a destination with all kinds of new possibilities, as well as a departure. For One Born Every Minute midwife Linda Abbott, transitioning into retirement via part-time work offered the best of both worlds: less responsibility and stress, and continued contact with mothers, which was the side of her work she had always loved the most. She originally had her hopes pinned on the ‘Retire and Return’ scheme the hospital trust had operated, but it was discontinued just as she planned to retire (though it has since been reinstated). So she felt she had little option but to give up work completely. However, she missed the mothers so much that within months she found herself back on the delivery suite doing part-time agency work and ended up applying for a part-time job there.

Irene, an administrative assistant, has a more mixed view. She gradually reduced her workload from five days a week to one over the course of ten years. I met her two months before she retired completely, and she said, ‘On the whole it’s been good. But I have to admit that at times working part time was very stressful, particularly when I was down to two days a week; I ended up trying to do a week’s work in those two days, and I had the phone round my neck all the time, even when I was at home.

‘If I had retired suddenly it wouldn’t have given me a chance to see what I’m going to do with my time. It’s taken me a while to find new clubs and classes I really like and activities I want to do. Now I’m in the swing of it I’m really looking forward to retiring. Also, if I’d gone for cliff-edge retirement the money would have been cut off straight away. As it is I’ve gradually got used to not spending so much.’

In companies where phased retirement is not yet established, individuals may have to be proactive in negotiating flexible arrangements. It’s hardly surprising that many people take the easier option of sticking with the status quo. Professor Phillipson explains, ‘The government would like to see more phased retirement, but it’s not clear that employers are offering this on any significant scale. As a result, people don’t take it up, even if they would like it.

‘Phased retirement can be difficult because your position in the workplace is immediately changed. You’re half in and half out. Some people are comfortable with the changed relationship they have with colleagues, but some aren’t. If that’s the case they are dragging out a change they might be best doing straight away.’

As Professor Phillipson points out, phased retirement is not without its flaws. For some people it turns out to be an unsatisfactory limbo, where they end up with a foot in both camps, with not enough time or energy to give full attention to either of them. These concerns are echoed by Anthony, an infants’ school head whose career culminated in a two-year period of phased retirement, working three days a week, which started when he was 59. During those two years he worked closely with his successor to make sure the handover went smoothly. Looking back three years later he has mixed feelings, saying:

‘It was very important to me that I was in control of the process of going into retirement. That’s why I chose phased retirement. But I don’t think I would do it again. It sounded like a good idea to have two years to get used to the idea of retirement, but those two free days a week were less helpful in preparing for the time when I was fully retired than I had imagined they would be. Although the workload was lower, the level of responsibility wasn’t that different. Even on the days when I wasn’t at work, I was always thinking about work and I still felt responsible for the place. There was always going back to work to think about, and sometimes I’d get a call from school needing something. That meant I didn’t get round to developing new stuff to do when I stopped work completely. But it was helpful in that I began to relax without too much of a financial hit before I fully retired.’

Mixed portfolio

What’s increasingly popular is a mixture of part-time work, paid or unpaid consultancy and volunteering, which hopefully leaves time to have fun too! You can see why people like it: the balance between the different elements continually evolves with each new stage of retirement. There’s a flexibility that allows people to shift the balance between their different activities as their priorities change and develop. Reducing your workload in your main career is a good way of moving gradually into a mixed portfolio.

SELF-EMPLOYED WORKERS

Ask someone who is already self-employed about retirement and they’ll give you a wry smile. ‘Retire? What’s that?’ they say. Self-employed workers, like parents who’ve combined part-time work with bringing up their kids, are a special case when it comes to decisions about retirement. For them the moment of stopping work is less clear-cut.

Many of them never retire fully. It’s not just that they can’t afford to, although that may be part of it, since freelancers often don’t have great pension provision. Freelancers are notoriously bad at turning down offers of work. The habit of saying yes is hard to break, and so retirement keeps getting put off. It’s too easy to drift from one project to the next, your retirement date a distant mirage that’s always just beyond your grasp.

The problem is that if your head is in work mode most of the time, there’s no room to imagine yourself into your new future and make coherent plans. Freelancers have a natural reluctance to commit to a regular class or volunteering, just in case a job comes in. And that might hold them back from exploring new options. There’s a danger of getting stuck between two stools: unsure whether to actively look for paid work or whether to throw yourself into new activities. It’s an unsettling kind of limbo.

But if it’s managed well, self-employment can offer the best of both worlds: the opportunity to keep doing work you enjoy while building a new future. Being your own boss has many advantages. It should allow you to tailor-make your own flexible route into retirement because in theory you have more control over the projects you take on and how many hours you work.

One solution is to work out a realistic new routine for your personalised version of phased retirement: three days working, two days off, for example. Meanwhile, on free days it should be possible to find flexible opportunities for volunteering or learning, which will provide continuity and carry you through to retirement.

IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND

It’s not uncommon to stop work and then realise it was a mistake, that you’re not quite ready to retire completely. Fortunately, these days one of the best things about retirement is its flexibility. Nothing is set in stone. It should be possible to find part-time work, perhaps by going back to your old employer, as midwife Linda Abbott did. In many ways a false start into retirement provides the perfect opportunity to find out what it really feels like, what you miss about work and what you need to be fulfilled.

That’s how it was for Alex, who unexpectedly found a new part-time job exactly a year after she took early retirement when she was made redundant. She had assumed her paid working life was over, but things turned out very differently: ‘I never expected to get another job; in fact I was looking for volunteering work when I saw the advert for this one. I just bunged in an application and didn’t think for a minute they’d want someone as old as me. Looking back, that year was very productive, although it didn’t feel like it at the time: I was often bored and at a loose end. I think I needed that space to let go of my old working life. That year helped me to see what I should be looking for when I retire the next time. I started doing things I enjoy, and because I’m now part-time I can still do them on my days off. It was like dipping my toe in the water. I recognised what I lacked and what I missed. It’s about knowing the things that are important to you from day to day and making sure you’ve got those in your life.’

DECIDING WHEN AND HOW TO RETIRE

• Find out how your pension will be affected if you take it early, later or on the due date. With some schemes it is possible to keep topping up the pension pot beyond pension age; with others it’s not.

• Check whether your pension will be affected by a reduction in hours.

• If you work past state pension age you can still take your state pension.

• If family and friends look horrified when you mention retirement, don’t take too much notice. Of course their views matter, but it’s your time, not theirs. They may be buying into old ideas about retirement.

• If you want or need to keep earning, make a realistic list of possibilities.

• Look into big projects you want to pursue, such as setting up a new business. How realistic is it to build up to them while working part time? Do you need to retrain or make other preparations? Make a realistic assessment of how long that will take.

• If you have a partner, discuss decisions with them. It sounds obvious, but not everyone does, and it can be a source of conflict.

• Take a break: go on a holiday or a retreat – something that takes you away from your normal routine and allows an objective look.

• If phased-in retirement is not the norm where you work, start putting feelers out as early as possible.

• Remember, retirement now is flexible, and most decisions are reversible. If it turns out you’ve stopped work too early, there are ways to go back.

PENSIONS: TIMING

The state pension

The state pension changed on 6 April 2016. If you reached state pension age before that date your pension will continue to be paid under the old system. If you reach state pension age after that date, new rules apply. To qualify for the full state pension you need thirty-five years of National Insurance contributions. People with fewer contributions get an amount based on the number of years they have paid NI. If it’s less than ten years, people usually don’t qualify.

Four months before you reach state pension age you can apply to claim it. You should be notified of the date in advance. You can claim your state pension even if you carry on working.

Deferring the state pension

If you don’t claim it, your state pension will be automatically deferred. You have the option to draw the deferred pension as a taxable lump sum or receive a higher income for life. Deferring your pension could increase the payments you get when you do claim it but extra amounts could be taxable.

Personal pensions

With many schemes, you choose the date when you think you will want to take your pension – your ‘selected retirement date’. You can usually start drawing your personal pension from the age of 55. This is increasing to 57 in line with the rise in state pension age to 67. You don’t have to stop work. You might be able to delay accessing your pension pot beyond your selected retirement date, or the scheme’s normal retirement date, but check whether restrictions apply. You may also be able to build up your pension pot further.

Workplace pensions

Most workplace pension schemes set a ‘normal retirement age’ at which most people are expected to take their benefits. It may be possible to take your pension earlier or later, although there may be restrictions and/or penalties. Different rules apply, depending on whether your pension is in a defined contribution scheme or a defined benefit (final salary) scheme. Generally speaking, the longer you leave the money and continue to pay into the scheme, the higher the income will be when you choose to take it. Some schemes set a maximum age, usually 75, by which you have to draw your pension.

Part-time work

If you reduce your working hours it may be possible to take your pension benefits from a personal pension scheme to provide extra income. However, the rules on drawing benefits from a workplace pension scheme vary, and a reduction in working hours may have an impact. It’s also important to consider your tax situation, because pensions are taxed as earned income.

NATIONAL INSURANCE CONTRIBUTIONS

If you work past state pension age you don’t have to pay Class 1 or Class 2 National Insurance contributions. The rules are different if you’re self-employed. If you remain in self-employment after reaching state pension age you may still need to pay Class 4 contributions on any taxable profits for the year in which you reach state pension age. You should not be required to pay contributions in subsequent tax years.

2

Preparing

One of the best feelings in the world is having loads of things you’re looking forward to doing when you’re less busy. The only problem is that when you finally have time on your hands you’ve either forgotten what they were or they’ve lost their appeal. That’s why it’s a good idea to pin your ideas down by thinking ahead and planning and taking up new activities that will provide continuity.

Some retirement plans require a lot of advance preparation: taking a camper van round Europe, for example, or setting up a business. But even if you don’t have a big scheme in your sights, taking practical steps to prepare for the future will naturally prompt a new way of thinking about the years ahead. It’s this all-important psychological shift of gear that gets you imagining a life beyond full-time work and allows new ideas to enter the frame.

Preparing for the future in this way puts you in a more creative mindset about the next stage, making you receptive to new possibilities. Your antennae are alert to interesting ideas on the radio or newspaper that might well lead to possibilities for you to pursue. Often ideas come in roundabout ways from the most random sources. It’s a good idea to make a detailed list that includes big projects and adventures as well as daily pleasures. On my list at the moment are: dig a bigger pond; start a craft stall; spend a weekend in Saltburn; take a refresher driving course; volunteer for the local food bank; write to my cousin.

Coming up with a vision of what you want to do next gives you the control you need at a time of change and upheaval. Retirement is uncharted territory: for a huge part of our lives until now we’ve worked towards the next milestone on the horizon: the next exam, the summer holidays, the first job, the promotion. Suddenly, however, the canvas is blank. Planning and preparation help deal with uncertainty and the anxieties that lurk in its wake. At the same time a key aspect of the whole preparation process is getting your head round the notion of letting go of work. Accepting that you’re winding down and handing over, even if you’re still giving 100 per cent, will make room for the new sides of life to flourish and grow.

Former train driver Chris started psyching himself up to retire at 60 when he was in his mid-fifties: ‘I began to think about how I would cope, not only financially but from a point of view of not having the discipline of going to work every day and having to fill your time in a different way. When I was working I didn’t have time to find new interests, but I had always tried to achieve what’s now called a good work/life balance. I focused on making sure I had ways of keeping in contact with friends at work, because I knew that would be a really important aspect of retirement for me. While I was still at work a group of friends formed a walking club which still meets regularly. We all make a concerted effort to keep in touch and to enjoy the hobbies we all do. Some of us are members of CAMRA, so we visit real-ale pubs and beer festivals around the country. And of course we’re all railway enthusiasts, so we spend a lot of time going to the preserved railways.’

Giving up work is a massive change, and if you aren’t prepared for it, it can hit you hard. Time slips through your fingers, you lose momentum, and confidence tends to ebb away. When Alex was plunged into retirement from her local council earlier than she’d anticipated, at the age of 62, she’d had little time to reflect beforehand on what retirement would really mean, and ended up just giving it a whirl and seeing how it went. Looking back, she can see how it would have been wiser to have taken time to prepare:

‘I’ve got one friend who retired in what I now see was an exemplary way. She planned for about a year before, handed in her notice in good time and basically took control of the whole process. She had loads of things lined up already and was kind of semi-living that life or certainly thinking about living that life well before she did it. And I think it was largely because of that mental preparation that she’s taken to retirement like a duck to water.

‘I did the opposite. I just stopped. I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t know what I was going to do, I didn’t have anything I particularly wanted to do. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn’t it? It wasn’t a total disaster. I wouldn’t say I was depressed, exactly, but I did start to think, Why do anything? Why live? What am I here for? My friend thought I was having an existential crisis, and I think she was probably right!’

Jean retired from the police force in 2002, when she was 50. She now thinks it was a big mistake not to have prepared herself both emotionally and practically. ‘I was very naïve, looking back. I had not given any thought to a life after policing, or made any plans for my retirement. Even when I received the Federation advisory package on best ways to invest and requests for uniform returns, I read them a bit dismissively and put them to one side. So my retirement didn’t get off to a very good start.’

WHEN TO START MAKING PLANS

The ideal time to start thinking yourself into your new life is a couple of years before you stop work or go part time. Developing interests and social networks that will continue after you stop work is widely acknowledged to be the key to success, because they provide a link between life before and after retirement.

Psychology lecturer Oliver Robinson, an expert on life transitions, says, ‘One of the main things that makes retirement easier is to develop a hinterland, a second side of life. A non-work activity with a social element acts as a form of continuity, particularly if you’ve taken it up quite a long way before retirement, so that it’s bedded in. It stays the same during a period when a lot of things are changing. This is invariably a profound source of positivity for people, a constant source of support when so much is changing.’

It’s worth getting a head start by looking at options for part-time work or volunteering that might interest you in the future, and finding out the skills and experience you might need to build up. Then if you need training there’s plenty of time to set things up. Many experts believe planning should start even earlier. As life expectancy and the pension age rise, there is a powerful argument for developing more strings to your bow in terms of skills and qualifications, as well as non-work interests, early on in life. Tony Chiva, former head of education and training at the Pre-Retirement Association, which sadly no longer exists, argues that with part-time work increasingly seen as a legitimate part of retirement, people need to start thinking proactively well in advance. He says, ‘It’s good to plan for retirement in midlife. If people want to stay in work longer there are things you need to do throughout your career to enable that, to maintain flexibility, to make sure you can switch and gain new experience and qualifications.’

It’s not just work-related skills, it’s also broader interests that enable people to get the most out of retirement. Graham started thinking about retirement earlier than most people. During his twenties and thirties he worked in Canada, where people had already bought into the importance of a healthy work/life balance. It set him in good stead to make the most of his retirement: ‘In those days Canadian men were much more active, both when they were working and when they were retired, right into their late seventies. At the time that was a big contrast to British men. That’s where I took up sailing, golf and tennis – all with a view to carrying them on later in life.

‘When I moved back to England I was very aware that if you wanted to get to the top there wasn’t time to keep up those kind of interests. But I wasn’t prepared to give them up. I’d learned from my dad’s experience. We took him to the local bowling club when he retired, but it was too late, he needed to have done that twenty years earlier to get more of a balance in his life rather than just work.’

SOURCES OF HELP

As retirement gets more complex, and with conventional pre-retirement education thin on the ground, there is growing interest in developing alternative ways to prepare people for the transition. Research for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, an international charity that funds cultural, educational and social research and innovation, found that many people who retire currently receive little guidance or support. The foundation’s Transitions in Later Life programme collaborates with pioneers in the field to develop examples of best practice in ways of planning successful retirements. It funds innovative pilot schemes, including couples counselling at Tavistock Relationships, and workshops which use a variety of practices, such as coaching, mindfulness, exercise and storytelling. Coach David Martin of the Centre for Policy on Ageing co-delivers one of the pilot programmes with storyteller Hannah McDowall: ‘There is currently little support for the adjustment from work to retirement, let alone to encourage and nurture people to raise the bar and maximise their opportunities,’ he says. ‘Coaching gets people focused on what they want, why they want it and how to get it. It provides structure, encouragement and motivation, as well as a logical framework for making decisions. The coach never offers advice but helps through critical listening to identify practical processes to bring about change.’

In other situations coaching is usually delivered one to one, but in these group workshops coaching tools merge with storytelling to help participants clarify the changes they want to happen and examine beliefs about themselves and their careers that could hold them back. They are encouraged to think about peak experiences in their lives when they’ve been in ‘flow’, fully engaged and in the moment. These provide powerful touchstones to what energises them.

Storytelling allows people to come to their own conclusions about the big change ahead. The process of listening to stories about real experiences of retirement and then gathering and sharing their own stories inspires people to question and reflect on what they want from the next stage. Through the stories that connect with them, and the things they admire about others’ experiences, people form their own ideas and strategies.

Hannah McDowall explains why storytelling can be so effective: ‘What retirement looks like now is very fluid, and it’s emerging. So to start pinning it down doesn’t feel quite right. Stories help people to understand the great diversity of what this stage of life might look like. It allows them to see the rich textured experience of how another person reacted to what happened to them when they retired. If we can imagine something through a story it’s much more real than abstract concepts. That’s why we use story rather than saying “these are the key things that happen in retirement”.

‘Much of what we do is about trying to normalise the conversation about retirement. People have conversations about their first job or having a baby, but it’s less common to talk about what their working life has meant and what they want to carry from that into the future. It’s important to acknowledge that this is a big shift; things are changing. What might it be like? What might I be nervous about or excited about?’

But despite occasional glimmers of hope, provision of pre-retirement education remains patchy. Only a handful of the sixty-odd people I spoke to for this book received any retirement planning from their employer. Chris Phillipson, Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology at Manchester University, suspects there’s a good reason for this: ‘From a cynical point of view it’s tempting to say the lack of retirement education is because we’re trying to extend people’s working lives, and therefore we’re not encouraging them to think about retirement. We’ve moved towards a period where retirement is being contested as an important social institution. In fact we’ve almost gone back to the old idea that it’s a small appendage after a lengthy period in the workplace.

‘The situation now is that pre-retirement education is pretty non-existent except in a few places. And crucially it’s by and large financial education, it’s not retirement education. In a way financial education should nest into a broader discussion about how you’re going to live your life and find new purpose. That’s what is important.’

If it’s going to respond to the complexities of 21st-century retirement, the ideal course needs to cover a huge amount of ground. There is also a powerful argument for preparing much earlier in life, so that there is plenty of time to retrain and build a variety of interests. People need practical information on retraining, setting up a small business or consultancy, and building a portfolio that combines part-time work and volunteering. But they also need help in making the psychological transition, renegotiating relationships and finding a new purpose, which may require some deep soul-searching.

That’s because once people start thinking about retirement, and how to find meaning beyond paid work, it naturally leads them to explore more deeply what they want out of life. Indeed, gaining a better understanding of what really makes you tick puts you in a better position to make decisions about what to do next. This seems to me to be one of the most exciting aspects of retirement. It feels like a huge privilege to have the time and mental space to explore issues that most people have been too busy and preoccupied to give much attention to before.

The advantage of a course, or coaching or counselling, is that it allows you to step back and take a clear look at your life and what you want with the help of an objective outsider. It’s an opportunity to test out the reality of your dreams and work out ways of fulfilling them, and also to face up to your fears about retirement. And it’s likely to make you re-examine your priorities and introduce new possibilities you might not otherwise have thought of. For Owen, a pragmatic problem-solver, a couples MOT prompted a dramatic shift of perspective. He says, ‘All I’d been thinking about was money and travel and practicalities, in quite a restrictive way. Couples counselling made me stop seeing retirement as a series of problems. I began to feel there was something to look forward to in retirement, which I hadn’t experienced before.’

Tony Clack, who ran LaterLife retirement courses for fifteen years, puts the focus on finding new structure and purpose. ‘The course gets people thinking about the right choices for them by working through a series of exercises that narrow down the options and make the whole thing feel more manageable. We get people to ask whether a particular activity will help them achieve five key things: keep fit physically and mentally; grow their social network; use their money wisely; enjoyment.’

Group courses have the benefit of shared experience. Hearing what other people in the same position as you have to say about their feelings, hopes and plans can be both reassuring and inspiring. Margot Henderson runs innovative courses for people over 50 in the Scottish Highlands offered by the Workers’ Education Association, which draw on reflective writing, mindfulness and movement. She says, ‘There is an amazing sense of relief at a shared experience that is incredibly supportive for people. The feeling that “I’m not alone, this is the nature of the territory, we’re all in it together” can be unexpected, and makes people feel much more confident about the future. Practising yoga stretches and gentle qigong movements helps the body to age well and stay supple. Flexibility in the body contributes to flexibility in the mind.’

DIY RETIREMENT PLANNING

It’s perfectly possible to work out your own plans for retirement without going on a course. It’s best if you can set aside a time, just as you would if you were taking a course or seeing a coach. It helps to have a few guidelines and be quite disciplined about following them.

Friends who are already retired or semi-retired can be a great source of advice and inspiration. It goes without saying that you have to choose wisely who you listen to: those who bang on about their genius grandchildren or the wicked time they’re having on Tinder are no use at all. People can be just as competitive about their retirements as they are about anything else in life! But you can learn a lot from talking to others about what’s worked for them and what they’ve found hard. Word of mouth is a fantastic way to pick up new ideas and build up local knowledge and contacts.

A few years ago I heard about a friend of a friend who took retirement planning into her own hands. Margaret was still working full time as a lawyer (and today at 69 she’s still working two days a week) when she and her husband, James, decided the only way to hammer out their often conflicting views of the future was to spend a weekend in a hotel discussing their plans in detail. What intrigued me was that by the end of the weekend their dreams for retirement had changed dramatically.

Margaret calls the process ‘visioning’, which is a bit like coaching but without the coach. You do it yourself, basically. Just writing down the age you’ll be in ten years’ time is a powerful way of focusing your thoughts. I reckon it could work just as well for friends as for couples. The perfect companion would be a good friend who is also approaching retirement, a sounding board you can rely on to challenge your wilder ideas in a kind and constructive way – and vice versa, of course.

Staying in a hotel might sound like an unnecessary extravagance, but it’s easier to take an objective look at your life away from domestic distractions. You need a room with enough space to write down your thoughts separately before bringing them to the table for discussion. When I met Margaret to find out more about visioning, she said it was so helpful that they’d done it every year but one since they started seven years ago:

‘The first year we did it James and I were in the grips of planning our retirement and in fundamental disagreement about it, particularly when it came to where to live. A friend told me about visioning and although it was my idea to give it a try, James was completely on board from the beginning, which surprised me. But it appealed to him because he is a cool rational thinker and was involved in planning and organisation throughout his career.

‘I always write the timetable and I do all the admin for it. Our children laugh hysterically at my laminating of spreadsheets! If the timetable says we’re going to start talking about our health at 9 a.m. on Sunday, we do. There is a tight structure, and if you go off piste you’re not going to get through it, because there are so many categories to cover: health, relationships, leisure, well-being, pro bono work, house, intellectual pursuits.

‘On Saturday morning we start by discussing where we hope to be in ten years’ time. We go through each of the categories. It’s critical to start with ten years’ time, because everything flows from that. It’s clear blue-sky thinking that enables you to hone in on what is realistic and what you really want. So, for example, if you fantasise about living on a houseboat in Thailand it gets you asking why, and why you’re not doing it. And if that’s still your goal you need to work out how to be fluent in Thai in five years. So then you discuss your five-, three- and one-year vision, finishing with a ninety-day immediate action plan. As soon as we get home I write the minutes and book next year’s weekend.

‘The whole process made us think more clearly about our objectives. We’re both list writers, but this goes much further. It gets us thinking more strategically rather than simply problem-solving and firefighting. It’s an opportunity to think about my life and the things I want to do, rather than having them as constantly shifting goals on the horizon.’

THE FUTURE

As more possibilities for retirement continue to emerge and decisions about how to spend your time get more complex, there’s an urgent need for new ways to prepare and support people. What’s required is a new generation of courses that builds on the best of the old-style retirement planning offered in the 1970s and 1980s, incorporating new information geared to the changing face of retirement. The decline of retirement planning was largely due to cost-cutting, but also, Professor Phillipson argues, because pre-retirement education fitted into a jobs-for-life model that has virtually disappeared. There is surely a case for creating a coordinating body along the lines of the national Pre-Retirement Association, which had a number of local associations as members, and received funding from the Department of Education and Science. Sadly it folded, although at least one local association, the Planned Retirement Association of Greater Manchester, continues to offer courses.

When he was head of education and training at the Pre-Retirement Association, Tony Chiva ran programmes that put the emphasis firmly on the psychological and social issues around retirement. ‘The starting point should be to enable people to understand personal transitions and what helps them to get through them. Of course money is a big issue but self-esteem and confidence and health and relationships are also very significant. The biggest issue is finding new life purpose by helping people to discover what gives them meaning in their life. Creating new meaning is a big one, because other meanings can be lost in the transition.’

There are big questions about who should deliver, fund and evaluate support. Employers are clearly best placed to deliver courses, although some might balk at the cost of buying them in; other possibilities include trade unions, faith groups and Citizens Advice. Some innovative retirement preparation courses, such as those that use storytelling and coaching, are designed to be delivered by peers rather than experts, which should make them more cost effective and accessible.

There is also a growing feeling that retirement should no longer be seen as a kind of tag-on, disconnected from the rest of our lives. This would mean a pretty seismic shift of thinking about work as well as retirement. David Martin, an associate of the Centre for Policy on Ageing, says, ‘We should be thinking about our life trajectory in a very different way. The idea that you get to your sixties and suddenly start thinking about what you want to do in terms of inner pursuits is ridiculous. We should be thinking about these things right the way through our lives, and seeing life as a marathon you pace yourself for, rather than a sprint. We need to stop frontloading life.’

Professor Ellen Langer goes a step further. She believes we should aim for what she calls work/life integration from the start of our working lives. ‘Business gurus mistakenly talk about work/life balance, which means doing something outside work to balance the awful parts of being at work. Instead people should aim for work/life integration, so that they are essentially the same person at work as they are at play.’

PREPARING FOR RETIREMENT

• Think about what an average weekday would ideally be like once the honeymoon period is over. Specific ideas are more useful than vague ambitions. Think about where you will spend most of your time. What will you be doing? Which friends do you most want to hang out with? How will weekends differ from weekdays? How and where might you meet new people?

• Previous transitions in your life can provide useful clues in working out your needs in retirement, and the changes you could start implementing. Periods when you were out of work or on maternity/paternity leave can be particularly illuminating.

• How you spend long holidays can also give you an idea about how much structure and routine you like, how easily you get bored, how much company you need and so on.

• Think about what you’re going to miss most about work and how you might recreate it: water-cooler moments? Mental challenge? Working in a team? Commuting? (Some people miss it, honestly!)

• Make a list of activities you enjoy both at work and in your spare time. What gives you most genuine pleasure, fulfilment and ‘flow’?

• Talk to retired friends about what works for them and what they’d do differently. Ask about their daily routines and what they get up to and work out what you’d like to emulate – and what you’d rather avoid.

• If you plan to volunteer, work part time or set up your own business, find out what skills or qualifications you might need.

• Look at roads untravelled. We all have interests that fell by the wayside because of time pressures. Now is the time to revive them.

• Creating a good balance of activities is ideal, but beware of planning too many commitments.

• Make a vision board of inspiring images, role models and quotes.

• Keep a small notebook to hand for jotting down details of things that interest you.

• Think about whether it would suit you best to hit the ground running as soon as you retire, or whether a few months’ downtime with no commitments is what you need. A breathing space of six months or so can be a really good way to find your feet and discover how life without a structure feels.

3

Leaving Work Behind

Work, whether it’s part time, freelance or consultancy, is now a legitimate part of retirement. It’s increasingly common to transition into retirement via a part-time phase, with or without a break from full-time work. Either way, at some stage most people face leaving a workplace they may have invested years of their lives in. It’s a two-way process. You want to be in control over the way you leave, but at the same time you have to relinquish control of your working life and make peace with the past. This takes time. For many people, work has brought huge personal growth and wonderful opportunities. It’s a big part of what has made them who they are.

Looking back and assessing your achievements is part of moving forward. It doesn’t always feel that great. It’s all too common to feel that you could have done more or should have taken a different path. Regret is par for the course. There is a natural tendency to dwell on the negatives, on the missed opportunities and blunders and bad behaviour. But at the same time it’s important to see the whole picture by acknowledging your achievements, both at work and outside it. What matters now is recognising that you haven’t stopped achieving and making progress – it goes on. Work is a limited arena, after all. Life after work offers many as yet unseen opportunities, not least to pick up roads left untravelled.

The designer Betty Jackson showed her final collection at London Fashion Week in 2011 after more than thirty years in the vanguard of British fashion. She pared down her highly successful company into a small consultancy before finally retiring in 2016. Work had been Betty’s life for over forty years, yet she was determined to make a clean break. ‘You just have to turn the page, to say that’s what I’ve done, that’s what happened for good or bad, some of it was great, some of it wasn’t. Those years were fabulous, both personally and professionally. I was incredibly lucky. But I don’t want to look back with rose-tinted spectacles because I’m sure I was a nightmare to work with for some of the time. I remember swearing and slamming things down and screaming at people. And I’m sorry.

‘My work was all-consuming on every level. I was passionate about it, I was defined by it. The children knew that if it was a choice between them and work I would always choose work. But that’s it. It no longer matters. It’s disappeared. That’s not to say I don’t miss it. I still really miss all of that build-up in the studio before a collection. It’s magical what happens in there and it’s just a fabulous thing to be part of. I think one reason why I’ve been able to put it on one side very easily is that I was determined to make stopping work work – as much as I was determined to make it work when I was working. I’m very down to earth and practical about that sort of thing, despite being so emotionally involved.’

RELINQUISHING CONTROL

Acknowledging that the workplace and the wider working world will move on without you is recognised as a key coping mechanism in retirement. This time there may be no new job to go to, but it can still be helpful to reflect on past experiences of changing jobs, and how your view of your previous workplace, and your feelings about colleagues, shifted in time.

It’s also sobering to reflect on the way the workplace moves on when a colleague leaves. Even highly respected and well-liked workmates are missed for a while, but the ripples soon close over the surface. No one is indispensable at work. It’s only in our families and with people we love that we are irreplaceable.

Saying goodbye to anyone or anything is always less painful if you’re ready to go and you’re looking forward to what’s next. Eventually, as you become immersed in retirement, a new perspective on your working life emerges with the benefit of hindsight. When work is no longer in your face all the time, making you believe it’s so important, you’re in a better position to reassess its true value. You often hear the great and the good on Desert Island Discs looking back on brilliant careers and saying that it’s not work but relationships that really matter. And it’s worth bearing in mind that one of the top five regrets of the dying, according to former palliative care nurse and author Bronnie Ware, is ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’.

YOUR LEGACY

Yet closing the door on such a big part of life doesn’t happen overnight. In fields of work where projects are planned and worked on years in advance, it’s natural to start thinking about the legacy you’ll leave behind. Discussing dates in the distant future when you’ll have left can prompt mixed feelings. You might be relieved. You might feel excluded, a bit past your sell-by date. You’d be forgiven for feeling less than charitable towards the bright young things who are taking your place. It might be poignant and disconcerting to feel you’re not going to be there to see things through.

But seen in a different light, planning ahead can help shift your perspective. It’s a natural way of thinking yourself into a time when you’ll no longer have agency in the workplace. Working on long-term projects allows you to ponder your legacy and leave things in good shape before you go. Most people want to feel they’ve made a mark, to feel some sense of continuation.

Charles found a good way of working through this final phase: by changing his role from one of managing to one of mentoring. In the seven years before he took his pension he went part time to pursue other interests. This prompted a natural change in his role at work as well as a complementary shift in his own mindset. Above all it proved to be a great way to pass on the wealth of expertise and knowledge that Charles, now 74, had built up with the same water consultancy for thirty-six years. Ten years on he remembers, ‘My experience was that changing what you do at work from being a manager to becoming more of a mentor, and handing on what you know to other people, is a very good way to spend your last years at work. Since I notionally retired ten years ago I’ve continued to teach on the academic course that is closely related to the work I did. It was a brilliant way of gradually retiring.’

SUCCESSION PLANNING

Succession planning is a more structured way of handing over. There are respective advantages for both sides: the new person finds their feet in their new role with hands-on support, while the retiring person has a sense of continuity and control, as well as time to dip their toe in their new life. The whole point of succession planning is that you invest time and energy in the future of the workplace without you. The problem is that this can make it even harder to let go. It pretty much guarantees you’ll continue to worry about how things are going after you leave. And if things don’t work out as you’d planned, it creates a mix of difficult emotions and makes the process of letting go more painful. It’s not a good frame of mind to start retirement in, because it’s even harder to let go of the past.

For Anthony, handing over to his successor as head of an infants’ school didn’t entirely go according to plan, although it was generally regarded as successful. ‘When I first retired I was asked to give talks to other heads because people thought I’d managed succession planning so well. I’m not so sure! Basically my successor took over the more interesting parts of the job while I did all the boring stuff to keep the school ticking over; my workload lessened but not the responsibility. In the end succession planning didn’t work out that well, because the woman who took over my job ended up leaving the school soon after I left myself. And of course her successor undid most of my changes. For a while I felt very guilty about what happened.

‘I went back to the school recently. It’s surviving. Many of the teachers I appointed have left, the new head has got her own people in. I don’t think of it as my school any more.’

However you manage the process of departure, it’s hard to leave behind something that you’ve sweated blood and tears over for years, to let go of changes you fought hard to implement. It’s natural to feel that whoever took over isn’t doing such a good job and worry about what they’ll do with your baby. But there is absolutely no point fretting about it. Bitching with former colleagues about the new blood might feel delicious at the time but it leaves a bitter aftertaste. The most important thing is to let it go so that you can get on with finding new stuff to do in a positive frame of mind.

LOSS

It’s likely that there will be days when retirement feels like nothing but loss and letting go: loss of purpose, loss of workmates, lost opportunities. Marie, whose partner, Owen, has worked freelance since retiring at 65, says, ‘Before Owen retired I was worried that he thought retirement was all loss – loss of identity, loss of the family house, loss of income. I felt that it was touching on other, earlier losses in his life, like his divorce and a serious motorbike accident. He didn’t agree! We had some pre-retirement counselling and that helped him to identify that it wasn’t all about loss: there were things to look forward to as well.’

Facing loss is less painful if it can be seen as part of a wider picture, and if new positives emerge concurrently. Eight years after he retired, Graham still has powerful memories of his final day. ‘It was quite emotional leaving the site for the last time, clearing out the filing cabinets when the place was totally deserted. It really did feel like it was the end of one phase of your life and going into another one. It helped that I felt the other phase of my life had already started. They were blended really.’

In her work with people aged over 50 in the Scottish Highlands, counsellor and storyteller Margot Henderson frames loss and letting go in a refreshing new way – as undeniably sad, certainly, but as liberating too. I like her approach because it’s not only more cheerful, it’s just so apt. She sees ageing as part of the natural cycle and compares retirement to autumn, which makes perfect sense of this stage of life. ‘Retirement is about harvesting from our experience, harvesting our rich lives. Part of that is looking at the losses and what we’re letting go of. There is often a real desire to clear the clutter of life, both inner and outer, so that people have space to think how they want to shape the next phase. That’s about simplifying: letting go of what’s not needed and deciding on new priorities.’

Some people find dealing with loss is particularly painful, and they’re not always sure quite why. Dr Sabah Khan, who runs the pre-retirement couples counselling programme at Tavistock Relationships in London, which Owen and Marie went on, says, ‘Retirement presents itself with both losses and possibilities. The losses associated with retirement often make people feel they are re-experiencing losses they had experienced in the past. Past losses that people haven’t quite processed often re-emerge with this new change.

‘If there is distress around a particular issue it’s often because they haven’t been able to mourn fully something that happened earlier in their lives, such as the death of a parent or not having children, or a loss they had experienced in a previous relationship, which they felt they were re-experiencing in some way. Revisiting earlier losses and changes is really important in making space for new possibilities.’

THE FINAL PHASE

Whether you leave work on a high or a low has a huge impact on the early phase of retirement. It’s not just about having a good send-off, although that can help. It’s about attitude – your own and others’ – and how you’re treated in the months and years before you go.

I’ve come across too many accounts of people who’ve felt undermined and pushed aside in their final years at work. It’s rarely enough to warrant pursuing their case at a tribunal, although I have heard of someone being asked to retire, which is contrary to employment law. But it’s still enough to make them feel keen to get out of the door, often after being in jobs they loved for years. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place: they can’t afford to lose their pension by retiring early, yet they’re nervous that they won’t find another job.

It’s sad, because it’s the final period that sets the tone for life after work. Even if you have felt respected and valued throughout your career until now, ending on a sour note impacts on your feelings about your working life. It lowers self-esteem and confidence about what you feel capable of achieving next. When Emma was offered redundancy after thirty years with the same magazine publisher she took it with a sense of relief, because she had felt undervalued for some time. But she admits it took a long time to find her feet when redundancy combined with early retirement.

‘During the last few years at work it became increasingly apparent that what I was doing wasn’t appreciated. There were all these young people who clearly perceived me as old. I have to admit I remember feeling the same about older people myself when I was younger! Now when people are rude or dismissive because of my age I just think, your time will come… And I always remind myself that overall I had a happy and successful working life.’

You may not be able to do much about your colleagues’ ageist prejudices, but you can control your own response. Research shows that it is attitude that matters most in retirement. Ian Stuart-Hamilton, Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Glamorgan, says, ‘Control is crucial. Ideally you will be in complete control, but if not it’s still possible to turn what feels like a bad situation to your advantage. For example, if you’re made redundant and you’ve got the wherewithal to retire, make something of it. The worst thing you can do is to dwell on the idea that it’s your fault or to blame other people. It’s vital to move on. What matters now is that you get a grip on your life so that you’re the one calling the shots.’

HOW TO HANDLE NEGATIVE ATTITUDES AT WORK

• Shift your focus away from work: put your attention into building new interests.

• Try not to count the days till you retire. Relish the good things about work: the tasks that fulfil you, meeting friends for lunch, the immediate environment.

• Identify at least one ally: a colleague – perhaps in a different department – who respects you and vice versa.

• Take a complete break at lunchtime. Refresh yourself with a swim, an exercise class or a brisk walk.

• Don’t take things personally. Accept that negative attitudes are a reflection of wider attitudes in the industry and society generally. You can help change them.

LEAVING PARTIES

The closing of a chapter is marked by a series of milestones: clearing your workspace for the last time, handing over your security pass, saying goodbye. Retirement parties are one of the most important markers. Yet the idea of a formal leaving do with emotional speeches and golden handshakes seems to be fizzling out, along with jobs for life. Some places still know how to give people a cracking send-off, but many people, like Paul, are left with a lingering sense of disappointment: ‘On my last day not one of my bosses came in to say anything. Not even thank you, or all the best, Paul. Nothing. I left in a bit of a bad mood. It annoys me even now, four years later. I’d given so much, I put so much effort in over the past twenty-five years. It’s a shame because I left with a bad taste in my mouth.’

Saying goodbye formally is an important ritual, a symbol of the end of an era. With a clear milestone you can make your peace with the past and move on. Former infants’ school head Anthony knew it would make a big difference to him, and he was right. He got a far better send-off than most: ‘In an infants’ school the ceremony of saying goodbye is just marvellous. You’ve got all the little children and all the parents and staff wishing you well. It couldn’t have contrasted more with most of my friends, who got a quick drink in the pub if they were lucky. It was very important to me that I had a good ending at work. My school was inspected in the last year, which was totally unexpected. It felt like a rubber stamp on my time there. I felt I’m leaving this place in good shape, I’ve got the Ofsted to prove it, I’m off.’

Clearing the decks before you walk out of the door for the last time is bound to give rise to a mixture of emotions. It should feel liberating and cathartic as well as sad. For Betty Jackson, rolling up her sleeves to deal with the practical business of making her company dormant was part of the whole process of letting go. She helped her forty-odd staff find jobs elsewhere and downsized from a three-storey building to a mews office where she ran her consultancy for the next three years before making that dormant too. ‘Thirty years of stuff took quite a while to sort out – we had 2,000 zips apart from anything else! There were a couple of days when I had to come home because I was a bit upset by the whole thing. It did feel weird. But I was very clear. I didn’t want to hang on to anything. Once it’s finished it’s finished. We never kept an archive and I was very keen to chuck everything out. We sold all the machinery or gave it to colleges. We were up to our eyes in clearing out of the building, which was good, because I didn’t have time to stop and think about whether we were doing the right thing. But it also meant that thinking about my own future wasn’t in the equation at all.’

KNOWING WHEN TO STOP

Leaving work behind is bound to bring fewer regrets if you’re ready to move on. That’s one advantage of doing away with a fixed retirement age: it allows people to keep working until they want to give up, not when someone tells them to. But the freedom to choose when you retire brings a new problem: knowing when to stop. That requires self-awareness on two fronts: first, about your own competence; and second, about whether you’re clinging on to work just because you can’t think of anything else to do. It’s generally agreed that it’s better to quit while you’re ahead, when you’ve still got the energy and enthusiasm to seize the hour.

For One Born Every Minute midwife Linda Abbott, it will be easier to say goodbye the second time round. At 66, after six years doing part-time shifts, the time is right. ‘I feel my usefulness at work is declining and I think you’ve got to know when it’s time to go. I’m aware that I’m approaching my sell-by date now. I don’t remember things as well as I used to and I don’t pick new things up as quickly. It doesn’t make me sad. I just think right, that chapter of my life is coming to an end, I’m going to move on to something else where I don’t have work to worry about. When I first retired I wasn’t really ready, either to go or to stay full time.

‘Within a couple of months I was missing work and I felt I still had a lot to offer. It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to do outside work – I had plenty to do – and I still saw my friends from work. But it was the work itself I missed, I missed the women. They’re lovely. And you meet so many different people from so many different walks of life. You get very emotionally involved, and I missed that part of my life. Working part time has been an excellent compromise for me. When I retire this time round, which will be in a few months, I’ll be ready to go, in fact I can’t wait to move on to the next stage.’

Knowing when to call it a day is even more of an issue for the growing numbers of people who become self-employed or act as consultants when they retire. At 74, Charles, who built up a portfolio of unpaid and paid work after he ‘notionally retired’ at 65, says, ‘I think you have to be very sensitive and aware, and the minute you get an inkling that you’re losing touch, and you’re not contributing anything interesting, you’ve got to stop. Quite recently I went on a weekend think tank with other academics to discuss Scottish Water’s research plans. I hadn’t done anything like that for two or three years, and before I went I had a bit of a debate in my mind about whether I should go. I was really worried that I would be totally out of touch compared to all the others. In fact I was able to contribute to the discussions and I really enjoyed the weekend. It’s partly a confidence thing and partly trying to be self-aware and questioning whether I have anything useful to offer. I don’t want to go on doing things if they’re no longer helpful.’

SELF-EMPLOYMENT

The self-employed find it harder than most people to leave work behind. Freelancers tend to be more personally connected to their work; it’s often a passion. They take work issues more personally, they see their work as an extension of themselves. So it’s even harder to let go.

And indeed many self-employed workers never retire completely. They enjoy what they do and want to keep going as long as they can. Take my mother-in-law, the writer and illustrator Shirley Hughes, who is still creating wonderful children’s books at 90. John, who is still working part time as a painter and decorator at 82, agrees: ‘I could afford to retire; I’ve got two pensions. But when I’m working it’s the happiest time of my life. I like to be active, so I’ll carry on working as long as I’m fit. I can pick and choose what work I do and when I do it. I mainly work for clients I’ve had for years; I don’t need to look for work.’

In many ways self-employment is the ideal route away from full-time work and into retirement, both for people who have been freelance for years and for people who take it up after retiring from their main career. Self-employment allows them to do what they enjoy, and to carry on working as long as they choose and reduce their hours as and when they want to. And because they can usually control how much work they take on, it should be possible to plan the working week to allow free time to build up new interests. Of course, how flexible you can be in practice depends on the nature of the work. Freelancers can be anything from gardeners to taxi drivers to actors to plumbers. Some jobs are full time for a few weeks and then ease off, while others are better suited to a few hours a day or a couple of days a week.

Finally, self-employed workers have a big advantage when it comes to retirement: they’re used to coping with the occasional lean period, and to keeping several balls in the air when they’re busy. Both are a good grounding for the years ahead.

GOING BACK TO WORK

Painter and decorator John is one of a growing band of people who, having dipped a toe in retirement, realise they’re not ready to give up work just yet. John retired when he was 71, but he got bored at home and changed his mind. He was still getting offers of work, so after a year he decided to go back part time and has no plans to give up. The benefits are not just financial. A study in the US Journals of Gerontology found that older workers who had been made redundant and were later re-employed showed a marked improvement in both their mental and their physical health.

The flexibility of retirement these days means that there are so many ways to keep working: going back to your old workplace; self-employment; or starting a business, full time or part time. There are clear advantages to going back to work where you’re known and you know the ropes. Even so, there’s bound to be some adjusting to a changed relationship with colleagues, to lower pay and to a different level of responsibility. But that suits many people, as attitudes to work often lighten up when people retire, and their reasons for working change. In this regard, midwife Linda Abbott says, ‘I have found it very different. At first I had the same level of dedication but now I just do one day and it pays for nice holidays and I enjoy seeing people.’

Applying for a new job – or indeed setting up a freelance business – requires confidence, and that can pose a problem for anyone who has been out of the workplace for any length of time, no matter how old they are. Lack of stimulus and feedback, combined with negative attitudes to age, quickly eat away at self-belief. If you let it, self-doubt might stop you applying for a job in the first place, or prevent you even considering paid work as an option. It’s easy to start imagining that employers want someone younger or smarter at new technology, and before long you begin to believe the myth that you’ve got nothing to offer. Once you start prevaricating, an application for a post that originally seemed a perfect fit for your skills and experience soon ends up on the back burner.

Alex didn’t think about applying for a new job, even though after a year of retirement she knew her life had to change. ‘The prospect of having to put myself out there again felt daunting, and for a long time that stopped me thinking about paid work. It’s hard work applying for a job. But when we got back from a holiday in November I knew I didn’t want the next year to be like the last one, so I started to look at volunteering possibilities. I just happened to see an advert for the job I’m doing now and I applied. I didn’t think for a minute I would get it. I thought there would be prejudice against someone my age [63], and that they’d think I was over-experienced and over-qualified. So I was thrilled to get an interview and amazed when they offered me the job, just before Christmas.

‘I couldn’t have gone straight from what I was doing before to the job I do now, which is lower paid, lower level, and much less pressured. I think that’s because in the past I placed more importance on status and income and I needed a long break to stop worrying about that. And after a year of being retired I perhaps had lower expectations of myself, which was quite a relief, actually.’

Self-doubt rarely has much basis in reality. However, when you’re out of the workplace – particularly if you retired unwillingly – it is even more important to feel sure of your ground and to know your stuff. It makes sense to stay on top of things, if only to keep your options open. Keep your mind sharp by learning something new, keep up to speed with new technology, and keep talking to people.

It sounds strange, but it’s easy to get out of practice at using your voice when spending more time on your own. It’s something people often aren’t aware of until the crunch comes. Anthony says, ‘It’s very odd to go from a morning when I’m on my own to suddenly standing up and talking to a room full of people, as I did a couple of weeks ago. I used to do it all the time but now I think, am I up to this? What am I going to say? Of course your confidence comes back, even though your vocal cords aren’t used to it. I don’t always enjoy it, but I still like that buzz you get afterwards.’ (See voice coach Yvonne Gilan’s tips on page 119.)

Before rushing back to work, it’s worth asking whether it’s the only way of finding what you’re looking for. Work is certainly an effective way to put back purpose and structure and stop feeling lost and missing your colleagues. But it’s not the only answer. There are all sorts of other ways to find fulfilment and purpose, whether it’s volunteering or travelling or taking a course. It may take time to get used to the new pace of retirement, to find your way in it and appreciate the luxury of having time to do things properly. You can learn a surprising amount from periods of unstructured time, not least about your own needs. And that in turn can provide insights into ways of finding your particular new purpose.

It is this unexplored possibility that plays on Alex’s mind. ‘If I hadn’t got this job perhaps I would have eventually found a way to cope with retirement. I was quite bored and I felt at a loose end a lot of the time. But rather than just fill it with busy work I initially wanted to see what that would mean, what would I do with that? Now that I’ve gone back to working part time I sometimes think, is work simply a way of avoiding the questions about life and purpose that I found quite difficult when I retired?’

GOING BACK TO WORK: BUILDING CONFIDENCE

• Distinguish genuine weaknesses from self-limiting beliefs, and get on top of them.

• If you have your sights set on a particular job, make sure your skills are up to speed.

• Don’t be wet about technology: take a course, look online for advice.

• Make a list of your achievements at work and outside work.

• Focus on things you feel confident about that have nothing to do with work: cooking, driving, mending stuff, decorating, researching a field that fascinates you.

• Use your voice and exercise it. It’s easy to get out of practice if you’re spending more time on your own. Make phone calls rather than texting or emailing, shop in person rather than online, sing (in a choir or in the bath), do breathing exercises and have conversations.

• If you are going for an interview, practise with a (tough but kind) friend beforehand. When it comes to experience and skills, think outside your conventional CV. Rich life experiences – even things that seem negative – can be a huge asset.

• There are many books on building confidence, but for me the best is still the groundbreaking Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers.

UNEXPECTED THINGS PEOPLE MISS ABOUT WORK

• Being forced to do things you don’t look forward to. And the heady Friday-night feeling when you’ve accomplished them.

• The commute! ‘I liked the physical separation of work from home, and having time to read the paper on the train.’

• ‘Cycling to work very early, because I liked being part of the city when it was waking up.’

• Adrenalin rushes. Some people really miss the buzz; others have to work hard on getting it out of their system.

• ‘Contrasts. I missed the joy of the weekend and the joy of holidays.’

• ‘Picking up a payslip.’

• ‘Having the week’s diary in your head.’

• ‘Having decisions made by someone else.’

4

Finding New Purpose

The other day I had tea with a friend who is struggling to find a new purpose since she retired. She keeps busy with Pilates and art exhibitions and charity work and holidays and seeing her friends. Yet somehow it’s not enough. She feels rudderless, that all the different aspects of her life lack cohesion without work as the central core. I suggested the usual things: volunteer, perhaps? Learn a language? Her face fell. I’d totally missed the point.

It’s so hard to put a finger on what she’s searching for. Like most people she hates the idea of just doing things to fill time and she feels that life is slipping through her fingers. She needs a mission, something to get her teeth into. Only an overarching purpose that connects the disparate aspects of her daily life can give back the deep satisfaction she got from work.

Alex felt the same when she first retired. ‘Work gave me a sense of purpose I find hard to get anywhere else. When I retired I saw that work provided a routine, a structure, it got me out of myself, and I had no idea what was going to do that now.’

Finding a new purpose is the biggest challenge of retirement. Research makes all sorts of claims about the importance of this aspect. One study suggested that a strong sense of purpose ‘appears to’ lower the risk of dementia by 2.4 times, and that people with clear goals lived longer than people without. The pioneering psychologist Charlotte Bühler emphasised that goals and personal growth are central to a healthy life. But the most convincing reason is the most obvious: having a purpose makes you feel better. There are endless ways to find it: volunteering, mentoring, taking a course, cycling across Canada, looking after grandchildren, starting your own business. There’s time to develop a whole new direction – a whole new career, even – in the decades after you stop work. The challenge is to work out what’s right for you.

Until now, purpose is not something we’ve had to think about very much. For many of us, the overriding aim in life has been taken for granted: to earn money, hopefully by doing a job that’s fulfilling and enjoyable, and to bring up kids. Most of the time we just got on with it, firefighting and problem-solving and only pausing occasionally to wonder what it was all about. Making progress at work brought new incentives: courses to acquire new skills, reading round the subject, networking.

But retirement is a different country. Once you stop working for money, questions about purpose move into the spotlight. Values that held sway in the workplace become less relevant outside it. Retirement is a whole new way of being, and to get the most out of it you need to think in a different way about what really matters to you. It can take time for old attitudes about success and what’s worth doing to shift and make way for a deeper and more personal sense of what has value.

Alex, who struggled to find a sense of purpose when she retired, continues, ‘Being paid for your work is saying that what you’re doing is of value. How do we get that sense that what we do is valued if no one is willing to pay us? In our society and culture, working gives you recognition. I could see that I could make answers: I could volunteer or take a course. But I wasn’t sure why I would choose one thing and not another. And it felt that for me it would be filling in time before I die. I shocked myself when I found myself thinking like that, and I haven’t shared this thought with many people. It was a horrible feeling. It’s certainly no reflection on anyone who chooses to volunteer or any of those things – it’s my problem.

‘I did all sorts of things: I spent more time with my elderly parents, who need support, and I looked after a relative’s new baby for a few weeks. I saw a lot more of my friends and the kitchen was a lot tidier. But it was all ad hoc, there was nothing regular. I didn’t want to make a regular commitment, because I just kept thinking it would be hard to get out of it if it turned out to be a mistake.’

Some people are better prepared. They have their sights on their new purpose long before they stop work. They’ve been beavering away making plans, they’ve got one or more projects lined up, and off they go. My father-in-law was a case in point. He retired early, immediately enrolled on an etching course and spent the next twenty-five years happily honing his new skill and learning alongside like-minded new friends at college. It was something he had wanted to do for a while, and I suspect he enjoyed it much more than he had enjoyed working as an architect. It became the central core of his life, alongside his wife and family.

But it takes most of us a bit longer to discover a new focus. Finding purpose is such an individual business. Some people can’t make sense of life without a mission, while others find all they need in simple daily pleasures. So stock answers are at best irrelevant and at worst make people feel inadequate. Oliver Robinson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Greenwich University, says, ‘The difficulty with the kind of off-the-shelf advice people often give retired people, to keep busy, volunteer and so on, is that when you’ve got an almost infinite number of reactions to retirement a singular solution is not helpful.’

What is needed is a process of exploration, of looking outside yourself at the different options and at the same time inside yourself at what really fulfils you. ‘It starts with knowing who you really are, and what are your true values and beliefs. Because until you know that, you can’t make choices about what would give your life meaning,’ says Sue Plumtree, a life coach who works with women over 50. Ideally it starts in the years before you leave work, but it’s never too late.

The first step is to think about what matters to you and what you genuinely enjoy. You may not have to look far: your past can provide clues, from what absorbed you when you were younger to unfulfilled ambitions and roads untravelled. The most contented people I’ve come across talked about revisiting career paths that for some reason they weren’t able to pursue, or hobbies they had to give up because there wasn’t enough time. Nick wanted to play the drums when he was a child, but his parents weren’t keen. Since he semi-retired he has been able to take up drumming. ‘My son is a brilliant drummer who plays in a band so last year, at the ripe old age of 56, I took them up and have just passed my grade 2 with a score of over 90 per cent. As a massage therapist I met and treated all sorts of people (including a well-known international performer) but I have never been more excited or proud than smashing my drum exam!’

One of the most rewarding aspects of retirement is that it draws together threads from the past: it’s a harvest of life’s experiences, talents that have got a bit rusty, subjects you had to drop at school, thwarted ambitions. In this phase they can become useful and interesting in new ways. When this happens there’s a sense of completion, of things coming full circle, that can be very satisfying. It’s in some ways a good substitute for the sense of cohesion people miss about work.

Frances has found this both in part-time work and in outside interests. She was a senior civil servant who went on to hold senior positions in public organisations. ‘This is my moment to pick up things that I never had the chance to explore further. I’m travelling roads untravelled and finding some of them are dead ends. But I’m really enjoying doing it. One of the reasons I’m interested in finding a part-time research job now is that it’s a road not travelled. I was offered a research job overseas in my twenties, but then my marriage broke down and I had to come back to England and support my son.’

Further clues come from teasing out all the things you enjoyed about your job, whether that was contact with people or solving problems. People often have fond memories of the kind of hands-on work they did early on in their career, which they regretted having to discard as they moved up the ladder. Now there may be ways to recreate the same kind of tasks in other ways, in a volunteering role or part-time work.

Below are qualities that kept cropping up in conversations about what contributed to fulfilment in retirement. These are ingredients, not a recipe. Something that is absolutely essential to one person will come bottom of the list for another. It’s a question of finding a balance that’s right for you.

INGREDIENTS FOR FULFILMENT

• Activities that nurture you: walking, listening to or playing music and practising yoga are common examples

• People: opportunities to meet up with old friends, make new friends and acquaintances, and take part in activities in a group

• Flow: losing yourself in an absorbing activity

• Stimulation: keeping the brain sharp

• Being challenged

• A sense of achievement

• An overarching sense of purpose: long-term goals that incorporate short-term goals

• Progress

• Learning

• Fun

• Simple pleasures

This period of looking inside yourself runs alongside practical research into what’s out there for you to do. You now have the rare luxury of being in a position to experiment, to look into a range of options – courses, clubs, social networks, volunteering. You’ve got the freedom to reject things that turn out not to be quite right for you.

The important thing is to get out of the front door. So while the internet is the obvious place to do the groundwork, there is no substitute for testing things out for real. Talk to the other people you’d be working with on a volunteer project, try a drop-in session of a class you like the look of, meet the teacher. By getting out there and talking to people you open yourself up to all kinds of new possibilities and suggestions that will never come from staring at a screen.

The key is to be curious, to keep an open mind. Question why you’ve always wanted to go to Japan or take up fishing; there may or may not be good reasons. You may have moved on from an ambition without realising you’ve changed, and if that’s the case, something you love even more can take its place.

It’s equally important to challenge your assumptions – that something’s not right for you, or that you couldn’t do it, or that it’s too late. (It is never too late.) The value of being stretched can’t be overstated. When you’re retired it’s understandable to question why anyone would want to do anything demanding or disagreeable if they don’t have to. The obvious answer comes again from Sue Plumtree: ‘You have to be prepared to be uncomfortable. Many people don’t like being uncomfortable, but that’s how you keep alert and alive, by pushing yourself. You have to be curious, to expand your mind, to learn new things all the time. And take the initiative. Above all do things for fun.’

Mistakes and dead ends are par for the course. Blind alleys reveal so much about what you don’t want, as well as what you do need. They often lead to interesting new directions to take. You realise that you hate book clubs but love walking with other people, you get a buzz from performing after years of believing you were too shy. You discover you hate philosophy but love botany, you hear people in the college canteen talking about a class that sounds right up your street. Rather than dismissing things out of hand, a minor adjustment can make all the difference. The secret is to keep opening doors, be flexible and try things out. And be prepared to change.

It’s taken Nick five years and a few different jobs to recognise how important social contact is to him. Since he retired from the police force he has run a sports massage business, worked on the tills at Marks & Spencer and volunteered in Nepal. He’s now got a part-time job as a hospital porter. He says, ‘It’s better to go up a path and find you’ve gone wrong than to not do it at all and just sit there. You make mistakes. Going to Nepal after the earthquakes in 2015 was a big test; it was completely beyond anything I had ever done before. The first time it didn’t go well. I didn’t take to teaching English and then I badly injured my knee in a fall and had to come home early. But I made myself go back, and the second time I was helping young people settle in, which was right up my street.

‘When I was beginning to feel less fulfilled by my sports massage business, it was a woman friend who pointed out that I didn’t have anybody to chill the breeze round the water-cooler with. So I’m winding that down. Working on the tills in Marks & Spencer was fine, but there wasn’t enough contact with people so I gave up after a couple of months. It helped me to realise that’s what I need – that’s my benchmark now. The simple joy I get out of being a hospital porter is just having ordinary conversations, having a natter with patients to make them feel better about their day. And being part of a little team again.’

Social contact becomes more important when you retire, because you’re on your own more than you’re used to. Even if you live with a partner who is also retired, your circle of daily contact is likely to shrink unless you take action to expand it. Many people are happy with their own company, up to a point. Some people can’t bear to be on their own, even for a minute. So it’s sensible to plan activities according to what suits you.

For example, writing a book is high on the list of common retirement ambitions. But the reality is lonely and gruelling (trust me). If you don’t want to go completely potty it’s best to combine writing, or anything that requires isolation, with more social activities; write for a couple of hours every day, perhaps, and then do something with other people. Dig the allotment, go for a walk with a friend, head for the charity shop – anything that gets you out of your own head and in contact with the world.

People often need to put a bit of distance between their new life and their main career to discover what really drives them. They may feel a bit aimless for a while before a clearer picture emerges. It took Emma several months to discover her new purpose. Before she retired at the age of 59 she assumed she would carry on in the field she’d always worked in, by setting up her own digital publishing business. But she ended up doing something quite left field and much more satisfying, using a talent for painting, which she had always loved but had never thought would take centre stage in her life. She remembers, ‘I knew I had to have something to do, but I wasn’t sure what. I was anxious about money and worried about what I was going to do. I remember feeling I had to keep myself really busy. I had already started a digital publishing business with my husband before I retired, and it seemed obvious to build that up, although it was the last thing I wanted to do, actually. It used a lot of my existing skills but it was boring, and it didn’t make much money. It was a mistake, and it was a relief when I was finally able to give it up.

‘By then I was already well into my new hobby – painting with a really simple iPad app. One day my husband said “You need a project” and he suggested painting listed buildings in our local area. It seemed like a really good, specific thing to do. And it ticked a lot of boxes: It would get me out and about with the dog and it would be really interesting. Initially I started doing it purely for pleasure, and it was great fun. Then people asked if they could buy my pictures and almost by accident it’s turned into a successful business – something I never expected when I started doing it. I think of this as work now and I’m really glad to have it. Without it I’d be thinking about how to fill the time, and I hate the idea of that.’

BARRIERS TO FINDING PURPOSE – AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM

• Too many commitments

One of the biggest mistakes people make when they first retire is biting off more than they can chew. People often say that they’re just as busy in retirement as they were at work. I suspect Kevin’s longing for a single focus will ring a lot of bells. ‘If retirement means working just as hard but for no money, that’s me! I’ve got my fingers in lots of pies. But I yearn for one single thing to focus on. The people who are really effective are really focused, they live who they are and what they’re doing; all those things are aligned. I don’t feel I’m particularly effective at the moment. I’ve dabbled in things, and I’m something of a networker, and there’s definitely a role for that.

‘I’ve always envied people who know they are an artist, or a this or a that. I would love to reach that point, of being able to say “this is who I am”. I think I am slowly getting there, and probably faster than if I hadn’t had my heart attack last year. I was hoping it might be a reset button, but it’s been a bit more subtle than that. It’s definitely been a push, it’s speeded up my “better get on with it, time’s running out” feeling. But I’ve always got two voices in my head, one saying you’re doing too much and one saying you’re not doing enough.’

Juggling a full diary and never having enough hours in the day is a good feeling, just because it’s so familiar. It makes you feel needed and important, still a player in a world that places a high value on being busy. But it can also make you feel stressed out and as if there’s not enough time to do anything properly. ‘Don’t spread yourself too thinly,’ advises Professor Ian Stuart-Hamilton of the University of Glamorgan. ‘Find one cause you really believe in, that’s dear to your heart. And if you’ve still got time, pick up something else. But then stop. Write a statement to yourself promising you’ll only do so many things. Writing it down focuses the mind.’

Being busy is not to be confused with feeling fulfilled, and that’s what really matters now. A hectic schedule can be a distraction from exploring new opportunities that might be more satisfying. Too much commitment means not enough time to do the things you hoped you might do, and not enough mental space to explore new ideas and possibilities. There’s a real danger that the big things, your precious dreams and ambitions, keep getting put off.

• Procrastination

At the other extreme, people have no idea where to begin. Write a novel? Learn to play golf? Start a business? There are so many possibilities that it suddenly feels a bit daunting. With no deadlines and no feedback, motivation has to come from within, and that can be hard for even the most determined soul. Many people have a big idea they’ve thought about pursuing for years, and beat themselves up when nothing comes of it.

Procrastination both has roots in lack of confidence and eats away at self-belief. An application is ready to go but you put off pressing ‘send’, and then you beat yourself up for not doing it and the door opens that little bit wider for more self-doubt to creep in. It’s important to keep challenging self-limiting beliefs that you’re not good enough or that it’s too late or that you’re too old and no one will be interested anyway. Be proactive: identify the skills you need and find ways of getting them. Always take yourself back to the feeling that originally inspired you. And impose your own discipline by setting a series of targets and deadlines, and regularly reviewing progress.

Frances, a former senior civil servant, and one of the most efficient people I know, learned a great tip from a course she did at work. She explains, ‘My besetting sin is displacement activity. If left to my own devices I could very easily not get up until 10 a.m. and spend all day faffing around, reading… and another day goes by when I have done absolutely nothing. Fortunately I learned how to deal with it on a brilliant stress course I went on. It said identify the one thing – not the half a dozen – you are really worried about and do it first. And you’ll be amazed. Only last Saturday there was a particular task that had been playing on my mind for ages, and I’d kept putting off. I made myself do it and then did everything else on the list and then was free to have a lovely afternoon with my grandsons. I get huge pleasure from job done.’

Taking on a new commitment can be a big help in dealing with procrastination. Yet a lot of newly retired people are reluctant to take on anything regular because they want a clear diary after years of work restricting their time. It’s natural to worry that as soon as you commit yourself something better will come along. But it’s hard to find your way in retirement without regular commitments to give shape to the week and introduce a sense of purpose. It should be possible to find commitments with a degree of flexibility.

HOW TO STOP PROCRASTINATING

• Set time limits on mundane tasks. Paying the gas bill can take all morning if you let it. So have something else lined up to look forward to as soon as it’s done.

• The same goes for the internet. Stick to a list of what you want to look up, and don’t get distracted by those tempting adverts that pop up.

• Declutter your email box: unsubscribe to anything that isn’t relevant.

• Put structure into the week with one or two regular commitments.

• Set targets and dates to complete them. Writing them down or telling a friend makes it more likely that you’ll stick to them.

• Question self-limiting beliefs.

• Identify the thing you dread doing most and do it first.

People often complain about the puritan ethic – that bossy little voice that tells you off for reading a book in the afternoon, that demands you do something worthwhile. ‘It’s so hard to be selfish’ is a common complaint, especially from women. It is gaining extra clout these days because it fits so well with current thinking about retirement.

The puritan ethic is indeed a curse if it stops you doing stuff you really enjoy. But it can also be a positive driving force. If meaning for you lies in helping other people or in a desire to change the world, why fight it? The key is to find a balance with more indulgent activities, which should be more achievable in retirement than ever before, if only because there’s more time.

Penny, who on retirement upped sticks and moved to Lancaster, where she now lives on a co-housing scheme, says, ‘We all need to make a difference in some way, to feel useful and helpful. And there is an endless opportunity for that where I live now. Lancaster Cohousing is an enormous project: really interesting and cutting edge. And it feels pretty challenging. It feels like a metaphor for the world: if we can’t crack it here, what hope is there?

‘This place happens to be a place to live, but it’s what we’re doing here that’s important. This place is how I spend most of my time. Our generation has benefited financially in ways that later generations won’t, and this feels like a way of giving back. I want to give my time to helping things move forward. I feel very lucky I’ve got something meaningful and useful I can do it in.

‘I’m more contented now than I have ever been before. Partly that’s because I’m engaged in something much bigger than me with all these other people, and our vision of living in a more sustainable way.’

Penny’s new life has an overarching purpose that makes sense of everything she does, however mundane, whether it’s pulling up invasive plants in the wildflower meadow, cooking the evening meal for forty-odd people in the communal kitchen, doing the shopping or babysitting for a neighbour, or contributing to the work of one of the service teams that keep things running in the community. It’s this kind of overall mission that many retired people feel is lacking in their lives, a powerful motivator that makes you want to get out of bed in the mornings, and gives a sense of continuing to move forward, of making the most of time rather than just filling it.

What people need to find, according to Oliver Robinson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Greenwich University, are high-level goals that integrate day-to-day goals into a long-term sense of direction. A ‘high-level goal’ can be anything you like. Ideally it should chime with your core values, support personal growth and provide a connection with other people. At an epic level you could turn a hobby into a kitchen-table business or embark on a new part-time career. Both will involve a series of short-term goals, from developing the necessary skills to converting a workspace. Or you could train for a 10K wild swim, plan a big trip, revamp your garden or get a dog: the training is a mission in itself. For Tony Clack it’s quite simple. At 70, keeping fit is his number one priority, and it provides an overall structure to his life as well as social contact through sports clubs and walking groups.

SOURCES OF HELP IN FINDING A NEW PURPOSE

There are a variety of things that can aid the search for a new purpose. Just talking to people is a good starting point, whether it’s a trusted friend or someone who is already retired and acts as a kind of informal mentor. Walking, swimming and meditating all clear the cobwebs and make way for new thinking, while a holiday allows you to stand back and take an objective look at your life.

But many people appreciate an opportunity to set aside special time to think about their new purpose. In this respect a good retirement course, one that focuses less on pensions advice and more on the psychological adjustment, can be helpful. Apart from anything else, it’s useful to hear what other people think. A retreat is a more intensive way to find focus. (Read about Karen’s life-changing experience of a F**k It! retreat in here.)

Life coaching

In my experience, life coaching – or ‘executive coaching’ as it’s also known - is the best way to nudge the needle out of its groove if you can’t stop procrastinating. It’s practical and relatively quick; it usually takes about six sessions. It looks at the psychological and emotional issues that are holding you back, and offers practical strategies for moving forward. It can be a huge relief to talk to someone who sees your situation objectively, and who can help you work out your own clear way forward if you’re feeling muddled and overwhelmed. You don’t have to be stuck to see a coach. It’s often helpful to have a few sessions before you retire.

Some coaches specialise in retirement. In theory, the age of the coach and their general take on life shouldn’t matter. But having seen a few life coaches myself – when I’ve been writing about the subject, as well as for personal development – I know that I prefer seeing someone of a similar age who understands issues like confidence and ageism and who gets where I’m coming from.

David Martin, an associate of the Centre for Policy on Ageing as well as a coach, has co-delivered pilot projects in Leeds and Kent as part of research into transitions into retirement. He says, ‘If you feel dissatisfied in retirement it is important to be clear what you want, who you are and what fits with you. Coaching can help people find answers to these questions themselves, rather than giving pat advice about volunteering or getting a dog. And it helps people identify practical processes to bring about change themselves.

‘The course we deliver is not about how you “should” retire. There is no one way of entering this stage of life. It’s really a period of reflection and an opportunity to get back to who you are – perhaps for the first time in your life. That may mean work, or starting your own business or being a carer or even doing nothing.’

Finally, a good coach will prompt clients to question the self-limiting beliefs that can hold people back at any age. They’re often fuelled by the negativity that surrounds retirement, and if you don’t deal with them they have a nasty habit of turning into self-fulfilling prophecies. Sue Plumtree, who specialises in coaching women over 50, speaks from personal experience: ‘When I was approaching my sixtieth birthday I was feeling very vulnerable, trying to figure out what being 60 meant to me. Eventually I realised that I had intimidated myself into believing that I could no longer make a meaningful contribution to life. I have clients who come to me saying “It’s too late for me, I’m too old.” People have to challenge their inner critic and let go of their self-limiting beliefs about what they can and can’t do, especially if they are to do with age. I encourage them to notice and question these beliefs by keeping a journal so that they can see a pattern of their thoughts. Being busy is not the same as being fulfilled. Feeling fulfilled is energising.’

VOLUNTEERING

Devoting your energies to something you believe in is an obvious place to find new purpose. These days volunteering is taken as seriously as paid work, both by organisations who rely on an unpaid workforce and by the volunteers themselves. Some jobs are hard to get, the application process can be tough, and there is often a volunteer agreement, which sets out what you can expect from the organisation you’re working for, such as the level of supervision, support and training.

Increasingly volunteers are becoming more hard-nosed too. They want to feel they’re getting something out of giving up their precious time. And they want recognition. A report for the Royal Voluntary Service in 2012 pointed to strong evidence of a link between volunteering and well-being in later life. But significantly, it also found that volunteers’ well-being was linked to feeling appreciated for their efforts. This rings true for former school head Anthony: ‘I do get something back from Bikeworks [more on page 79], otherwise I wouldn’t do it. I like getting a pat on the back for doing a good job and working in a team. If you’re not getting paid you’ve got to have a good reason for doing something.’

Volunteering can have huge benefits for both sides. A review of research into the impact on volunteers by the University of Wales, Lampeter found that it was shown to decrease mortality and to improve self-rated health, mental health, self-esteem and life satisfaction. Volunteering offers stimulation, challenge and opportunities to work with people of different ages, learn new skills, travel and get out of your comfort zone. The most important thing is to find a role that resonates with your values and interests, and work that you feel is worth doing. There’s plenty of choice, from beach clean-ups to social enterprise cinemas, to food banks and campaigning. It’s worth spending time researching different options before putting together what might be a time-consuming application. Some organisations look for particular skills and experience, not just evidence of enthusiasm, although that’s the obvious baseline.

Many volunteering roles, particularly those that involve working with people in crisis, benefit from a rich experience of life. Suddenly it’s a positive advantage to have negative experiences under your belt, the kind of things that you wouldn’t dream of putting on a CV. That’s what Frances discovered when she applied to become a magistrate. It’s a very traditional retirement occupation, and for good reason. It’s incredibly rewarding and draws on the rich tapestry of different life skills people have accumulated over the years.

‘At the time I applied the competition was fierce, but experience I thought of as entirely negative – my divorce and the domestic abuse I suffered early on in my marriage – turned out to be an asset. It hardly sounds like part of the ideal portfolio. But I think that’s what clinched it for me, and it’s helped profoundly in doing the job. I’ve been irrational and hot-headed and difficult myself, I know from bitter experience how hard it is for both sides in a divorce, I’ve had to hand over my own little one to my ex-husband. I can empathise with how both partners are feeling.

‘I’m so glad they gave me this chance. It’s one of the most rewarding things I have ever done: finding the least worst outcome for the child, who always comes first. It’s helped me enormously with the loss of status and routine, and introduced me to new circles of people.’

If you choose wisely, volunteering can put back the things you miss about work – workmates, stimulus, a sense of achievement – without the stuff you didn’t enjoy, like office politics and stress.

INFORMAL VOLUNTEERING

Let’s not forget the informal volunteering that’s part of everyday life. It’s what Wordsworth called ‘little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love’, like giving a friend a lift to hospital or feeding the neighbour’s cat or supporting someone who’s been bereaved or divorced. Neighbourhood care rotas and new initiatives like The Casserole Club take this a step further by bringing together people who enjoy cooking with people who can’t always cook for themselves.

In some communities, helping each other out is just what people do. One of the people whose way of life I envy is Pam, who helps with the lambing every spring in her Hampshire village. She was very much a city person until she moved to the South Downs twenty years ago, but she was well rooted in village life by the time she retired ten years ago. In her community, helping the local farmers – and indeed anyone who needs a hand – is part of daily life.

‘I like being retired in the community, because things happen naturally. If necessary some of us take it in turns in summer to walk the fields in the evening to make sure there are no sheep on their backs, and get them back on their feet if they are. Before they’ve been sheared their fleeces get heavy and they find it difficult to get upright again. It doesn’t happen often, fortunately! In winter I help check a different flock that is brought in to help manage a local nature reserve. They’re usually Shetland sheep, very muted colours, and well camouflaged, so they can be hard to spot, especially on a midwinter’s afternoon when the mist is coming down.

‘I also go scrub bashing up at this nature reserve in the winter. I use a scythe, and it really needs doing because if this chalk downland meadow wasn’t managed it would revert to scrub. If I had time I would do more because I enjoy it so much. It’s quite an important thing for me. It refreshes the spirit and makes you feel better about the world.’

Another person whose way of life I envy is Lesley, who lives at the opposite end of the British Isles, in the north-west Highlands of Scotland. I first met Lesley a couple of years ago, when she galvanised the community into building, and then crewing and racing, two beautiful traditional skiff rowing boats. She’s the kind of person who makes things happen. Thanks to her, and the can-do local folk, the 260-strong community went on to win races in competitions against boats from all over the world. When I met Lesley this time, in her kitchen overlooking the breathtakingly beautiful Summer Isles, she was bleary-eyed after poring over spreadsheets and making ceramic medals until 3 a.m. in preparation for the following weekend’s competitive rowing regatta.

She said, ‘A friend sent me a birthday card saying, “Please remind me to stop volunteering.” I thought, “I know, I know…” It is stressful sometimes and there are times when I could do without it, because my own ceramics business could really do with more attention. But the corollary is that you’re involved with all the nice things: pleasant interactions and pints at the bar with folk. It just keeps you alive. There’s nothing better than to feel you’re useful. There’s still a functioning community here, with ages and attitudes all mixing. People in retirement are used, they’re wanted, they’re drawn in. The younger people here are well aware that older people are quite a resource – I feel the same about people who are older than me.’

CHOOSING THE RIGHT VOLUNTEERING ROLE: QUESTIONS TO ASK

• What’s in it for you?

There’s got to be something that goes beyond the warm glow you get from helping people and doing something worthwhile. Professor Ian Stuart-Hamilton says, ‘There’s nothing wrong with doing something because you feel you’re doing good, that makes you feel a better person for doing your bit. But you’ve got to have some selfishness too. You’ve got to ask why you’re doing it, and how useful it is. These are crucial questions. You need to approach voluntary work in the same way you’d approach a paid job.’

Anthony invested in a five-day cycle maintenance course so that he could volunteer at Bikeworks, a local organisation that works with the community, including disaffected young people, refugees and people with mental health problems, to build, fix and ride bikes. ‘I’m not naturally mechanically minded, so it was a steep learning curve. It’s a worthwhile cause – trying to expand cycling, working with vulnerable people in the community, fixing bikes for people on low incomes. And I like having one day of a routine in the week.

‘Like any paid job it has its share of workmates falling out with each other and difficult customers. On Wednesdays I often think, Oh God, it’s Bikeworks tomorrow. I resent going if it’s a sunny day and I could be out cycling. But one thing I miss about work is having to do things you really don’t look forward to. I’m very good at not taking problems home with me. I’m a non-executive director but when I started I said to myself, I’m going to contribute, but it’s not my baby.’

• How much time do you want to commit, and how much flexibility do you need?

Be realistic and beware of overcommitting yourself at first. It’s much better to start with a morning or one day a week and build up to more if you enjoy it.

• Do you want to volunteer abroad?

If so, why and where? How well can you speak the language?

• Do you want to work on your own or in a team?

One of the things that people miss most about work is having colleagues. What many people like about volunteering is the social side – the opportunity to mix with people of all ages and different life experiences, to build up a new network of acquaintances as well as friends. But some people prefer getting stuck into a task on their own, and plenty of roles offer more autonomy.

• How do you feel about being unpaid?

This is the crux of the matter. Anthony says, ‘If you’re not being paid you’ve got to have a very good reason for doing a job. When I first retired I had a voluntary job inspecting children’s homes. It was incredibly demanding and required a high level of expertise. Yet there was little support. I knew that in other authorities people were paid for doing the same thing. After two years I thought, why am I doing this?’

Alex held back from volunteering because she found it hard to settle on a particular field of work. She adds, ‘I knew I wouldn’t be happy doing something for free that I had been paid for previously. When I first started to look at different volunteering possibilities I was resistant to anything that felt like what I had been doing in my last job. In a way it helped me to think positively about the kind of volunteering I would want to do.’

REASONS TO VOLUNTEER

• Wanting to make a difference.

• Finding a vehicle for your personal values.

• Helping other people.

• Meeting people of different ages and making friends.

• Learning about yourself.

• Getting to know a different culture or way of life.

• Stretching and challenging yourself.

• Learning new skills and keeping existing skills up to speed.

• Keeping the brain sharp.

• Enjoying the stimulation of different views and new perspectives.

• Benefiting from personal development.

• Escaping from negative feelings.

• Giving structure to the week.

5

The First Year and Beyond

Most people can reckon on having about a quarter of their lives ahead of them when they leave work. As a result, each individual retirement goes through a series of different phases. You only have to look back at the changes in your own life over the past twenty or thirty years to see how life might change again and again. Some people don’t have to look any further than their own parents, who may still be living independently and enjoying life in their eighties and nineties.

At 88, John Mac’s mother is still driving and volunteering at her local church. His grandmother lived to 96. This gives John, who is 65 and retired five years ago, pause for thought. ‘It makes me wonder whether what I’m doing now is really enough to sustain me, what purpose do I have for maybe another thirty years? At the moment it’s fine, I’m very content, and I’m really enjoying retirement. But I have these existential moments every now and again where I think my God, what am I going to do with all this space and time? Should I start thinking about something else to do? I think it’s good to question where you’re at every now and then and think about your goals and what you’re up to.’

Too often retirement is seen as a single static, monochrome phase. While it’s recognised that there are a few months’ upheaval when you first leave work, after that life is supposed to settle into a quieter, unchanging pace. But of course life doesn’t stop changing just because you’ve retired; in fact it probably changes even more. One focus of interest shifts to be replaced by another; a volunteering role is fulfilling for a couple of years, but then you want something meatier. You meet new friends through different activities, you find a new partner. Your kids leave home, they come back, they have children themselves. It’s a constant learning curve with each new phase building on the last.

No surprise, then, that adaptability has been shown to be one of the key traits that make for a good retirement. Half the battle is to be alert to your changing needs, and ready to respond and adapt when new opportunities arise. Nick, a former policeman, has gone through huge changes both personally and professionally in the past five years. When he first retired, he was struggling with the empty nest and running a sports massage business. Five years on, his relationship with his kids has changed again, and he’s now working part time as a hospital porter.

‘I see the whole thing as a metamorphosis. By the end of my police service there was a huge gap opening up between what the police wanted me to be and what I was becoming as a person. When I left I felt released for a while, free and very much liberated. I feel I’ve continued changing.

‘My kids’ departure at around the same time that I retired brought home the realisation that my own life was entering a whole new phase. I found this massive gap developing, and I felt completely bereft for a while. Now if anything my relationship with them is even more fulfilling as they move forward with their lives; we regularly do coffee and catch up on news.

‘I’m alive to the idea that in ten years’ time things will be very different again from the way they are now. It’s about identifying what your changing needs are, and recognising that they change over time. And doing an assessment every so often. That happens right the way through. You also have to recognise that as you get older your capacity to do different things changes and you have to go with it. You have to recognise that things are moving on and you have to adapt.’

For a handful of happy souls, the retirement honeymoon never ends. But for most people retirement falls into two clearly defined zones, within which there may be all sorts of different phases. First there’s the settling-in period, which feels like either a honeymoon or a divorce, or a rollercoaster between the two extremes. That’s often followed by a dawning awareness that this is it now, for good. It helps if you’ve seen it coming. It’s also reassuring to know that the honeymoon may be over but life keeps evolving. The road ahead is not boring and straight but full of twists and turns, and there are new phases round the corner that haven’t yet come into view.

THE FIRST YEAR

The reality of retirement is often very different from expectations. Even people who’ve planned for years say they had no idea what it would really be like. Owen says, ‘It’s a bit like when you have your first baby. Beforehand people tell you about sleepless nights and all the rest, but nothing can prepare you for the reality, and for how you feel.’

‘Mental preparation is very important but there is only so much you can do in advance,’ says psychotherapist David Richards. ‘We can’t know what retirement is going to feel like until the day after our last day at work.’

After all the talking and planning and worrying, when the day comes you find out what you really find tough, and what you really enjoy, what you miss and what you need. This is when you can finally test the water, experience how unstructured time feels. This is when unexpected new possibilities can enter the frame, things you might not have considered when you were still at work. ‘I find that my brain has become unleashed for deeper things,’ says Highland teacher-turned-ceramicist Lesley.

One of the unexpected joys of retirement is the new pace of life: not slower necessarily, just different. There’s more time to do things properly rather than in a rush, to savour the moment, to stand and stare, to linger over a conversation. Activities that used to be yet another chore on a long ‘to do’ list, like planting bulbs or cooking dinner, become daily pleasures to be relished.

For over thirty years David Cohen was accustomed to a hectic schedule in charge of the business side of his wife Betty Jackson’s fashion label. All that changed when they made the company dormant in 2011 to set up a consultancy, and then retired in 2016. For more than three decades the couple’s year had been dictated by the next summer or winter collection; when they retired, their life was governed by the natural seasons. He says, ‘My attitude to life has changed massively since I retired. You’re still driving onwards but instead of being in gear you’re in neutral. It’s as if you’re a glider. If you see the wind going one way you can follow it. You’re absolutely free.’

The consultancy meant that Betty was able to devote more attention to her work with fashion students, which she had always loved. ‘It meant I could spend more time doing things properly, which I don’t think I’ve ever done in my life. I could be a bit more careful and involved in what I was doing, and I got quite excited about that. If I had to go to Norwich I could take the whole day rather than having to rush back after half a day.

‘And when I retired completely I used to wake up in the morning and think I have nothing at all to do today, how fabulous is that? It is really lovely to have time. My life has completely changed pace. If I achieve two things in a day I’m thrilled. I used to achieve fifty-seven things in a morning, or at least try and address them. I’m still in love with the idea of having time. Do you know what you can do with a whole day? It’s just fabulous. Or you can do nothing at all with a whole day, which is also fabulous. You have a choice, and that’s what’s been great.’

Yet the new rhythm of life can take some adjusting to. The tendency is often to feel a bit lost and aimless. It can be hard to get out of the habit of being busy all the time, rushing around and multitasking and having to be in two places at once. Some people find it impossible to slow down. Months after stopping work they still switch automatically into work-ready mode as soon as they wake up. One woman told me the only way to shake off the jittery feeling of what was next on her tyrannical ‘to do’ list was to force herself to sit down and watch a film or read a book.

It’s not surprising, because we live in a world that values being busy so highly. Being busy feels good; busy people command respect. There’s a whole industry built around helping people cope with their hectic lives. It’s hardly new: the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: ‘One thinks with a watch in one’s hand, even as one eats one’s midday meal while reading the latest news of the stock market; one lives as if one might always “miss out on something”… Virtue has come to consist of doing something in less time than someone else.’

It took former train driver Chris about six months to adjust to a new, ordered existence after twenty-five years of irregular shift work. Suddenly he could go to bed and eat meals at normal times and spend weekends with his family. At the same time, he was conscious of the new sense of urgency that makes some retired people panic that they are not making the most of their time. He says, ‘At this age you realise that time isn’t on your side. Every second you waste is a second you’re not going to get back. So what I try and do at the end of every day is to mull over what I’ve achieved, and think about the other things I would like to do. That helps with motivation, because you have to replace the external discipline of going to work with internal discipline. One of the best things now is that you can be spontaneous. If the weather’s nice we can go to the coast on the spur of the moment.’

This anxiety about not letting time slip through your fingers makes many people turn to mindfulness and meditation for help in adjusting to retirement, to quieten the mind and focus on the moment. Sometimes what’s most helpful is to allow things to develop at their own pace. David Cohen, fashion designer Betty Jackson’s husband and former business partner, loves being retired now, but at the beginning it wasn’t so easy: ‘When I retired I entered an unknown zone, which lasted a good seven or eight months. Something happened deep inside me: without work I was a little bit lost. It was a tricky time when I understood why sometimes people feel like retirement is the end of their life, because they feel they don’t have meaning. But when I see a problem I live with it. I try not to fight it, I accept it. Eventually the problem doesn’t go away, but somehow you are so much more at ease with it and eventually it disappears because gradually you adapt and you find a new avenue as you change the pattern of your life and what you do.’

MANAGING THE TRANSITION

The latest research suggests that the best way to cope with retirement is to treat it as a major life transition. Understanding it as a massive emotional upheaval, on a par with finding a career path as a young adult or having your first baby, makes sense of its challenges. The good news is that by this stage people have what it takes to cope successfully, according to psychology lecturer Dr Oliver Robinson: ‘We can learn a lot from previous transitions. Many of the same issues come up in major life crises, such as identity, meaning, purpose. If you navigate through a crisis successfully and grow out of it, it should mean you’re in good stead for the next one.’

There is strength in having been round the block a few times. From previous transitions people have developed coping strategies and qualities, such as resilience and adaptability. They know in their bones that negotiating a dramatic upheaval can be painful and uncomfortable at the time, and that it’s often only when you’ve come out the other side that unforeseen positives emerge.

When they first retire, people face three main challenges, which are the same whether you are fully or semi-retired:

1. Leaving the familiarity of the workplace and colleagues and dealing with a mixture of emotions: excitement, sadness, anxiety.

2. Looking back and taking stock of your achievements, which means coming to terms with regrets and limitations and accepting that a chapter is closing, and that some ambitions haven’t been fulfilled.

3. Looking for new purpose, new energy, perhaps a whole new way of life.

Working through these three interlinked tasks simultaneously is no mean feat. You are cast adrift from the security of the working environment into the unknown, and it takes time to work out how you fit in. Your past identity is disappearing before a new sense of yourself can be fully established. It’s not surprising that some people feel as uncomfortable as Alex did when she first retired from her local council: ‘Retirement felt like the period after university, when I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, and everybody else seemed to know what they were doing. I remember going to a party where everyone seemed to have very high-powered retirements. It made me think I could be doing so much more.

‘It reminded me of the discussions we used to have with friends when we were first having children, which are part of what helps you form your ideas. The difference is that when you leave university or have a baby your whole future is at stake. Now you feel you’ve constructed a past, so that’s your achievement. I suppose it depends whether you feel that’s enough, and I don’t think I feel it is. I asked myself, “Did I ever really fulfil my potential?”

‘Those other life experiences, getting into work and finding a career path and what you want to do in life, which I also found difficult, and having children, make you think you will be all right this time. You made it through those things, after all, so you’ll probably make it through this.’

Changing working patterns make it more likely that by their fifties and sixties people will have experienced a variety of transitions, as well as the standard ones, like leaving home and starting a family. People change jobs and work identities more frequently than they used to in the days of jobs for life; they are also more likely to have experienced redundancy at some stage, as well as to have been through a relationship breakdown. They know how it feels to go through big upheavals. Also at this stage of life parents are seeing their adult children leave home and start jobs and possibly families – all poignant reminders of the ups and downs we went through ourselves not so long ago.

Time out of the workplace for whatever reason – maybe through redundancy or maternity leave – or a lean period of freelancing has particular relevance. It’s useful to identify what you found hardest at the time, what you missed and what made things better. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight helps you work out ways to avoid similar difficulties recurring in retirement.

John Mac took two extended breaks from work to go travelling, first in his thirties, and then in his fifties, when he went to Barcelona for a few months to learn Spanish and ended up staying away for seven years. ‘I think both experiences helped me when it came to preparing for retirement. You realise that you have to make things happen, you can’t be passive.’

He is so right. It’s true that the happiest retired people are often the ones who are most proactive about looking for interesting stuff to do and persuading other people to join in. If there’s no birdwatching or film club in their area, they don’t hang around, they set one up themselves. When one friend of mine retired to the country she really missed her book group, so she bravely went up to anyone she liked the look of and asked if they would like to join hers. If you’re lucky enough to come across someone like this, see them as the true asset they are.

‘If I didn’t organise things they wouldn’t happen,’ retired school head Anthony says. ‘People don’t ask me; they see it as my job to ask people when they’re free. I sometimes think if I didn’t bother to contact people to set things up would they contact me? The answer is probably no. I have to work hard at making it work for me. People think I’m handling retirement well, because from the outside it looks as if I’ve got everything sorted because I plan things. But in ourselves we’re never quite as confident as our external self looks. It’s about getting it right with people, isn’t it? You don’t want to impinge or make them feel beholden to do something with you.’

DEALING WITH MIXED EMOTIONS

Some people love the early phase of retirement. Others feel lost and discombobulated; they need time to acclimatise. For most people, like retired police officer Paul, it’s a mixture of the two. ‘Looking back I can see it was a bit of a rollercoaster emotionally. One day I’d be having a cup of coffee and enjoying the sun thinking ha ha, it’s good this retirement malarkey. The next day I’d be a bit down, thinking about all the things I missed, like the banter and the camaraderie and the people. I remember thinking, what have I done? It took a bit of adjusting.

‘It helped that I had already been through a similar experience when I came out of the army on my 24th birthday, although looking back, that leaving was even harder to adjust to. Back then I had exactly twelve months to get used to civilian life, before I went straight back into an organised and uniformed job in the police force. This time I’ve left for good.’

Psychologist Dr Oliver Robinson says it’s quite usual to oscillate between high and low moods, from feeling positive and optimistic one day to feeling pessimistic and blue the next. ‘Mixed emotions are absolutely normal in transitions, and that’s as true of experiences that are generally viewed as wholly positive, like getting married, as it is of retirement. Retirement comes with a weird mix of positive and negative feelings, of gain and loss concurrently, of both anxiety and excitement about the future. This mixture of emotions can be very hard to recognise and to manage. The trouble is that we don’t have a very good set of words for talking about these complex feelings: we’re supposed to feel one way or the other. But life is never like that.’

Dr Robinson believes that mindfulness can be an effective way of dealing with the rollercoaster of emotions that is common in early retirement. It also nurtures the stillness that stops people rushing into things. Vanessa Hope, a teacher with the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University, explains how it can help: ‘Meditation helps people to see the richness and complexity of what they’re involved in. There’s never just one emotion involved in the way we react. Mindfulness practices, which are all based on meditation in one form or another, are a way of helping people to see that all of their experience is made up of a whole conglomeration of things: emotions, thoughts, impulses, what’s happening in the body.’

There are different approaches to early retirement. Some people cram their diaries full of commitments. Others sit back and treat it like an extended holiday. Many people need a break, particularly if the last years at work have been tough physically or emotionally. Giving yourself permission to do not very much, enjoy life’s simple pleasures and let yourself go with the flow can be a really good way to clear space for an objective look at your life and experiment with different options for the future. Dr Robinson believes this can be a good strategy if your life has been dominated by work. ‘For some people the right response to retirement is to do very little for a while, and to experience what it’s like not to have a very full diary. And then to find the new balance, wherever that may lie. It’s a way of looking inside yourself and exploring your feelings.’

Lily, who describes early retirement as like the endless school summer holidays, gave herself a six-month withdrawal period before she even thought about volunteering or doing an art course. She saw friends, had lunch with her children, took in two rescue cats (which she hadn’t felt able to do when she was working long hours), went for long walks in the Peak District, and refused to feel guilty about reading a book in the afternoon. One unexpected pleasure was one-to-one time with her son and daughter, whom she had previously usually only seen with their kids.

But if you kick off with the blank-diary approach, it’s advisable to set a time limit. A period with no plans will feel sweeter and more manageable if you know it’s coming to an end in a few months’ time. Stagnating in front of box sets is to be avoided at all costs. An alternative is to launch straight into something completely different, such as an activity holiday or a trek for charity. It creates a break with the past while planting your best foot forward firmly into the future. One woman I know jumped on to a flight to Greece to work with refugees within a week of her retirement party. My brother Graham was keen to kick things off with a memorable landmark, so he headed for Annapurna Base Camp to go trekking in the foothills of the Himalayas with two of his oldest friends, whom he had known since college in the 1960s. Fulfilling a lifelong ambition by taking part in an activity with strong social links to the past, providing continuity on several fronts, ticked several ‘how to have a good retirement’ boxes at once.

PRACTICAL STEPS TO GET RETIREMENT OFF TO A GOOD START

New routines

Daily and weekly routines are reassuring when you first retire. Professor Ian Stuart-Hamilton says, ‘Most people need something to kick against, they need feedback, so that life is not an untrammelled path where you just go on and on. It’s like the turn at the end of the swimming pool, something to move against that makes you go faster. It gives structure.’

The most purposeful people make routines work for them: they get up at the same time, with or without an alarm clock, they do a bit of exercise before breakfast, they buy the newspaper and read it in the coffee shop. They set themselves rules about drinking. They make lists and keep diaries.

It sounds mad to set your alarm clock and have lunch at a set time when you retire, because surely the best thing about retirement is getting off the treadmill. In fact, though, a routine allows you to relax and enjoy your new freedom more. Many people feel overwhelmed by free time, and it’s a relief to have fixed stuff you don’t have to make a decision about; things you do on automatic pilot. But these regular things should never be so rigid that they get in the way of spontaneity.

If you live with a partner who still goes out to work, the change of routine may feel less abrupt, because their routines rub off on you. Their key in the door sets a new mood for the evening, and you still get a second-hand whiff of that heady Friday night feeling, although hopefully less of the Sunday evening blues. The days and weeks retain some of their old pattern; there’s still a division between work and leisure.

It’s slightly different if you live on your own, or with a partner who is also retired. John Mac lives alone, and admits he sometimes finds weekends a bit difficult. But he just gets on with it. ‘If I haven’t got anything planned I sometimes feel a bit daunted by the whole weekend stretching ahead. But I love my Freedom Pass and I always go out. In winter I take the bus to the Royal Albert Hall and have a brisk walk back through Kensington Gardens, and recently I’ve been going to the end of different tube lines, just to see what’s there. London is such a treasure trove.’

It’s possible to create light and shade by establishing new habits and rituals to mark the change from day to evening. It could be something as simple as afternoon tea or lighting the candles or going for a run, or taking a bath, or watching an episode of a box set. A regular Friday activity soon comes to be associated with the weekend buzz. And if Bank Holidays and half-terms make you feel sad, make plans to go away yourself.

Regular commitments

Just one or two commitments are enough to introduce much-needed structure and a sense of purpose. The rest of the time falls into place around a regular class or a morning’s volunteering. One or two fixed points in the week, whether it’s a class you have to prepare for or a day’s volunteering, impose deadlines, which mean you’re less likely to put things off and procrastinate. Without commitments time slips through the fingers and there’s less impetus to get anything done. They recreate the kind of contrasts people miss about work. And of course most things that are worth doing require a degree of commitment.

John Mac’s week follows a structure that he has built up in the five years since he gave up work at 60. It’s the retired equivalent of the working week, since only his weekends remain free of regular commitments. John, a retired IT consultant, explains, ‘Living on my own and not having the discipline of getting up to go to work, I’ve imposed a bit of a routine. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I go to the gym; I’m often waiting at the door at 9 a.m., when my over-60s membership lets me in. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I volunteer at a local primary school, helping children with reading. Once a week I get paid to tutor kids in maths in a public library on the other side of town.

‘Every morning, either before school or after the gym, I have breakfast in a café and read my Spanish newspaper. I always go to the same place and I always have the same thing: a white Americano and a pain aux raisins. So that sets my morning.’

It’s hard to get the balance of commitments right in the first year. Some people panic at the prospect of having so much free time that they cram their diaries full before thinking through whether it’s how they really want to spend their precious time. It’s so easy to underestimate how much time things take up. The danger is that before long they find there’s no room for the things they had looked forward to. More subtly, but just as important, there’s no headspace to think about what they really want and what matters most to them.

At the other extreme are the people who are reluctant to make any commitments at all when they retire because, after years of saying no to invitations because they were tied to the working week, the last thing they want to do is to take on anything that gets in the way of saying yes. Yet in a strange way, though, commitments actually make free time more enjoyable. Free days with no plans stand out as special time to be relished, rather than blurring into an indistinguishable soup of time where you can’t tell one day from the next. In this case, the ideal commitments are things you take seriously but that are still flexible; you can miss the odd week or rearrange the time if you have to. The alternative is to make your own private commitments: to go to the gym or for a swim at a regular time, to practise the piano for half an hour every morning, to establish a regular date with a friend. They’ll have more weight if you write them down or tell someone about them.

Finally, pets are great for providing routines and structure: dogs get you out of your pyjamas and off to the park first thing, and they force you to be sociable and take exercise, even when you don’t feel like it. And if they’re a new addition, the whole business of training is a retirement project in itself. The downside – a big one, as far as I’m concerned – is that you can’t be spontaneous. You have to find someone to look after the dog when you go away. This is minor for dog lovers, I realise, but it needs careful consideration if you’re in two minds about getting a dog, or indeed any kind of pet.

Make lists

Lists can help boost motivation. It’s helpful to write down even quite basic stuff as well as making lists of long-term dreams and ambitions. Many people also find it useful to compile lists of what they’ve already done. They act as quiet markers of progress that combat the sense that time is slipping through your fingers. For some people mulling over the day’s achievements before bed gives a meaningful coda to the day.

WHEN THE HONEYMOON ENDS

The post-retirement honeymoon period can last for anything from six months to a few years. Research in 2012 at the University of California, Berkeley, found that male retirees experience high levels of satisfaction directly after retirement, but that it falls sharply after a few years. If you can acknowledge from the beginning that the honeymoon will probably end at some stage, and think about what you’ll do when it does, you can take steps to pre-empt the crash. Retired school head Anthony’s honeymoon period is just coming to an end; not bad going, since he’s been retired for three years:

‘I woke up with a slight feeling of unease this morning. When I first stopped work I just wanted a change, a bit of a break. The first year was good, the second year was OK, but this year I’ve started to think, this is for ever. This is it.

‘Over the past few months it’s been dawning on me that this is likely to be a fairly long period – people are fitter than they used to be, after all. If you start looking too far into the future it is worrying, so I prefer not to. What worries me is the repetitiveness of doing the same thing every week. When people ask me for advice about retirement now I say, get used to being bored sometimes because that’s normal and nothing to get too worried about. It won’t last for too long before something more interesting happens.

‘I would like it if something else evolved now, and somebody asked me to do something a bit different. But my big thing is that I don’t want a total commitment. I like commitments that are elastic.’

Six months after this interview, Anthony told me that life had changed yet again. He had got through the period when life was getting a bit monotonous, and was busier once more, although these days it’s often to do with driving down to look after his dad on the south coast.

Coping with the retirement doldrums is often a question of staying alert to your evolving needs and finding new ways to respond to them. That means noticing if you feel bored or lonely or need more exercise or mental stimulus and then looking at ways of building these into your life. This might be by adapting things you already do as well as finding new activities and social networks.

Emma didn’t experience a honeymoon period, not at the beginning, anyway. After a difficult first year, she’s finally found her feet as an artist. ‘I was floundering for quite a long time. I used to hear my daughter going off to catch her train in the morning and it just felt so weird that I didn’t have to go to work too. I felt quite anxious for some months. If anything, the honeymoon period is now. I’ve found a new purpose, but it took a while. I’ve learned that it’s wonderful to have unstructured time. And I suppose I’m getting better at making good use of it.’

As retirement progresses into your late sixties and seventies, your needs and interests change, and making the most of your time involves reinventing the way you do things and continuing to seize opportunities that come your way. The American writer Ruth Nemzoff believes that adaptability is the key to enjoying retirement and that the earlier you establish new habits the better. She makes full use of devices and services that make her life easier and free up her time, from electric bikes and Uber to internet shopping. Rather than meeting friends who find it hard to hear in noisy restaurants, they take turns in going to each other’s houses. A few years ago, Ruth realised that she needed to find new ways of doing things she enjoyed in the past because they were no longer giving her the same satisfaction, so she’s also adapted the way she works.

‘I used to relish the isolation of writing, and when the kids were still at home it was a relief to have downtime. But I don’t want to be isolated any more. I want my work to be more social, so I’ve found a way of writing with other people, which I really enjoy. One of my new writing partners loves research, which I don’t enjoy, so we collaborate. It’s great interacting with each other and as I’ve got older I don’t have so much ego involved, so I’m more willing to accept corrections. I’ve also joined the boards of a couple of charities, and that gets me in a social situation, which is important for me. It gives me the incentives I need to keep reading about the issues I care about.’

And after nearly ten years of a busy retirement, at 74 Charles is finally learning to say no, so that he can adjust to a new pace of life and focus more on the activities that give him real pleasure. ‘What I need to learn now is not to have to be so busy, to do more of the things I enjoy, like walking and singing and watercolour painting. When I was 65 the issue about the things I feel I must do compared to the things I’d like to do didn’t arise. So maybe I’ve been putting it off.

‘Living here it would be very easy to fill your time by volunteering for everything. You need to be able to say no. Most of my life I’ve felt I needed to be doing something useful, contributing to society and giving something back. I enjoyed it, but it’s a way of staying busy when perhaps you need to have a different attitude to life. That means being prepared to relax and do things you don’t feel you have to do.’

HOW TO COPE WITH THE TRANSITION FROM WORK TO RETIREMENT

• One option is to ease yourself in gently by working part time. Research suggests that phased-in retirement is associated with a more successful adjustment (see here).

• Activities and social networks you’ve developed in the years leading up to retirement will be a source of continuity between past and future.

• Use a diary to organise your time.

• Keep another diary of things you’ve done. It can be reflective, purely factual, or a visual scrapbook of tickets, photos and memorabilia.

• Make lists of long-term and more immediate plans.

• If you want to kick off retirement with a few months of pure relaxation, set yourself a time limit.

• Establish a flexible daily routine. This may become less important as you get used to a new rhythm of life.

• Create structure to the week with at least one or two commitments.

• Introduce structure to the day by punctuating it with new rituals at specific times: light the fire, go for a run, do ten minutes of yoga, have tea in a local café.

• Be careful not to take on too many regular activities. It’s easy to underestimate how much time is involved.

• Be proactive in searching out new activities and ways to meet people. If you’re shy, try a class or club that involves making something in a group. Conversations arise more naturally when there’s less pressure to talk and no fear of awkward silences. A good alternative is to join a volunteering activity where everyone mucks in together, like a beach clean-up. And remember, however confident people look, everyone is nervous at first. If you haven’t got a clue where to begin, the best starting point is an activity that taps into a genuine interest. It’s much easier to talk if you’ve got something in common.

6

Identity and Status

Retiring involves one of the biggest shifts of identity we ever go through; it’s as momentous as becoming a parent or leaving home as a young adult. After years of being seen, and of seeing yourself, as a shopkeeper or a nurse or an engineer, you become an ex- whatever it was. The respect attached to your work role evaporates; there’s no longer anyone looking up to you. You find yourself saying a bit too eagerly ‘I used to be a…’ when people ask what you do.

It’s a profound adjustment. You are leaving behind a secure work identity, with perks and friends and agency, where you knew exactly who you were and how you fitted in, with possibly not much to take its place yet. The limbo between shedding the old work identity and building a new one is unsettling. It’s common to feel, as Nadia does, ‘that you’re 60 and you’re just not in the world any more, you don’t matter. I don’t know how to be. I don’t know what my place is.

‘I want status. I know it sounds terrible, and it’s not supposed to matter, but I miss it. I don’t like being invisible when I walk into a room. At work you’ve got status, you have a formal place to assert yourself, you get paid. And then all that structure is shipped away and you’re left just sort of flapping around saying “I used to be a…” And that’s no good any more, you have to be something else now. And that feels scary. Everything you’ve built up throughout your career and pushed for disappears, and suddenly you’re just another old lady looking to do a bit of volunteering.’

Even the actor Dame Kristin Scott Thomas, that epitome of classy glamour, told Vogue magazine that she feels invisible at times. It has a lot to do with getting older; Kristin Scott Thomas, who was 57 at the time, is far from retired, after all. But it is also to do with work, which bestows an independent identity quite separate from home and family life. For many women in particular it’s a welcome relief to feel that you’re not just Mum, that there is another sphere where a different side of you can flourish and gain respect. When that disappears – and it often coincides with losing the hands-on parenting role – it can leave people feeling doubly discombobulated.

It’s easy to forget that there is a positive side to all this – the opportunity in retirement for the real you to emerge from the powerful influence of work. Work changes people in all sorts of ways, good and bad – it helps make them who they are. It’s easier to see this in other people than it is to recognise it in ourselves. Most of us remember how, when we were in our twenties, some friends took on a new persona when they got their first serious job. If you have children, you can see quite plainly how they change in response to the challenges and compromises of working life.

People often adopt a different persona in the workplace; they acquire a reputation for being bossy or jokey or difficult. There’s less need for any of that once you retire; you can relax and be yourself. The new environments you operate in won’t know anything about your reputation, so it’s a chance to make a fresh start and reinvent yourself. The psychologist Dr Oliver Robinson says, ‘Retirement is an opportunity to remember things about yourself that you may have forgotten because they’ve been lost behind your work persona.’

One of the top five regrets of the dying, according to former palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware’s book on the subject, is ‘I wish I’d had the courage to live a life truer to myself’. This is your chance. Retirement is one of those turning points in life when it’s natural to question assumptions you’ve made about yourself and what you’re capable of that you may have held on to for years. It’s a catalyst for positive change.

It is often assumed that it’s workaholics and high-powered professionals who are most affected by loss of status when they retire, because their work role left little room for much else. And of course that’s often true. But there are no rules. People in all kinds of jobs identify closely with their work. A drop in self-worth can affect anyone who leaves a job that made good use of their talents, or that brought with it strong social connections, job satisfaction and the respect of peers. David Richards, a psychotherapist who specialises in working with older clients, says, ‘For most people work is not just something that takes up time, it is more of an identity, it has helped to define who they are. And for many of the people we meet, such as social acquaintances or people at parties, it will be the thing they most know about us. Work is the defining thing in a way that a lot of other new roles – volunteering, for example – are not.’

Labels and titles matter more than we think. Children want to be a ‘something’ when they grow up, an athlete or a scientist or a DJ. People spend years training to become qualified for a particular role. And once they’ve made it there’s a new preoccupation with progressing up the ladder. Yet many people claim that their identity is not bound up with their work. It’s almost a badge of pride to insist that you’re not bothered by status. So it can be a bit of a shock when it turns out that you miss it.

The same goes for money. It’s hard to avoid being defined, and being judged, by how much we earn and what we spend money on; even claiming not to care about salaries confers its own status. It’s not about being flash: people are just as likely to define themselves by their frugality or their sensible spending on well-considered John Lewis purchases. People like to see themselves – and get used to being seen – as generous with their friends and family, while giving to charity adds to their sense of self, to the values they hold dear. All of this might need to be reconfigured in retirement.

A NEW IDENTITY

Finding a new identity creates as many difficulties as letting go of the old one does. There’s an inevitable limbo period, and that’s often the hardest part. Emma says, ‘I still get in a bit of a panic about what to say when people ask me what I do. I remember the first time it happened, at a party with my husband. It was a couple of months after I stopped work and before I started doing anything else. I had no idea what to say. I felt I had lost my identity completely. It was really confusing and unpleasant. I still don’t like saying I’m retired because it sounds like I don’t do anything. At the same time it sounds a bit pretentious to say I’m an artist. But I do happily say I make money as an artist, and that has given me a whole new identity.’

There are two main reasons why people struggle in this limbo period:

1. Their new identity is not yet formed. People have yet to establish the new interests and activities that will contribute to a new sense of self.

2. Most people struggle with ‘retirement’ as their new identity.

Liz is a case in point. For the first year she avoided saying she was retired. Instead she told people she was having ‘a pause’, a phrase borrowed from Alice Walker. Liz says, ‘If you tell people you’re retired their eyes glaze over a bit – especially younger people. I didn’t enjoy the glazing. We’re so bound up with the identity of work, aren’t we? In my fifties I was vibrant, I was in my alpha phase, the charity I set up was very successful. I had enough confidence not to care what people thought about me, I could carry on doing my own thing. Then two years ago there was this cut-off of not working. It wasn’t about finances for me, it was about a shift in identity: the big change in my perception of myself and others’ perceptions of me.

‘I realised I had a number of pictures in my head of what retired people looked like, and I didn’t want to be this static retired person who didn’t have anything meaningful in my life. I also realised that I had not really figured out what I wanted to do or be in the next stage of my life. However, when I started exploring a new part of myself and tried out different things that I really enjoyed, I became comfortable with the notion of having a different identity. Now I’ve found what I want to do I’m happy to say I’m retired.’

Saying ‘I’m retired’ slips more easily off the tongue when you’ve found new ways of defining yourself and for other people to define you. This process happens organically, but sometimes it needs a bit of a push. As your work persona gradually recedes, it leaves space for a different side of life to take centre stage. You can spend more time on activities that resonate with your core values. New interests, experiences and values shape an emerging sense of self.

People who already have a broad range of interests that contribute to a rounded sense of self fare best in retirement. It’s often assumed this is only true of people who don’t invest a great deal of themselves in their work, but in fact workaholics are just as likely to have several strings to their bow. Take the fashion designer Betty Jackson, who retired two years ago. I hope she’ll forgive me for describing her as a workaholic. You can’t have an identity that’s more intimately bound up with work than a company named after you: it was her name on the labels, the carrier bags, the buttons even.

‘I was worried that I would disappear, that I wouldn’t exist, when we made the company dormant. Work was totally part of my identity, I was defined by my work. And it was so visible; in our own small way what we did was out in the public gaze.

‘But it no longer matters. That’s a bit weird after forty years, isn’t it? Every day since I moved to London from Bacup when I was 23 I’ve gone into a studio or a workroom. I thought I would feel undermined by not working, but I don’t. I’ve found that I do still exist without work, I am still me.

‘I think it’s because for me the big thing about being part of a creative industry is that there is always other stuff going on in your life. You have to involve yourself with art and theatre and music and film and politics for your own stimulus, throughout your career. They don’t come with the job, they’ve always been a huge and important part of your life. So you don’t give up those things when you retire. You actually make more of them. They still give you energy, they still lift your soul.’

INTERESTS BEYOND WORK

It may be that there’s little time to get your head round the idea of a changing identity before you retire; you may not want to even think about it. But if you are aware that work dominates your life – or your partner’s – to the exclusion of other interests, it’s worth starting to develop at least one new activity in the run-up to retirement. The more sociable the better, according to the experts. Supportive networks that run parallel to work and that will continue beyond it can be a big help. People start to see you not just as a brilliant brain surgeon but as a wicked darts player or a fine guitarist. Playing in a band, taking an evening class, working on an allotment, being a member of a sports club or a book group can all form bridges between the old you and the new you.

It’s also important to reinforce this new identity with other people. Rather than apologetically saying, ‘I used to be a…’ when asked what you do, it feels much more confident to say, ‘I’m studying astronomy’ or ‘I’m planning to start a rag-rugging business.’ Besides, people would much rather talk about what really fires you up than have yet another dull conversation about work. Soon other people in your immediate circle and beyond will get used to seeing you in a new light, and that in turn reinforces your own new view of yourself.

Retired school head Anthony has already got this nailed. ‘If I’m at a party and people ask what I do, I’m quite upfront and I quickly start talking about all the things I’m doing – volunteering at Bikeworks, mentoring, going to Australia – so it’s like “I’m retired, but…” I don’t mind telling people I’m retired, but I like to make sure they realise that I’m not just sitting at home.’

WORK IDENTITIES NEVER DIE

You never fully leave your work identity behind; it remains part of who you are, and many people retain it throughout retirement in the kind of volunteering or mentoring or part-time work they do. In fact, a good way to bridge the gap between your old and new lives is by using your qualifications and expertise in a new role, while at the same time looking for something different that will develop new skills. It’s a question of building on your work identity rather than finding a new one, according to the psychotherapist David Richards: ‘Part of the dilemma is what you do with your old role when you’re no longer practising it. If the professional identity was important it’s retained in some way in our minds, it’s just that we have a very different relationship to it when we’re no longer actually doing it. You’re still a teacher or a nurse or whatever it was because you’ve still got the qualification and you still use some of the ideas. They’re just no longer active in a formal way.’

This is something Paul is very conscious of. It’s four years since he left the police, and he’s built a rich new life around his volunteer work as an ambulance driver, which channels many of his old skills. But his former identity is never far from the surface. ‘That identity is a hard thing to leave behind. You can never walk away and leave it totally. About five months ago my wife and I happened to drive past an incident: some young lads on pushbikes had driven into a car and were abusing a driving instructor and her pupil. It was like the flick of a switch: I went instantly from Mr to ex-cop. I was out of the car and straight across the road. The lads scattered. My wife had never seen me in police mode before. She says I always take the police point of view, and she’s right, I’ve still got that attitude. And I’ve carried the discipline side through to my volunteering work. You can always tell someone who’s been in a disciplined organisation.’

CHALLENGING NEGATIVE ATTITUDES

Negative attitudes to retirement have a big impact on status. They seem to be a particularly Western phenomenon. It’s noticeable that in countries like China, where there is a higher regard for life after work, and where elders are held in high esteem, retirement is embraced with energy and enthusiasm. In the UK the problem lies not only in the way society views retired people but in the way we see ourselves. David Richards says, ‘In Western society people are seen and valued for their professional role. It’s both the value we place on ourselves, and the value we feel others and society places on us. And when people are no longer inhabiting that professional role they can feel very inferior. They feel it directly themselves, as well as indirectly because of the way they’re treated.’

It’s virtually impossible to resist absorbing negative attitudes ourselves. I’m sure I’m not the only person who goes to great lengths to avoid being seen as retired. I do my utmost to stop 20-year-olds giving up their seat on the train by adopting the stance of a woman who is perfectly capable of standing, thank you very much. And I avoid silver screenings like the plague. More fool me, missing out on cheap tickets and free tea and biscuits. But Anthony backs me up: ‘I’ve got one particular friend who won’t go anywhere where there are other retired people. He hates the idea that he’s one of them. I admit I feel a bit the same. But cycling saves me. If I walk into a National Trust tea room and it’s full of grey-haired people, I feel a bit different from everyone else because they’ve all come by car whereas I’ve come on my bike.’

Prejudices about age and appearance can have serious consequences, not least because of the impact on confidence and self-esteem. If you buy into them – and it’s hard not to – it creates a vicious circle of negativity in which self-limiting beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies. Frances, a former senior civil servant who went on to hold several senior positions in public organisations, refuses to let other people’s stereotyping dent her confidence. During her semi-retirement Frances has applied for several jobs, which she is well qualified for. She often feels she’s being judged by her appearance, and I’m sure she’s right, because she never had a problem getting jobs in the past. She says, ‘The assumptions about me have been extremely interesting. Most people don’t see beyond grey-haired old woman, and assume from the way I talk that I’ve had an easy life. I can see them thinking, what does she know about anything? My resilience – and a certain private satisfaction – comes from knowing that I am qualified for the job, I’ve done my research and actually I bring quite a lot of relevant life experience. Sometimes I disabuse them, sometimes I decide it’s not worth it.’

THE INDIVIDUALITY OF RETIREMENT

Media images don’t help, however hard they try to paint a positive image of retirement. The new stereotype of white-haired couples in stripy tops and trainers is a vast improvement on cauliflower perms and beige blouson jackets. But they still fail to convince, because they really don’t look like us: just think about the retired people you know. People have been slow to cotton on to what makes retired people distinctive: their fierce individuality. They’re free to be themselves in what they do and the way they dress.

After years of putting on a work identity through their clothes, once people retire they can wear what they like. Even if they don’t wear a uniform or a suit, most people make an effort for work. Polishing your boots and putting on a bit of slap helps gird the loins to face the world. And when you get home at the end of the day, changing into something more comfortable is a signal to relax. When you retire, that subtle daily shift of identity comes to an end. The clothes you choose to face the world change too, and that’s bound to affect how you feel about yourself. You can slob about in tracky bottoms all day if you feel like it.

A uniform is an extreme version of this daily ritual. It confers status, it sends out an instant message about identity to the rest of the world and it helps the wearer slip straight into their role. It’s always a bit of a jolt when you catch sight of someone in civvies you usually see in uniform: suddenly you’re seeing the real them. The retired police officers I spoke to found that giving up their uniform was a potent symbol of the profound change in their status. When Jean joined the force in 1972, the dress code was strict: no hair visible below the cap, no jewellery, no make-up, shoes supplied by the force. So while she welcomed the freedom to wear what she liked when she retired, it also made her feel a bit at sea. And it coincided with a parallel loss of identity as a hands-on mother, because her son left home at the same time, leaving the nest completely empty.

She remembers, ‘There was one piece of police equipment I found it very difficult to hand over: my Police Identity Warrant Card. I’d always carried it with me, even when I was off duty. It was my badge and in one respect my armour. One day I was Senior Constable, the next I was plain Mrs.

‘Without my badge and my uniform my confidence plummeted rapidly. I lost the ability to make decisions and I found myself wanting to safeguard myself before others, which was the total opposite of my duty as a police constable. It gradually dawned on me that I had become “more ornament than use” as my mother used to say. I felt invisible, unnecessary and of no value to anyone.’

Most people don’t have to deal with such a public loss of identity; the shift is more subtle. Even so, leaving any kind of work means moving out of an arena where you’re respected for what you do, for your knowledge and experience, and into new situations where you’re more likely to be judged by what you look like. When you work with a familiar colleague you see each other beyond your appearance. But when you or they move into a new context, outside work, there’s a strong chance that people won’t see past the grey hair. This awareness often first dawns on public transport or in a shop, where strangers have no idea that you’re a Nobel prize-winning scientist or a top theatre director.

That’s one consideration if you move to a new area when you stop work: you’re cast as the retired person by neighbours who aren’t familiar with your backstory. They haven’t seen you as the frazzled dad or the woman who biked off to work every morning. When Mary moved into multigenerational co-housing five years ago, she became conscious for the first time that people saw her not for what she knew and what she was like, but for what she looked like. It’s worth mentioning that Mary, a retired anthropology lecturer, seems a lot younger than her seventy-five years.

‘When I came here I realised how the younger ones see me as much older than I see myself. It’s natural, of course. I am the oldest person here, after all, and I’ve stopped dying my hair. Nevertheless, it slightly shocked me. No one meant to be unpleasant, but there were lots of remarks. One woman compared me with her grandmother! I’ve got used to it now, but I had never had that experience before, although at work I was surrounded by students, who were of course much younger.

‘A friend once said to me that when you get old you need to do stereotype-challenging things, like wear purple. Because you can’t blame people. I don’t know what other people see when they look at me. When I first moved here people didn’t know me or what I can do. My knowledge of Outer Mongolian weddings isn’t much use here! Before I came here I couldn’t understand why anyone would choose senior rather than intergenerational co-housing. I am glad that I opted for this but now I realise that it is also important to be connected with a handful of people of a similar age. You’ve lived through the same historical periods and life stages. People of a similar age don’t define you in terms of age in the way younger people do.’

THE EMPTY NEST

When retirement coincides with the loss of other roles, such as that of hands-on parent when the kids leave home, it’s a double whammy, which can leave people rudderless. Nick, a single parent, says, ‘My son and daughter were my focus for so long and suddenly there was just this massive hole. And because I was retired I’d got all this time to dwell on it. I’m still getting used to it. You realise your relationship with your children has to change as your life is entering a new phase.’ This was highlighted by the influential American psychologist Daniel Levinson, who believed that in their early to mid-sixties people must come to terms with being no longer the prime movers in either work or family life.

For Frances it’s not quite the empty nest: she recently bought a house with her son and his family. But it is about handing on to the next generation: ‘As a single parent I’ve been head of the household for years; and now I’m very conscious of passing that role to my son. He is now head of the house; in animal terms he and his wife are now the alpha male and female. I’m trying hard not to be the matriarch, not to criticise, or if I do, I try to be very subtle! I think I’ve got a lot better at passing on the baton.

‘People talk about the loss of status when you stop paid work, but the status I’ve lost most is having a house with spare bedrooms where I could invite friends to stay. That’s the bit I miss most, but I’ve come to terms with it.’

At the same time, the other ways you define yourself beyond work get thrown into the air. It’s a wonderful opportunity to question assumptions you’ve made about what you enjoy and what you’re capable of that you may have held on to for years. It’s a chance to put self-limiting beliefs to the test, to think twice about whether you really can’t sing or play tennis, or whether you’re scared of heights or too shy to perform on stage. Parents who became uncharacteristically timid and risk-averse when their kids came along can revive their adventurous spirit. People who ran a ruthlessly efficient domestic ship while they were juggling work and family life can finally cut themselves some slack.

IS RETIREMENT HARDER FOR MEN?

It’s still thought that men find retirement tougher than women because they’re more likely to identify almost exclusively with their work and have fewer supportive networks outside it. As a result the default position for a lot of blokes is to stick to the devil they know by working as hard in retirement as they did before; the only difference is that now they’re not paid for everything they do.

Former school head Anthony bucks the trend, but he’s puzzled by the stereotypes that persist. ‘Fictional detectives like Rebus or Morse are always completely paranoid about retirement. The trope is this idea of tending your vegetable garden and watching daytime soaps. And somehow detectives couldn’t possibly imagine doing anything different, like work for a charity or whatever. Is it a male thing? That men don’t find it as easy to join things and be in mixed company? I don’t know.’

You would think we would have moved on: women invest just as much in their careers these days, after all. Men are increasingly involved with childcare; there’s a new understanding about work/life balance. Yet it remains true that many men’s lives are embedded in their work, both professionally and socially, while women’s identities are more rounded, they have more facets. Other roles are just as important to women’s self-definition, and they’re used to shifting between different identities. They also know how it feels to move in and out of the workplace.

After spending twenty-five years running retirement courses, David Sinclair thinks the old clichés about men and women are grounded in reality: ‘I find that generally women do handle retirement better because of multitasking and spending time out of the workplace when they have children. They’re used to taking on different roles. So retirement is just another change. And they’re generally more sociable than men; they’re better at joining in with groups. Men don’t get the same sort of support from friends, and that makes a big difference.’ David’s observations are echoed by a 2005 report for the Central Office of Information on older people, which found a marked gender difference: women were able to cope with change better, while men tended to be less outgoing. I’m not sure why this should be, but women often say that their husbands rely on them to organise their social life and wouldn’t go to a club or a class off their own bat.

Irene, who retired a few months ago from her job as an administrative assistant, is worried that her husband, Danny, won’t adapt as easily as she has: ‘I think retirement must be very hard for men like my husband, who has never had any time off, he loves work, he never misses a day. Danny doesn’t like change at all; he’s always had the same car and he’s been in the same job as an engineer for Thames Water for fifteen years. It’s different for me because I had time off when I had the kids and I went part time when they were young. I’ve always tried to integrate family and friends, people I’ve known for years. Danny admits he will miss his workmates, although quite a few of his long-term work colleagues are retiring soon too so it seems the right time for change.’

Men whose friends and acquaintances are exclusively work-based miss out on the support and the sense of continuity that having a variety of networks brings. Of course, work-based friendships often carry on through retirement, but that’s less likely to be the case if work is the only common ground. In jobs like mining or the Fire Service, which have a tight-knit camaraderie, the loss of identity can be felt particularly acutely.

The gulf between men’s and women’s experiences of retirement has its roots in the past. Yet there are few clues from our parents’ generation, because the circumstances of their retirements were so different. The opening up of new horizons has been one of the big improvements for both sexes. The downside is the lack of role models to identify with.

Previous generations of men generally had lower expectations of retirement, and not only because they didn’t expect to live so long. They were more likely to see it as an end rather than a beginning, an opportunity to get out the pipe and slippers rather than take off in a camper van. Grandfathers were allowed to be hands-off, more likely to be sat in a chair getting grumpy if the grandchildren made too much noise.

Meanwhile, many women taking their pension now are the first generation to retire from full-time work. Our mothers’ retirements were shaped by their husbands’ in a way that is far less likely today. In 1979 the American sociologist and psychotherapist Lillian Rubin wrote in ‘Women of a Certain Age: the Midlife Search for Self’: ‘Ask a midlife woman about her plans for her future and she more than likely will speak of her husband’s.’

Previous generations of women often didn’t have retirement dreams of their own; they may have had little control over the future. For our mothers – mine retired from part-time teaching in the 1970s – retirement was on the whole a second-hand experience, particularly if they’d been home-based.

Marion grew up in England surrounded by experiences of retirement that couldn’t be more different to her own life in Norway, where she moved with her husband, Leo, in 2010. She has been the breadwinner since Leo left his job and plans to keep working part time at least until she’s 70; cutting her hours won’t affect her Norwegian pension. ‘They say they’re not ageist here. They seem to prize wisdom and experience and age, whereas in the UK it’s a youth culture,’ she says. ‘I’ve never had an image in my head of a retired person and I can’t imagine myself being at home. I never thought of my father as retired because he gave up work to look after my mother, who had to give up work when she got married. My aunties, who lived nearby, also had to stop work when they got married, so they didn’t retire. Nor did my grandmother, who lived with us. I only ever knew her as an old lady who always wore a pinafore and fluffy slippers and her hair in a bun. I certainly didn’t want to be like that!’

Meanwhile, the five-year disparity between the state pension age for men (65) and women (60), which has recently been phased out in the UK, did women no favours. Since it was first introduced in 1940 it fed into negative stereotypes of older women by unintentionally creating the impression that they needed to give up work earlier than men; there was a sense that women were past it at 60 while men had another five productive years. That’s all history now: from November 2018 both sexes are entitled to the state pension at the same age, 65; by 2020 it will be 66. Sadly, this new equality doesn’t feel like a very positive change to the estimated 2.6 million women who, like me, lost out in the phasing-in process. Many women born in the 1950s complain that they didn’t receive adequate notice that they would receive their state pension later – in some cases years later – than they expected. They had little time to make alternative plans for retirement and many suffered financially as a result.

TAKE CONTROL OF THE IDENTITY YOU PRESENT TO THE WORLD

One way to counteract negative attitudes is to face the world with a strong sense of yourself, one that doesn’t kowtow to expectations. It is certainly not a question of trying to look younger or of wearing purple. It’s about feeling comfortable in your own skin, allowing your own new identity to shine, and having a presence that demands that people take you seriously. It’s about walking into a room with energy and purpose. This can have a big effect on how you feel inside, on how other people perceive you and on how you perceive yourself. It sets in motion a kind of virtuous circle.

This applies to men and women equally. Good posture and movement are absolutely crucial. Teeth, eyesight and hair are just as important as what you wear. But the biggest difference comes from within: enthusiasm, curiosity and a zest for life, which gives a glow you’ll never get from expensive creams.

Posture

The right exercise, whether it’s Pilates, yoga or the Alexander Technique, can make huge improvements to the way people stand and move. It’s never too late to take up any of this stuff; people make fantastic progress in their fifties and beyond. One woman I know even trained to be a yoga teacher in her sixties. Simple relaxation and breathing exercises will also help you move in a more relaxed way and feel more grounded.

Shoes

Feet are the roots of your tree. For good posture, shoes must be comfortable and allow your feet to keep their natural shape. That doesn’t have to mean biology-teacher sandals. It’s perfectly possible to find shoes that are comfortable and look good. Fitted insoles make all the difference if you need them. For hardcore walking (or Scottish dancing) always wear well-cushioned lace-ups, boots or trainers to minimise the stress on joints and keep the foot secure. Thin-soled pumps belong in the bin. Finally, keep an inner eye on how you’re walking: dragging your feet looks (and makes you feel) Eeyore-ish.

Teeth

As life expectancy increases, teeth need careful looking after if they’re to stay the course. Regular trips to the hygienist, careful brushing and using interdental brushes or floss every day will keep breath sweet and gum disease at bay. Teeth whitening and rebuilding chipped or worn teeth can make a huge difference to appearance and confidence.

Orthodontics is more drastic, and can get seriously expensive. Yet orthodontists report a noticeable increase in patients in their fifties and sixties who want their teeth straightened (I’m one of them). Advances in technology have shortened treatment times, and braces can be invisible, in case you have reservations about feeling weird going around in braces in your sixties. But it’s still not painless, and you need to research exactly what you’re letting yourself in for. Ultimately it comes down to confidence: if you feel good about your teeth, you’ll smile more readily.

Eyes

Fiddling around looking for specs and taking them on and off is not only ageing, it makes you feel a bit hopeless. The same goes for peering vaguely into the distance trying to make out whether you’re looking at a duck or a rowing boat. Try contact lenses (it’s never too late to adapt) or varifocals. If you’ve had problems with varifocals in the past, find a good optician and invest in high-quality lenses. They make a huge difference and they’re much more important than frames, although they matter too. I admit I’m a recent convert and the new clarity has changed my life.

Technology

Not strictly appearance, obviously, but confidence with phones and tablets has a big impact on how you appear. Without it, you can look a bit… well, past it. Some people like asking their kids for advice, but I find it a bit humiliating. There are plenty of alternatives: online tutorials and free courses taught by techies with the patience of saints.

Hair

It doesn’t matter whether it’s grey, white or tinted – what matters is that you feel like yourself. A good cut is essential; so is keeping it in good nick – which is as much about having a good diet as it is about choosing the right products.

Voice

It’s easy for your voice to get a bit rusty if you’re spending more time on your own. There are ways to keep your speaking voice in good shape. The main thing is to keep using it; breathing and relaxation exercises will also help. The inspiring voice coach Yvonne Gilan advises, ‘Your voice is as unique to you as your fingerprint or your signature. It’s a sensitive instrument that mirrors health, thoughts and emotions. It’s as important to exercise your voice as it is to exercise your body. Read out loud, sing in the bath, hum, yawn, grimace. Massage your face and head and try saying the alphabet in one breath. With practice you’ll have more control than you think.’

Clothes

It doesn’t matter whether you choose to sink into elasticated waists or stick firmly to heels, as one retired woman I read about did; she said that keeping up standards just made her feel good. What does matter is that you feel and look like the real you. After years of having to look the part for work it can take a while to recall what the real you feels like. But it’s an opportunity to experiment. When buying clothes, always think about how they look when you move about, and not just when you’re looking in the mirror holding in your stomach. The most flattering clothes fit properly and feel comfortable.

7

Good Health

Many people look and feel much healthier in retirement than they ever did at work. They feel less stressed, they have more energy, they look younger. But at the same time, health scares and bad health news about friends and high-profile heroes are part of the territory, giving pause for thought on many levels, not least concerning how you feel about your own health. Suddenly you start to look at your family’s medical history and think about relatives who died when they were not much older than you are now. It’s hard not to catastrophise about the teeniest twinge, to become one of the worried well. And while it’s good to be in tune with your body and to head straight to the GP if you notice warning signs, hyper-vigilance is hardly healthy.

Health scares have at least one positive outcome. They contribute to an appreciation that good health is precious, something to be valued and nurtured. And while staying healthy as we age is largely determined by factors beyond our control, such as luck and genetics, it is possible to tip the cards in your favour. The latest research shows that diet and exercise can significantly help slow down the impact of ageing on both physical and mental health. Most importantly, by making health a priority, you can make sure you’re as fit as you can be so that you can enjoy each day to the absolute max.

While it is entirely understandable that health is one of the biggest worries people have about retirement, it’s wrong to see it as an inevitable downhill spiral. Two parallel anxieties go hand in hand. The first is the natural ageing process and the toll it takes on the body and the brain. The second is retirement itself, which can bring its own health problems. People worry that their brains will slow down without the stimulus of work, that they’ll drink too much and put on weight and get depressed. These are entirely sensible concerns! An unsettling report from the Institute of Economic Affairs in 2013 showed that although it initially boosts health, retirement increases the probability of having at least one diagnosed physical condition by 60 per cent and raises the chances of suffering from clinical depression by about 40 per cent.

Yet there are so many more opportunities to take control of your health when you retire, to find new kinds of exercise you really enjoy and establish eating patterns that suit your changing life. When exercise no longer has to be squeezed into the working week it becomes a pleasure rather than a chore. It can even be a mission in itself, which provides new goals, structure and sociability. Or it simply becomes a natural part of daily life, because you have time to walk or cycle rather than drive.

Pam, who earlier described how her favourite form of exercise is scrub bashing in the chalk meadow above the Hampshire village she moved to twenty years ago, is 70 but looks at least ten years younger. She says, ‘I am fraying at the edges a bit – I’ve got cataracts and I’m a bit deaf – but I actually feel a lot healthier than when I was at work, even though I was ten years younger. I think it’s because I’m more active. I sit down of an evening but I don’t spend a lot of time not doing anything. I never liked being sat at a computer screen all day.

‘Living in the country helps. I’m very lucky to live in the South Downs, in a very friendly village where, in ten minutes, I can be out on top of the hills. I walk a lot. I walk a couple of miles into town to get the shopping. I do quite a lot of gardening and I go to Keep Fit – that’s rather vigorous… Being out in beautiful countryside refreshes your spirit.’

This chapter looks at the latest thinking on different aspects of health and ageing in retirement. Although it is divided into sections – Brain Health; Exercise; Diet; Energy; and Mental Health – these divisions are artificial as of course all these different aspects of health are interdependent. Physical health has a huge impact on mental health, and vice versa.

BRAIN HEALTH

Brain health tops the list of worries. Dementia, which affects one in fourteen people over the age of 65, is a major concern. People also fear losing their mental edge once they no longer have the stimulus of work. Owen, a 65-year-old production manager, voices typical anxieties: ‘At work you have constant challenges. The thing I’m most anxious about is keeping mentally alert when I don’t have to problem-solve every day. I’m aware I can be a bit lazy mentally. I’m not great at learning new things and new technology. I know I need to keep on top of that but I’m not sure if I will.’

But the latest research gives us good reason to be optimistic. The basic principle is straightforward: what’s good for your body is also good for your brain. A healthy diet, regular exercise, social contact and mental stimulation can maintain and even improve brain health. Leading nutritionist Dr Marilyn Glenville believes that simple changes can help prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s and even slow the decline for those who already have it. ‘Studies show that people with the healthiest habits in mid-life onwards have a lower risk of dementia later on, especially if they do three or more of the following: take regular exercise, avoid smoking, drink only in moderation, and maintain a healthy weight and diet.’

Many things are thought to enhance brain health, from meditation to superfoods to brain gymnastics. But the strongest evidence of a beneficial effect is from physical exercise. Reassuringly, studies suggest that it’s never too late to start. Even people who have only done little exercise before their sixties can still see benefits in cognitive function, including memory, once they undertake more regular exercise. Two kinds of exercise appear to be most beneficial – aerobic and muscle strengthening, which each target separate aspects of brain function. Researchers at the University of Canberra found that aerobic exercise improved cognitive abilities such as thinking, reading, learning and reasoning. Meanwhile, muscle strengthening had a different effect: it had a significant impact on memory and the brain’s ability to plan and organise. Even moderate exercise once or twice a week can lead to improvements in cognitive function, although the more exercise you do, the greater the improvement will be. Some experts recommend thirty minutes three times a week.

The benefits may be due in part to improving sleep patterns or reducing stress. Physical exercise increases the flow of blood, oxygen and nutrients to the brain. There is also some evidence to suggest that it affects certain proteins in the brain, which are associated with the growth and development of brain cells. Studies at Edinburgh University found that people who did more physical activity experienced less brain shrinkage, as well as less scarring in the white matter; scarring can obstruct the passage of information.

These findings are a good reason to rethink the exercise you do. They have made me take up running: I’ll do anything to keep my brain fit, and the NHS Choices ‘Couch to 5K’ podcast makes it relatively easy to start running, even when you’re 64. When it comes to aerobic exercise, even small adjustments to everyday activities can make all the difference, such as increasing your walking speed to brisk, carrying the shopping home and digging the garden. Other forms of moderate aerobic exercise include swimming, aqua aerobics, riding a bike on level ground, pushing a manual lawn mower, doubles tennis and walking football. Muscle-strengthening exercises include yoga, climbing stairs, hill walking, cycling, lifting weights, push-ups and sit-ups.

SLEEP AND THE BRAIN

We all know that brain function can be affected by how much sleep you get: under five hours makes for less mental clarity, while more than ten makes people sluggish. Most people need less sleep when they retire, partly because they’re not so exhausted, with six or seven hours the average from 65 onwards. Even so, individual requirements still vary widely; what matters is being in tune with your needs and how they change. It’s also worth taking note of what affects your sleep, such as alcohol, caffeine and using screens late at night, because waking in the night also seems to affect brain function. ‘Getting enough sleep helps support learning and memory as well as regulate mood,’ says Dr Glenville. ‘When studying the brains of people who are sleep-deprived, scientists have found reduced metabolism and blood flow in multiple regions.’

It’s quite common for sleep patterns to be affected by adrenalin for several months after leaving work, particularly if people routinely faced stressful situations every day in their work situation. Shift workers may take time to adjust physically and mentally to a more settled routine, as Jean found when she left the police force. ‘Shift work is so physically draining, and it affects the body in so many ways, from sleep patterns to digestive problems. The sudden change to normal hours with no pressure, no adrenalin rushes or panic was a real shock to the system. I found myself sleeping until noon and ironing at two in the morning. It was very embarrassing if my daughter and grandson popped in unexpectedly and found me still in my pyjamas in the afternoon.’

Power naps are a handy way to boost energy and creativity, but they need to be timed. Longer than thirty minutes, when you fall into deeper sleep, is likely to make you feel groggy and sluggish. It will also affect how well you sleep at night.

Other ways to stimulate the brain

The obvious way to stimulate the brain is by taking on activities that stretch and challenge it in different ways, whether this involves taking a course or volunteering or reading. One of the best ways is to learn something multifaceted and complex, such as a language or a musical instrument. Frances, a former senior civil servant who is now semi-retired, was so determined to avoid her father’s dementia that she took an accountancy qualification that she knew would push her brain to its limits: ‘It was extraordinarily tough, which is why I did it. It made me use parts of the brain I wouldn’t access otherwise. I passed the exam by the skin of my teeth, but what mattered to me was the benefit I got from making my brain work.’

Playing an instrument can lower the risk of dementia and cognitive impairment by over a third, according to one study of twins at the University of California. ‘Learning a language can boost creativity and the ability to focus,’ says Dr Glenville. ‘It can also protect against the changes that can occur during ageing. It leads to more neural connections, neural stability and more resilience to neural damage.’ This cognitive flexibility is important because it allows the transfer of skills to other tasks. By contrast, brain games and puzzles make people better at brain games, but may not lead to improvement in other areas. That doesn’t mean they’re not worth doing. Dr Glenville suggests the following simple games to give the brain a workout: ‘Counting backwards from 100 in 2s, 3s or 4s is a good one, and you can make it harder by doing something else at the same time, such as tapping your foot. Or try the “tip-of-the-tongue” game – think of a theme, such as food, and name as many items relevant to the theme as you can in one minute. Most people can do thirty; try for 60!’

Research suggests that games played with other people, such as chess or bridge or online Scrabble, may have particular benefits. The same goes for singing in a choir or playing music with other people. Learning something new in a group, and enjoying the whole process, is thought to underpin its benefits. Perhaps best of all is a combination of physical activity, mental stimulation and sociability. It appears that combining exercise with exploring new ways of doing things and sharing ideas makes it more likely that new nerve cells in the brain will form functional circuits. It could be anything: you could try sailing, skiing, dancing, tennis or something more unusual. Historical sword fighting, perhaps? It’s a mental and physical workout that’s described as ‘chess with steel’ by the swordmaster who teaches former headteacher Lesley. It’s a bit niche, but I’m including it here because it ticks all the boxes: it’s aerobic, muscle-strengthening, sociable, mentally stimulating and fun. It’s also a great example of serendipity and of the wonderful experiences that can come your way if you keep your antennae on the alert and think outside the gym:

‘I was given a sword by my dad when I was a wee girl and I did a bit of fencing after uni, in my early twenties. Then lo and behold, two years ago a guy moved up to Ullapool from England – he’s retired too – a ballet dancer, trained swordsman and a physio. He stuck up a notice saying would anyone like to do historical swordsmanship? It’s such a strange coincidence, to have that chance just when I was ready for something energetic and interesting. I leapt at it. I certainly couldn’t have done this when I had a full-time job.

‘After two years I’m nearly ready to compete. At 62 I’m not going to be that good. But I find I’m fairly fast and quick on my feet still, and some of my old fencing skills have come back. In one way the other five burly six-foot-two guys treat me like their mum. But in another way they know I’m on them with my moves. The two-handed sword we do drills with is very long and it weighs over 2 kg. The swordmaster tells us to think of it as “chess with steel” because while it’s very physical it’s also a bit of a brain game.

‘You want a bit of adrenalin in your life, a bit of stress. It keeps you sharp. When I come away I feel younger. I feel I’ve held my own physically with people who are younger than me, and who are all guys.’

EXERCISE AND AGEING

As well as boosting brain health, exercise helps reduce cholesterol levels and lowers the risk of diseases like diabetes and some cancers. It releases endorphins, which improve mood and lower the risk of depression. The ideal is a balance of three forms of exercise: aerobic, muscle strengthening and stretching. Added benefits come from exercising outside at least some of the time. One of the best ways is walking the dog, because it commits you to getting out in the fresh air every day.

One big difference about exercise in retirement is that it’s a good idea to do it with other people at least some of the time. So while solo exercise provides precious thinking time, it should ideally be complemented by more sociable ways of keeping fit, such as joining a walking or cycling group, becoming a member of a sports club or playing in a team. There are all sorts of casual opportunities to break sweat: table tennis tables are springing up in city parks, or you can play bat and ball on the beach, or cricket with the grandchildren.

It’s usually recommended that aerobic exercise is balanced with practices that develop posture, flexibility and balance. You only have to look at someone who does yoga or tai chi or Pilates to see the benefits: they have great posture and they walk well. Rock legend Lou Reed did tai chi for nearly thirty years, and it compensated massively for the toll that drugs and alcohol had taken on his health as a younger man.

You can take up yoga or tai chi at any age, although it’s important as you get older to practise regularly. In her book for the over fifties, yoga teacher Mary Stewart recommends thirty minutes a day, but writes that even ten minutes is beneficial. The yoga guru B.K.S. Iyengar, who died in 2014 at the age of 95, claimed that ‘daily practice of yoga will keep old age at bay’. Yoga boosts energy levels, exercises muscles and joints to keep the body supple and strong, and improves balance. Studies have shown that it can even combat hardening of the arteries and the loss of bone density associated with osteoporosis. It stimulates blood circulation, digestion and the nervous system. By reducing stress, it can be an antidote to mild depression; it imparts a kind of inner strength.

DIET

Brain health

• A good breakfast is vital for brain function in the morning, as fluids, nutrients and sugars will have been depleted overnight.

• Drink 1.5 litres of water a day. Memory, decision-making and attention are all affected by dehydration.

• Maintain a healthy weight. A Swedish study found that people who are overweight in middle age have a 70 per cent increased risk of dementia than people with a healthy weight.

• The Omega 3 fatty acids EPA and DHA appear to play a vital role in supporting cognitive function and slowing decline (oily fish and fish oils are natural sources of EPA and DHA; DHA is also found in egg yolks and liver). One study found that taking 3g of Omega 3 fish oil daily for five weeks led to significant improvements in working memory. However, separate studies have found links between EPA and prostate cancer. Before taking supplements it is always advisable to talk to your GP and do research that is relevant to your individual medical history.

• Vitamin B12 is essential for the health of nerve cells and red blood cells; folic acid also supports cognitive function. A two-year study of 900 adults aged 64–74 found that folic acid and Vitamin B12 significantly improved memory. Vitamin B12 may also slow the loss of brain volume that naturally occurs with age; about 15 per cent of people over 60 are deficient in Vitamin B12, partly because the body’s ability to absorb it declines with age. Vitamin B12: recommended daily intake 1.5mcg. Sources include meat, fish, dairy foods – vegans need a supplement. Folic acid: recommended daily intake 200mcg. It can’t be stored in the body so you need it in your diet every day. Sources include chickpeas, liver, asparagus, spinach, sprouts, broccoli, peas.

• Vitamin D: a study in the US and UK published in 2014 found that people with severe vitamin D deficiency were twice as likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease as people with healthy levels. It also found that moderate deficiency was associated with a 50 per cent increase in risk. Vitamin D is found in a small number of foods, including egg yolks, liver, oily fish, red meat and fortified cereals and fat spreads. But because it’s hard to get enough vitamin D either from food or from sunshine in the UK from October to March, a daily supplement of 10mcg is recommended by Public Health England. More than 100mcg of Vitamin D a day can be harmful; look at the labels carefully if you’re taking a multi-vitamin as well as vitamin D.

• Other foods thought to be good for the brain include blueberries, dark chocolate, seeds, nuts and avocados.

• Research into natural supplements that are also thought to help, such as gingko and ginseng, is promising but inconclusive.

Healthy ageing generally

As well as having a role in brain health, Omega 3 fatty acids have a positive impact on overall health because of their proven anti-inflammatory action. Inflammation is a key driver for a wide range of problems, including some cancers, heart disease, diabetes and osteoarthritis.

Calcium and vitamin D are key nutrients in this respect too. Vitamin D becomes more important as people age because it’s closely linked to immunity, cardiovascular health and strong bones. One study found that calcium and vitamin D reduced the risk of hip fracture in post-menopausal women. There is also some evidence of a key role in ageing: one study found a link between higher levels of vitamin D and longer telomeres (little tails at the ends of strands of DNA, which become shorter as we get older). At the same time, the body’s ability to synthesise vitamin D from sunshine decreases with age. A study in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics found that over 90 per cent of older people had inadequate intakes of vitamin D: data from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey confirms that on average men over 65 get 38 per cent of the recommended intake, while women over 65 get just 29 per cent. So it’s wise to take a supplement, especially in the winter months.

Vitamin D: Recommended daily intake is 10mcg.

Calcium: Recommended daily intake is 700mg; a varied diet should provide adequate amounts. Sources: dairy foods, tofu, nuts, green leafy vegetables, soya beans.

MAINTAINING A HEALTHY WEIGHT

A healthy weight can reduce the risk of dementia, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and stroke. The many other benefits include increased energy and well-being, and reduced joint and back pain. The latter was Irene’s primary motive for losing weight. An earlier career as an ambulance driver left her with chronic back pain, but it was only when she reduced her hours as an administrative assistant that she had time to do something about it. Irene lost two stone in six months and has kept her weight down to eight and a half stone. Now, instead of having to grab a high-calorie fix as she did when she was rushed off her feet, she can plan what she eats and choose foods that provide lasting energy.

‘The doctors advised me to have surgery, but I wanted to try losing weight first, and because I was only working two days a week I had time to join a slimming club. It wasn’t that hard, although cakes and biscuits are out the window. Apart from that I eat what I’d always eaten, just a lot more salads and fruit. I’ve gone from a size 14 to size 10 and I rarely have to take a painkiller now. I took six bags of clothes to the charity shop, because I am absolutely determined not to put that weight back on. I still go to the slimming club first thing every Monday to weigh myself and I do Pilates and yoga three times a week – that has made a huge difference too. I’ve also noticed that I’ve got a lot more energy.’

ALCOHOL

It’s so easy to slip into lax habits with alcohol when you retire. If you don’t have to be on your mettle the next morning it’s tempting to have just one more… and then another… When you’re spending more time at home it’s easy to get a bit too dependent on wine o’clock. But alcohol can have a noticeable impact on mental performance the next day. The last thing you need if you want to make the most of your time is to feel even a teeny bit foggy headed. I write this with a heavy heart, because I think wine is seriously life-enhancing. But I know that if I drank less I would sleep better, have more energy and focus, and get more done in the evening.

Alcohol impedes the absorption of nutrients, which is problematic at an age when we need them most. Even small amounts of alcohol can hamper a good night’s sleep. It’s dehydrating (which is terrible for the complexion, apart from anything else) and it’s a depressive. There are even more serious concerns. Baby boomers who got into bad habits in their heady youth are leading the way when it comes to alcohol-related deaths and admissions to hospital. In 2015/16 more than half a million adults aged between 55 and 74 were admitted to English hospitals with alcohol-related injuries, diseases or conditions – more than for any other age group.

It’s one thing to recognise that you’re drinking a wee bit more than feels good. Doing something about it is another matter. In my experience, what’s most effective is to take ‘ought’ and ‘should’ out of the equation. The ideal is to drink less because your body understands there’s a direct link with feeling better generally. Drinking less becomes something you do because you feel the benefits, and not because you’re white-knuckling it. So while dry January can be the most fantastic detox, the tendency is to go back to square one on 1 February. As with diet, it’s much more effective in the long term to establish a new pattern that you can live with. There are simple steps that can help:

HOW TO DRINK LESS

• It is worth bearing in mind that the Royal College of Psychiatrists says that safe drinking levels for older people are probably lower than current NHS guidelines of 14 units for adults generally.

• If your habit is to drink most days, cut one day out at a time until you’ve built up to several nights off a week.

• Find good reasons to be at your best first thing: going to the gym, volunteering, taking a course.

• Notice how your body and mind feel when you don’t drink. Really feeling the direct physical link between not drinking and having more energy and clarity is a powerful motivator.

• Turn a glass of wine or a beer into a treat, not a habit.

• Go for quality rather than quantity. Really savour an occasional glass or two of delicious wine rather than knocking back plonk every night.

• Find out more about wine, and meet like-minded souls into the bargain, by going to tastings and taking a course.

• Find other ways to relax in the evening: doing breathing exercises, having a bath, reading a good book or watching a box set.

• A standard 175ml glass of wine contains up to 160 calories and a pint of lager about 180 calories, so if you’re cutting down on your intake, you can afford to indulge yourself in other treats in its place: afternoon tea, hot chocolate, delicious snacks to go with non-alcoholic drinks.

• Eat earlier in the evening to cut down pre-dinner drinking time.

ENERGY

When you retire, energy levels are as much about mental attitude as they are about diet, sleep and exercise. Having a reason to get out of bed with a spring in your step makes a big difference: ‘I’ve noticed that I’ve suddenly felt full of energy when I’ve been very busy with work-type things,’ says Mary, who is 75. ‘It’s a question of finding the right balance: on the verge of getting stressed but not stressed. I really think tiredness is more to do with lack of motivation than ageing.’

One of the nicest surprises for women in their fifties and beyond is the resurgence of energy identified as ‘post-menopausal zest’ (PMZ) by the American anthropologist Margaret Mead. Two major British studies in 1997 found that women’s quality of life improved after the menopause. The first, by University College London and backed by the Department of Health, found an unexpected reduction in levels of depression in women over 55. The second, by psychologists at Plymouth University, found that most women felt better at sixty than they had done at forty. Their cognitive function and memory improved, as did their overall quality of life. Surprisingly, in the second study the women who took HRT – 23 per cent of the 1,200 sample – found their quality of life after the menopause was no better than that of the women who didn’t take it.

It’s been suggested that the reasons for this post-menopausal uplift could be as much to do with women’s changing roles at this stage of life as biological changes. But there is a new hormonal stability after the menopause. It’s a welcome relief after the fluctuations in hormone levels that can cause difficult symptoms during the menopause. Individual women report feeling calmer and less anxious. At the same time, the balance of hormones changes: as oestrogen levels fall, testosterone becomes more dominant. This can increase drive and motivation. Many women say they feel more confident and their interest in sex returns. The best thing about this natural surge of energy is that it can last for decades.

MENTAL HEALTH

We’ve all heard about people whose mental health went downhill rapidly when they retired; we may have direct personal experience of it. There are two contributing factors. First, this is a time when people inevitably look back at their achievements, and they may feel disappointed that life hasn’t quite lived up to their expectations. It can feel as if it’s downhill all the way from now on.

Second, work is a great way to avoid dealing with underlying problems. In times of crisis, such as divorce, bereavement or problems with the kids, work is the one thing you can keep a handle on. It’s an absorbing, wonderful distraction and at the time it seems like a good way – perhaps the only way – to cope. Many people feel as Owen does: ‘Throughout my life work has been the one single thing that has kept me going through all sorts of ups and downs.’ Retirement, and more time to think, brings issues to the surface that may have been buried for years.

Mark Vernon, a psychotherapist at the Maudsley Hospital’s Older Adults’ Unit in London, says, ‘The way that work can hold people together and keep problems at bay for a long time is common with people we work with. Retirement or their kids leaving home is a real crisis point. Essentially a focus in their lives that held things together for them is no longer there. Very often mental health problems that were nascent all the time suddenly become completely dominant.’

Meanwhile, some jobs demand a professional detachment that keeps a tight lid on what are often very troubling emotions. It’s only in retirement that these emotions are allowed to surface, and when they do they can take a toll on both mental and physical health. Jean, a former police constable, says, ‘For so long I restrained my emotions, and it has taken years to feel and react in what I now see are normal ways. There were so many situations at work when I wanted to show distaste or even anger – when I was dealing with the rape of a seven-year-old boy, for example. But I had to hold a blank expression to get the results I needed to deal with the case. It must be the same with other services, like the army or firefighters. When emotions are buried deep inside, the damage surfaces further on in life when it’s least expected.’

Adrenalin also takes a lasting toll, and it affects people who have retired from any job where there’s a high level of stress, whether it’s meeting tight deadlines in an office or firefighting or working in A&E. Some people who suffer from anxiety in retirement attribute it to adrenalin that is still pumping around with nowhere to go. Another former police officer, Nick, turned to meditation as a way of coping: ‘When it all started kicking off at work you’d get these massive adrenalin surges. It was a kind of drug. Five years on I’m still working through that. I’m not falling to bits – I think that’s because I’ve got time to meditate and think – but I am recognising that it was a big issue when I was at work. Every time you put on that uniform your early warning system was on overdrive. You never knew what was going to happen next, and I’ve had a few hidings in my time. Meditation creates space to think and allow things to be. It allows things to evolve in their own time. Now if something is an issue I don’t panic. Things seem to have a way of sorting themselves out.’

Solutions if you’re stuck

It’s quite natural to feel a bit low when you retire. Everyone has ups and downs – they’re part of the whole process of adjustment. The key is to stop negative feelings descending into the full-blown depression or anxiety that can develop when people struggle to replace the fulfilment and social connections of work. Loss of purpose can too easily lead to lack of confidence, and vice versa. It’s a vicious circle that can seep into areas of life you once felt perfectly competent in. Time to think can be a blessing, but it’s a burden if you feel pessimistic and indecisive.

Prevention is always best. There are simple ways to take care of your mental health that can help pre-empt problems arising in the first place. Basically this means maintaining daily contact with other people, having a variety of stimulating things to do, eating healthily and taking plenty of exercise, preferably in the fresh air at least some of the time. Mindfulness has been shown to significantly reduce the chances of suffering from depression. A review of research into the health benefits of meditation found evidence of a decrease in anxiety and depression, enhanced self-esteem, increased restfulness and alertness, as well as improved immune functioning and lower blood pressure.

If depressive symptoms start to develop, it’s important to clamp down on them quickly. Without positive action, the negative spiral can be hard to break. The key is to identify the warning signs, and that role often falls to partners, family and friends. It’s not an enviable one, because motivating people who feel low or depressed is one of the hardest things in the world, as psychologist Dr Oliver Robinson acknowledges: ‘There is so much that can be done to bring social contact, identity and daily purpose to people who are struggling with feelings of depression in retirement. But it’s very difficult to get them up and involved. They have to be up for it.’

When you’re retired you have to motivate yourself to do the simplest things. If you’re feeling low, getting out of the front door when there’s no good reason to feels like too much effort; there’s always an excuse not to. Jean remembers, ‘The most energetic thought I could muster was Why bother? Why cook and clean if no one was due to visit? Why comb your hair if you’re not going out? I questioned my actions daily as I had nothing else to think about. I’d make plans and then change them at the last minute. At work I had often been called on to make life-or-death decisions. Now the only decision I had to make was whether to microwave a meal or stick it in the oven. I had no reason to get out of bed, no structure, no cause. I couldn’t even be bothered to do my favourite hobby, gardening.’

The solution could be more straightforward than you might think. Depression in retirement often has its roots in loneliness and lack of purpose, and if that is the case, there are obvious practical steps that can help people feel better quite quickly, such as finding new activities and social connections. For example, in here Mary describes experiencing ‘dark bleakness’ as a direct result of isolation – it only descended when she hadn’t seen anyone for a few days. She was very clear that she didn’t need medication or therapy; she just needed more social contact. The practical solution was to move to a co-housing scheme, where she would have daily contact with people. The move worked: the dark bleakness never returned.

Moving to a friendly community is not the only way to bring people into your life. There are plenty of clubs and groups that welcome new members. Men’s Sheds, which has branches all over the country where men can meet and make things, is a great example. Even small steps to connect with people and get out of the house will reap immediate benefits. Just walking to the local shop and making an effort to smile at anyone you encounter on the way is a good start. The alternative is to stay at home, where negative thoughts, assumptions and prejudices are likely to escalate: it’s too easy to get stuck on the idea that things aren’t worth bothering with. It’s only by giving things a go that you begin to see the point. We should never underestimate the power of serendipity to make life take a different turn. One small step can lead to another in a way that simply can’t happen unless you venture out. You might come across a leaflet in the library advertising something you’ve always wanted to try, or bump into an old mate at the swimming pool.

One suggestion that usually works is to do something to help somebody. Research has shown links between acts of kindness and an increase in well-being. Even something that requires minimal effort, like sending a get-well card or taking a meal round to a sick neighbour, can make both giver and receiver feel better. And if it feels good, the next step might be more regular volunteering commitments.

Another strategy is to make the most of phases when your mood lightens to compile a list of activities you can rely on to lift your spirits. If you know that you’re prone to feeling low, it’s a good idea to do this when you’re still working, although it’s never too late. When you’re feeling blue it can be hard to remember anything that makes you feel better, so it’s invaluable to have a list to hand: the smallest things can trigger a shift of mood. A playlist of tunes can help in a similar way. They don’t have to be cheerful, but they should be moving (without bringing back painful memories). My list includes Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, ‘Not Fade Away’ by the Rolling Stones, Peer Gynt and the Local Hero theme tune. Just turning on a favourite radio station can work too; random tunes from the past can lift the spirits in unexpected ways.

Working with your hands is a proven way to reduce stress. A creative task you get lost in, that has routine aspects but requires concentration, can be a godsend during periods of low mood or anxiety. That’s why Men’s Sheds has been so successful: it’s easier to talk when working on something shoulder to shoulder. The list is endless: painting furniture, mending a bike, knitting, creating mosaics and throwing pots all work well. The key is to be able to lay your hands on something you enjoy doing whenever you feel like it.

Therapy and counselling

It may be that practical measures are only part of the answer. If you are stuck in a slough of despond for more than a few months, it is essential to seek help. Your GP is your first port of call. Medication, therapy or counselling may turn out to be the best solution for people who are stuck in a cycle of negativity and loss of purpose. I’ve tried most of the usual therapies to deal with anxiety: NHS counselling and CBT, hypnotherapy, acupuncture. I’ve never had medication but for many people it’s an invaluable first step and complement to talking therapies. For me, it was psychotherapy in my late fifties that really got to the root of the problem. Therapy is expensive, but a good therapist can help to tackle the unresolved issues that often emerge when you have more time to think, such as unfinished grieving for a parent or unresolved anger from a relationship breakdown. Don’t ever feel that it’s too late to start dealing with this stuff – even though that was Freud’s view. The big advantage of embarking on therapy in retirement is that there’s enough time to put in the work between sessions, which is essential for it to be really effective.

TIPS IF YOU’RE FEELING BLUE

• Try small experiments and challenges every day. Tune in to a different radio station, read the Economist (or any magazine you wouldn’t usually buy) or cook a new recipe. Find a different route to the shops that might take longer but will wake up the senses.

• Take your breakfast into the garden, or go to a café.

• Nurture something or someone: a house plant or a herb window box, a student lodger, a cat, a budgie.

• Help someone you know, or volunteer.

• Buy yourself a bunch of flowers.

• Don’t beat yourself up about what you ‘should’ be achieving. Focus on life’s simple pleasures.

• Plan the day ahead rather than looking too far into the future.

• In the evening, make a note of what you’ve achieved during the day.

• Exercise outdoors every day; even a short brisk walk is enough to lift your mood.

• Try outdoor swimming. One theory is that it raises serotonin and helps alleviate depression by training the fight-or-flight response so that people get better at coping with stress. Take care to extend the summer season gradually: plunging into cold water when you’re not used to it can be dangerous.

8

Money

This chapter is not about financial advice or pension planning because individual circumstances vary so widely. What is less talked about, but just as important, is the huge adjustment that living on a pension entails. It’s not just about cutting your coat according to your cloth, although that is a big part of it. It also means reassessing your spending priorities and re-evaluating what genuinely contributes to lasting well-being. It’s about getting your head round the idea of spending hard-earned savings and accepting that your earning power has lessened or stopped altogether.

Former train driver Chris, who retired at the age of 60, says, ‘I think you need a different attitude to money when you retire. You have to acknowledge that on a fixed income you’re not going to have the same degree of financial flexibility you had when you were earning. I had to factor that in to my decision to stop work before the default retirement age. But it hasn’t been a problem because I was prepared for it. I think you have to understand that money is far from being the only thing that matters. Other things, like quality of life and family, are more important.’

Making this adjustment successfully is fundamental to a good retirement. It will help avoid the anxiety about money that ruins this phase of life for so many people, even when they have no reason to worry. It can make all the difference between feeling comfortable about spending what you can afford and feeling insecure and anxious. If only more people could feel as Kevin does: ‘Having a pension has been transformational for me. It’s enabled me to experiment with things, to find what is really meaningful, what works for me.’

Part of the adjustment is to do with the way money makes people feel about themselves. It may sound shallow, but the truth is that identity is bound up with what people earn and how they spend their money. Many people define themselves by where they shop and how generous they are with gifts and charity donations. Their carefully considered and even moral choices about what they buy, whether it’s environmentally friendly products or skiing holidays, may have to be reassessed when they are living on less. And like it or not, people make finely tuned judgements about each other based on the cars they drive and the clothes they wear. How we feel about living on a pension is intertwined with how other people see us, and that applies not only to colleagues in the same business, but to friends and family too. This may have a big impact on self-esteem. Ryan Dwyer, a doctoral researcher in financial decision-making at the University of British Columbia, says, ‘It’s not just about the absolute salary you make; it’s also your salary relative to others’ that makes people feel satisfied about what they have accomplished. We evaluate how we’re doing by comparing ourselves with others, and that may be a problem for some people when they stop earning. However, many people understand that they’re moving into a different phase of life and that metric is no longer relevant to them. Identifying new metrics, like time spent with family, might help people better adjust to their new role in retirement.’

In theory, having less money coming in is compensated for by less money going out. That’s true, up to a point. Certainly the cost of going out to work dissipates: you no longer have to fork out for peak-time fares and lunches and smart work clothes and dry-cleaning bills. There’s less need to buy time by throwing cash at costly convenience food and paying other people to do stuff for you. By this stage, most people who own a property have paid off mortgages, and if they have kids they are (fingers crossed) earning and out of the nest, although that’s not something you can bank on these days. But at the same time, other expenses increase. Because you’ve got more time and you want to make the most of it, you need more money for all the nice stuff: holidays, gardens, sport, doing up the house, having friends round, trips to the cinema or theatre, courses.

It’s obviously easier to adjust to new spending patterns if you retire gradually rather than stop work overnight. It’s less painful to wean yourself off top-of-the-range habits gently and find new ways to top up your income with part-time work. It worked well for Irene, who, over a ten-year period, cut down from full-time work as an administrative assistant to going in one day a week: ‘This is a big drop in income for me. If I’d retired overnight the money would have been cut off straight away, whereas I’ve got used to not having so much money gradually. I’ve been able to manage my finances quite well, although I have had to delve into my savings more than I would have liked. It’s a learning curve. I still spend a lot on my six grandchildren, but gradually I’ve cut down on other things. I’ve just bought next year’s Christmas cards half price, and I’ve saved money on food by doing a weekly rather than a monthly shop, so I only buy what we need. I’ve probably cut down on my hair more than anything. I used to pay a lot for it but now I just go to a local hairdresser.’

MONEY WORRIES

Some money worries are very real. It’s natural to feel anxious about managing on a lower income. Many pensioners don’t have enough to live comfortably and many people can’t afford to give up work. Other anxieties come with the uncertain territory and the lack of control. From now on you’re at the mercy of government decisions about the state pension and the vagaries of the stock market. There’s added insecurity in knowing that once you stop work the amount in your pension pot is finite; it can’t be replenished. If you continue to work, full time or part time, it may be possible to keep topping it up, but that depends on the pension scheme. There may be a niggling fear that the money might run out. Even if these fears have no basis in reality, they can still feel very real. ‘The awareness that once the money’s gone it’s gone, and that you’re not going to be able to replenish it possibly ever in your life, can be very anxiety-inducing,’ says financial coach Simonne Gnessen.

These days there is also anxiety about whether you’ve made the right financial choices and whether you’ve got the timing right. The date you stop and whether you continue part time are big decisions that affect your pension. There’s also the bewildering choice about how to use your pension pot. Increasingly, these are nerve-rackingly individual decisions. The new freedom and flexibility regarding UK pensions that was introduced in 2015, and which is echoed in other countries, has complicated matters and put the onus squarely on the individual. Even if you’re a whizz at financial planning, it’s hard to feel sure that you’ve made the right decision between the bewildering array of pension options. Simonne Gnessen says, ‘More flexibility is what people wanted, because you no longer have to be locked into a low rate for the rest of your life. But it requires a degree of financial sophistication to manage it, which most people don’t have. With more flexibility comes potentially more stress and anxiety because you’ve got to be a lot more self-reliant. People have got to decide for themselves how much to draw on and how safe it is.’

At a 2017 reunion of the Pensions Commission, whose recommendations became central features of the new UK pensions landscape, there was general agreement that people need guidance in making effective choices. Baroness Jeannie Drake told the Resolution Foundation audience: ‘Consumers are struggling with the complexity of decisions. They need help in how to exercise freedom.’

The saddest thing about money worries is that too often they are unfounded. Yet they can ruin retirement. It’s impossible to enjoy life if you’re constantly worrying about how much things cost and whether to turn the heating on. At one extreme it limits what you feel you can do. At the other it stops you sleeping at night and the anxiety seeps into other areas of life. The solution is to face up to it at an early stage.

The best antidote to anxiety is to examine whether it has any basis in reality by making a cold-blooded stocktake of income and expenses. Then you know exactly where you stand financially. Use a good financial adviser if you can afford to, or else an online cash-flow tool or just good old pen and paper. Simonne Gnessen, part therapist, part financial expert, is one of the new breed of financial wizards who help people to manage their money not only by using practical strategies and number-crunching, but also by exploring the psychology that underpins problematic attitudes to money and habits that hold people back. Her key message highlights the importance of testing out the assumptions and self-limiting beliefs that influence an individual’s behaviour, whether they spend money like water or squirrel it away for a rainy day.

She advises breaking down expenses into three main types:

1. Direct debits: amounts that are pretty much fixed every month.

2. Regular but variable costs: food, fuel, entertainment, travel, clothes.

3. Occasional costs that crop up every couple of months, annually or every few years. These are the ones people often forget to factor in fully, so they get thrown when a big bill comes in. Some, such as car servicing, insurance, birthday gifts and holidays, dental bills, new specs, are more predictable than others that come out of the blue but still need factoring in – for example, maintenance work on the house, replacing a broken washing machine, car repairs.

Once you’ve totted all this up and balanced it against your income you are in a position to take control, work out a budget and relax into your new spending pattern with the reassurance that you know what you can and can’t afford. It could well turn out that you don’t need to be as cautious as you thought you did.

If it turns out that you do need to top up your income, there are various possibilities, from taking in a lodger to starting your own business (see here) Simonne Gnessen is reassuring in this regard: ‘It is always possible to find a way. People should not feel that because they’ve retired they won’t have any more income coming in. There’s a new mentality about work now. Many of my clients are reinventing themselves in their sixties and coming up with all sorts of innovative ways to fund retirement. If you become self-employed you have the potential to generate income by working in a more flexible way. Retirement can lead to a whole new lease of life.’

Meanwhile, tightening your belt doesn’t have to mean Scrooge-style self-denial. It’s more about taking a fresh look at what you spend your money on and why. Spending habits that have outlived their usefulness need to make way for a new way of thinking about money. Doctoral researcher Ryan Dwyer says, ‘It’s easier to create new habits during times of major transition, so retirement is a great opportunity to break bad habits and replace them with new ones. When you step out of the rat race and no longer measure yourself in relation to others based on salary you can reassess your values, and you can more easily change the habits you’ve formed.’

So it’s important to be positive about the choices you make. When you save money by not buying something, or by going for a cheaper option, allocate the sum you’ve saved to something you want more, rather than just letting it blend into a general pot. Compromises can bring unexpected benefits, even if they’re originally made with a heavy heart. Riko, a single parent who lost an eye-watering £12,000-a-year pension when Equitable Life nearly collapsed in the year 2000, says, ‘In many ways I think if you’ve got less money you have a more interesting life. I can’t afford hotels so I always stay with friends or do a house swap, which is actually more fun. I can only make ends meet by having a lodger, and there are huge bonuses to that which are much more than just financial. It’s really nice to have a young person in my life, especially since my daughter left home.’

Some people spend money in retirement because they’re bored or need a new buzz to replace the stimulation of work. One solution is to look at the triggers that make you wander round shops or browse the internet. What mood are you in before you do it? Dissatisfied? Feeling empty? It could be a displacement activity for something you’ve been putting off, like applying for a part-time job or a volunteer post. You can then look at more fulfilling ways to satisfy the need.

Other people find it hard to break out of the rather lovely habit of being generous; it gives them huge pleasure to buy presents and take people out for treats and pay for the kids to go on holiday. Giving money to charity and being generous is closely bound up with their identity, so it’s painful even to think about behaving differently. But it’s always possible to find less costly ways of showing love and appreciation. Ryan Dwyer says, ‘As values naturally shift in retirement, and people start thinking about happiness in a different way, you realise that instead of simply buying things for other people you’re able to invest more time in your relationships. And you’re able to contribute in different ways than in the past.’

Be inventive about finding interesting new outings and treats. A neighbourhood café can be just as much fun as a posh joint; you can have richer conversations walking with a friend than sitting across a restaurant table. You could be generous with your skills and energy rather than your money, whether that means simply spending time with someone or helping them. With adult children this often happens naturally, as Chris has found: ‘One thing about being retired is that your children know that you’ve got more time. I often get a call out of the blue from my son or daughter saying “Dad, can you take my car in for a service?” or “Dad, the shed roof needs mending…” I always do what I can to help, because I appreciate the pressures the modern workplace puts on people.’

At the other extreme are people who are stuck in the habit of saving for a rainy day. There’s something about the finite nature of a pension that makes them even more cautious with their cash, and my generation absorbed careful attitudes to money with their mother’s milk. Even if they’ve got enough, spending money on retirement dreams they’ve harboured for years, like a big trip or a nice camera, makes them anxious. That’s how former police officer Paul used to feel: ‘I think you get closeted into saving for retirement and then holding on to the money. My outlook has changed since I had a health scare at the beginning of the year, and not long after that my closest friend had a cancer scare. It makes me think, you’re only here once, enjoy it, because you don’t know what’s round the corner. I’m not going to blow all my money like some people I know. But my attitude to money has completely changed.’

If feeling that you still have to save is holding you back from enjoying your well-earned retirement, even when you know you have enough for emergencies, Simonne Gnessen suggests experimenting with new kinds of behaviour. ‘Do something that’s within your means but that you wouldn’t normally give yourself permission to do, like test drive a sports car or go for tea at the Ritz or give money to a friend in need anonymously. All these things help to reinforce a different message that you have got enough.’

Whether you’re a spendthrift or a saver, it helps to question what kind of spending genuinely contributes to your well-being, beyond the usually short-lived buzz of a purchase. This fits into a more general reassessment of what has real meaning and value that comes naturally in retirement. As they get older, people naturally tend to look beyond material things for satisfaction. You only have to look back at how you felt about Christmas over the years: as a child, it was all about presents; with your own kids it was all about hunting down the right presents; but now it’s the celebration itself and being with people that matters most.

This goes hand in hand with a new appreciation of the value of time. It’s not unusual to regret making poor money/time bargains earlier in life, usually about not spending enough time doing the stuff you enjoy with the people you love. Now there’s a chance to make up for that. When it’s spent cannily, money allows you to make the best use of your time. It can save you from wasting precious minutes doing stuff you don’t want to do so that you can be with the people who matter to you. It can also buy life-enhancing, and in some cases life-changing, experiences.

The psychologist Dr Elizabeth Dunn suggests that before they spend money, people should think about how a purchase will change the way they use their time. That way they are more likely to choose purchases that promote well-being. This shifts the focus on to spending that improves your overall quality of life: on being sociable, on taking stimulating courses and classes, on doing exercise and eating healthily. Taking the occasional taxi, for example, might seem extravagant, but it can be a real liberation. You don’t have to catch the last train, you can fit more into the day and you’ll have more energy by not having to use public transport all the time. Irene is clear about her priorities: ‘If you enjoy something, it’s worth doing and it’s worth paying to do. The classes I go to have value because I enjoy them at the time and because I get a social life from them. I’ve tried to keep them all local, which keeps the travelling costs down. Although I’ve had to cut down on other things, money doesn’t come into the equation with activities and going out with my friends. Having an active life is really important to me.’

The same principle can be applied to saving. Some savings are worth putting yourself out for; others take up too much precious time. I know one man who happily spends mornings trawling round local supermarkets in search of the best offers. That’s fine if it’s genuinely pleasurable. But you can get so wedded to bagging a bargain that you never buy what you really want.

Scientists who study the links between money and happiness, like Dr Ryan Dwyer, conclude that spending on experiences contributes more to long-term well-being than buying things does. There are a few obvious life-enhancing exceptions – anything that unleashes a new interest, whether it’s a pair of binoculars or a musical instrument or a kayak. A flash television, on the other hand, will simply tempt you to stay on the sofa. It’s a low-cost form of entertainment, for sure, but research in thirty-two European countries showed that people who watched television for more than half an hour a day were less satisfied with their lives than those who watched less.

What’s fascinating about the latest research into happiness and well-being is the suggestion that even experiences that aren’t entirely wonderful when you’re doing them still lead to long-term well-being. The bad parts, like losing passports and arguing over maps in the pouring rain, also add to the richness of the memory and the lasting good feelings. That’s worth thinking about when you have second thoughts about booking an event or a holiday. It’s easy to get put off by the effort involved and how difficult it will be to park and all the things that might go wrong. It seems so much more sensible to spend the money on something tangible. In fact, though, it’s the whole experience, warts and all, that’s enriching, and it’s likely to give you more lasting pleasure than a more concrete purchase.

Geraldine Forster, aka ‘Backpacker Granny’, is an extreme example of someone who values experiences over possessions even more as she’s got older. She sold up everything when she retired at 65 to travel the world; she’s now 73. Geraldine is also living proof that the compromises you make to keep within your budget often make life richer. ‘My sons jokingly say I’m homeless. Who cares? My attitude has changed as I’ve got older; I’ve never been particularly materialistic and I’m even less so now. I don’t hold on to anything, although there are times when I think, I’ll put that nice blue dress on, and then I realise that I have given it away. I’ve lost things along the way, like a fabulous pair of sunglasses, so these days I buy two-euro pairs. It’s memories that matter.

‘I usually sleep in the hostel dorms because I’ve only got my pension and it’s much cheaper. It’s also a great way to meet people. You encounter amazing people, young and old. That’s what I really care about. I love life, I love people and I love travelling. I’ve had some incredible experiences, I’ve developed new interests and I’ve been to the most beautiful places you could ever wish to visit.’

IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO RETIRE

These days you often hear people say they can’t afford to retire. More than a million people over 65 in the UK are still working. The number has doubled in ten years, and this trend is bound to continue. That’s partly because employers can no longer force workers to retire at 65. It’s also partly because many people like working. But it’s also financial. There is a widespread feeling that the current UK state pension of just over £8,000 a year is not enough to provide a dignified retirement to people who have no other pension provision or savings.

Riko, who lost her Equitable Life pension in 2000, is still working part time at 66 to supplement her state pension and has no prospect of ever being able to stop; it’s just as well that she enjoys her job, which involves running a small business with a partner. ‘I was very unlucky to lose my pension but very lucky that it happened in my forties, because I’ve been able to prepare for it. Imagine if it had happened just as I was about to retire! From the moment I lost that money I knew I could never afford to fully retire. If I didn’t have a lodger I’d be in real trouble, and that’s a constant worry, because you can’t always guarantee finding someone.’

Marion, aged 63, who moved to Norway eight years ago, is in a similar position. Her husband’s pension is not enough to live on, and she won’t be eligible for the UK state pension because, like a lot of women who took time out to bring up their children, she paid National Insurance contributions for less than ten years. ‘I can’t imagine myself ever retiring. Luckily they say they’re not ageist in Norway, so I should be able to carry on working until I’m 70, perhaps longer. One of the perks of working in this country is that at 62 you can substantially cut down your hours without it affecting your pension rights.’

Many of the increasing number of self-employed workers are likely to fall into this category. Inadequate pension provision among this group is a growing concern. The challenges involved in creating the kind of auto-enrol scheme currently being taken up in the rest of the workforce were recently highlighted at a Resolution Foundation forum by the former Pensions Commissioner Lord Adair Turner, now Chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

HOW TO TOP UP YOUR INCOME

If your pension income falls short of your needs, there are alternatives to staying in the same job. People are often more open-minded about the kind of part-time work they’ll take on in retirement than they would have been when they were younger: as long as the work’s sociable, with few anxieties, they’re happy. Another option is to bring in cash by doing something you find rewarding, whether it’s gardening or tutoring or childminding. One foresighted employment agency called Local Treasures, based in Hampshire, specialises in finding a variety of work for the over-fifties. Some of their clients use existing skills, such as accountancy, while others want to do something completely different. Some have used the agency as a springboard to a new career; one woman retrained as a chimney sweep.

Or you could turn a passion into a business. There are endless inspiring examples: Emma, who sells her paintings of local houses and landmarks; the former foreign correspondent who started a lavender farm in Wales. And Lesley, who retired from teaching at 58 to set up a ceramics business – initially from her garden shed. She says, ‘It’s so rewarding when you reach into yourself and find you can make something for which other people not only want to part with their hard-earned cash, but also into which you become totally, enjoyably immersed. I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to cut myself some slack to dig a bit deeper into what I would like to do. Initially I had no idea how the business would go, but it was something I really wanted to do so I decided to test the market first by renting a small part of someone else’s gift shop.’

Before investing time and money, it pays to do the groundwork and consider whether it’s how you really want to spend a lot of time. One major consideration has to be whether the work will be sociable enough. Crafting or cooking can be wonderfully absorbing, but they can get lonely. It might be worth considering teaming up with like-minded souls whose skills either match your own or complement them.

EARNING INCOME FROM YOUR HOME

If you only have a state pension but own your house or flat, you’re in a better position than you might think. There are many options, such as renting out a room, downsizing (see here) or equity release. Simonne Gnessen says, ‘People who own their home often get stuck with the idea that they couldn’t possibly sell it, but in fact there are all sorts of ways to use it to generate income. People need to feel that there are options available to them, that they’re not trapped. There is always a solution, although sometimes you have to be prepared to do something drastic.’

Simonne is one of many financial experts who believe that in the future it will be the norm for people to use property to fund their retirement. That’s fine for people who own their homes, but not much comfort to people who don’t. One of her clients, who is 69 and still working freelance to supplement her state pension, plans to go for a kind of Marigold Hotel option, spending six months of the year in India, where she can save money by living much more cheaply and subsidise the rest of her time in the UK. But the bulk of her income will come from renting out her flat during her time away.

Increasingly, people are generating income by renting out a room as part of their retirement strategy, either to a friend or a lodger or through Airbnb. It often has benefits that aren’t just about making ends meet.

Lodgers

The government’s rent-a-room scheme allows people to earn up to £7,500 a year tax-free: if you charge more, you need to fill in a tax return. The allowance is halved if the income is shared with a partner. One option that works well is a weekday lodger who goes away at weekends. It is an ideal arrangement for Riko because it leaves the room free for her daughter or friends to stay. ‘All my friends who have lodgers agree that the kitchen is the hardest space to share. I admit that when potential tenants tell me how much they love cooking it puts me off! Luckily my lodgers have all been busy people who get takeaways or eat out. Agencies recommend you set down rules but I never have, and it seems to work. I’m very friendly but I don’t encourage anyone to sit in my living room watching television with me.’

Student lodgers can be high maintenance, especially if they’re homesick or needy or noisy, but they can certainly liven up the proceedings. One of the secrets of a good retirement is having contact with people of different ages. An alternative perspective on the world is always refreshing, while an overseas student might help you learn another language.

Airbnb

More and more people are making Airbnb part of their retirement strategy. Flexibility is a big part of the appeal: you can work it around your own plans. Helen started doing bed and breakfast through Airbnb after her husband died. She’s had guests from all over the world, from Japanese ballroom dancers to a Chinese sixth-former. She explains how she got into it: ‘After the children went home after they visited me last Christmas I felt quite sad. I thought Airbnb would be a bit of coming and going through the house; it wasn’t just about the money. Initially the plan was to do it one week a month, but there was an intense period in the summer when the room was booked solid for six weeks. It was great fun and I really enjoyed it but it was exhausting. So I’ve gone back to just one week a month.

‘The people have all been really nice, and all very different. They’re out most of the time but I spend quite a bit of time chatting to them and suggesting good places to go. I find it really good as a leveller and understanding how people come to their different views. The great thing is that it’s flexible, so I can fit it round visiting my children and grandchildren and all the other things I want to do.’

EQUITY RELEASE

Equity release has a bad reputation, and it used to be a last resort. It’s always worth thinking about downsizing first, because that may be a better way to release capital. Some types of home cannot be used for equity release. But Simonne Gnessen insists it’s worth looking into as you get older, although it is essential to first discuss your options with an independent financial adviser and deal with a lender who is a member of the Equity Release Council. ‘Releasing equity out of your home is a scary thing to do, and lots of people don’t want to do it. That’s partly because twenty years ago it could be very dangerous. You could end up owing more than the property was worth, and leave a debt behind you. But nowadays that can’t happen. There are safer schemes, like lifetime mortgages, where you defer the payment of the mortgage until you die or the property gets sold (if you go into a home, for example). They guarantee that you won’t ever owe more than the value of your home.

‘In future I think this will become more and more accepted as a way people will fund some of their retirement if they don’t have their own pension but have equity in a property. Part of the value of the property will effectively become their pension.’

TAKING YOUR PENSION

Jargon explained: workplace and personal pensions

• Defined benefit (DB) schemes provide an income based on how long you and/or your employer have paid into the scheme, and a proportion of either your final or average salary. They include:

⚬ final salary schemes

⚬ CARE (career average revalued earnings) schemes

Many DB and CARE schemes have closed in recent years. They have been replaced by:

• Defined contribution (DC), or money purchase, schemes. There are two main types: workplace pensions and personal pensions. They provide an income on retirement based on the amount that has been paid into the scheme, the number of years the money has been invested and investment returns.

• Pension pot: the sum of money accrued during your working life through contributions made by you and/or your employer to a defined contribution scheme.

Using your pension pot

Different pension schemes offer different options, so the first thing to do is to check out the rules that apply to your scheme. These are the common options:

• You may be able to postpone taking your pension pot, allowing it to increase tax-free. This may give you more income when you take it.

• When you decide to take it, most defined contribution schemes give you the option of withdrawing up to 25 per cent of your pension pot as a tax-free lump sum. If you choose to do this, you can use the remaining 75 per cent to provide retirement income. There are two main ways to do this:

1.Use your pot to buy a lifetime annuity, which is a guaranteed income for life. Once you buy an annuity you can’t change your mind, so it’s important to get help and advice before committing to one. Alternatively you could buy a fixed-term annuity, which pays an income for a chosen period, usually between three and twenty years, and then a sum on maturity. With a short-term annuity you can change your mind at the end of the term.

2.Use your pot to provide a flexible income known as ‘flexi-access drawdown’. Again, you can usually take up to 25 per cent of your pension pot as a tax-free lump sum. The rest can be invested in a fund or funds that permit you to take a taxable retirement income. This can usually be taken regularly, or at times to suit you. The income may vary, depending on the performance of the funds, and it isn’t guaranteed for life. It is important to keep a watchful eye on your investments, and you may need a financial adviser to help with this.

• Take cash sums from your pension pot as and when you need them. The potential disadvantages include administration charges for each withdrawal.

• Close your pension pot and take out the full amount in cash in one go. It’s important to remember that only 25 per cent is tax-free. This is a high-risk option and it’s essential to get good financial advice before taking this step.

GENERAL TIPS

• Check that you’re being taxed correctly. If you retired recently you may not be on the right tax code.

• If you’re worried about money, take time to settle in to new spending patterns before making big plans.

• Deal with money worries head on by compiling a realistic balance sheet of income and expenses.

• Break the habit of being generous if you can no longer afford it. This can be tough, but retirement is a valid reason for no longer picking up the bill, and friends and family will understand.

• In her book Happy Money psychologist Dr Elizabeth Dunn recommends the following: if you pay for holidays or concerts several months before you experience them, they almost feel free;

• Treat yourself. Turn habits into occasional treats that you really appreciate;

• Spend money on experiences and socialising rather than material possessions. The length of an experience has little impact on the pleasure of remembering it, which can get rosier with time.

• When you see something you really want to buy, give yourself a week’s cooling-off period first.

POSITIVE ECONOMIES

• Dr Dunn advises asking yourself how a purchase will affect the way you use your time.

• When deciding between cheaper and more expensive versions of the same thing, think about something specific you could do with the money you would save.

• Join a liftshare or car-sharing club.

• Buy a bike. If you’re nervous, a course will boost confidence. Many local authorities offer adult cycle training: there should be a cycle section on their website.

• Meet friends for a walk or a coffee or at home. Cheaper than lunch or dinner and just as nice.

• Holidays: house swap through an agency or stay with friends. And join the Youth Hostels Association; members of all ages are welcome.

9

Couples

Long before I thought of writing this book I met a woman whose husband had recently retired. She was ten years younger than him and still working full time. ‘Retirement is a really big thing in our relationship,’ she said. ‘All my female friends say the same. It’s made me much more conscious of the age gap, because I’m still at work and suddenly Gary seems much older. I’m aware that he’s at home even if I’m not there. I can’t help thinking, what have you been doing all day? Why haven’t you done the washing?’

It gave me pause for thought about the impact retirement might have on my own relationship. For couples who have weathered a few storms over the years, retirement may be the biggest test yet. All those elephants in the room, all the issues you’ve swept under the carpet… there is no longer any excuse not to face up to them. It should get easier to talk about the stuff that matters, but sometimes it just doesn’t. Suzie Hayman, a relationship counsellor who works with many retired couples, says, ‘By this stage many couples take their relationship for granted; they no longer see it as a priority. They need to get back into the habit of sharing thoughts and feelings in the way that they did when they were younger. People worry about what they’ll find to talk about and do together when they retire. Many couples have changed a lot over the years without noticing it, and the things you used to love doing when you were first together have been set aside. You can feel as though you’re living with a stranger.’

Silver divorce rates, which have risen by about a third in just ten years, confirm that for some couples the difficulties prove too much. But that’s not the whole picture. Research indicates that there is often an increase in marital satisfaction after retirement. A study by Oliver Robinson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Greenwich University, found that around 70 per cent of retired people in the UK thought that retirement had had a positive effect on their relationship. Another study in the US found that generally, older couples were as happy or even happier than younger couples.

If that’s the case, then why does the prospect of spending more time together make even devoted couples feel anxious? It’s much more common to hear people approaching retirement say, ‘How am I going to cope with him under my feet all day?’ than to hear them getting excited about all the wonderful things they’ll be able to do together. To some extent it’s fear of the unknown. Most couples are used to spending most of the working week apart. They have no idea what it will be like to spend most of their time together – the only clues come from the occasional holiday. While more quality time allows strong relationships to grow and develop, it can equally put extra pressure on partnerships that are already floundering.

When you’re together all the time, differences get magnified. ‘Rob’s pace has always been a bit slower and more considered than mine and recently I’ve noticed he’s slowing down even more. That can be irritating at times,’ says Sara. ‘I’m much more energetic; I’m a do-er and very goal-oriented, whereas he can be quite passive. He doesn’t initiate things – especially social things – in the same way. That’s always been an issue in our relationship, much more so now. He doesn’t say anything but I feel that he thinks I could be calmer and enjoy the moment more. I’m sure he’s got a point!’

There are huge adjustments to be made. Each partner is changed by retirement in a variety of ways, from the clothes they wear to what they talk about in the evening, to their self-confidence and zest for life. Seeing your partner as a Retired Person changes the way you see yourself. As the other person changes in response, a new dynamic emerges in the relationship.

Then there’s the question of identity, something I worry about quite a lot. Perhaps it sounds shallow, but I enjoy my husband’s work status, I’m proud of what he does, I like the idea of him being effective. So it seems natural to worry about whether my feelings will change when that’s no longer part of who he is, when he’s no longer going off in a crisp shirt every morning. What if his confidence takes a knock? What will we talk about when he’s no longer coming home with tales of life in the lab? His working life provides such rich pickings for conversation. As a retired couple, there’ll be a whole new identity for us to come to grips with.

But perhaps that’s why so many couples get a new lease of life in retirement. It’s exactly the kind of shake-up relationships need from time to time. Worrying beforehand about how they’ll cope makes couples stronger because it forces them to hammer things out and work through their differences. Couples who have weathered storms in the past have built up the resilience they need to survive this one. The relationship itself can be a reliable source of strength, according to Dr Sabah Khan of Tavistock Relationships: ‘If couples can turn to each other during this stressful phase of their lives, the relationship itself can be used as a resource and a great source of support.’

Dr Khan is currently developing a new counselling programme to help couples pre-empt problems they might face in retirement. It’s more of a relationship MOT than traditional counselling. The idea is that people go not because they’re in crisis, but to get match fit. Dr Khan explains, ‘This is an opportunity for couples to review their relationship at a point where they are about to face a really difficult and stressful phase of their life together. The idea is to prompt couples to start thinking about the process of change and enable them to carry on that conversation outside the therapy room.’

Retirement is an opportunity to put each other first, perhaps for the first time in years, and for the relationship to grow in a new direction. There’s more room for physical and emotional intimacy. Parents whose kids have flown the nest can regain their identity as a couple rather than as Mum and Dad. Just having the time to develop interests together is a real boost. Planning and executing a big joint project, such as moving house or the trip of a lifetime, can be stimulating in unexpected ways. Having the leisure to enjoy doing domestic stuff together, as well as spontaneous outings, naturally nurtures closeness. Lily says, ‘Now that my husband Paul is retired too it has brought us closer. When you’re both working you’re obviously preoccupied at times. When you’re no longer bringing those stresses home with you it frees up your mind. We like spending time together. Doing the garden has become a nice activity rather than Oh God we’ve got to get these things planted. But we’re not joined at the hip. Paul plays golf and he’s a Peak Park ranger, while I volunteer for the National Trust. I’ve got a friend who says her husband expects her to entertain him all the time. Paul is not like that at all; he can always find something to do.’

DIFFERENT EXPECTATIONS

The most common problems stem from a gulf existing between the expectations each partner has, which often takes one partner, perhaps both, by surprise. Without realising it, partners may have very different ideas about what their retired lives will be like. While one dreams of far-flung road trips, the other wants to work part time or move nearer the grandchildren. While one assumes they’ll do everything together, the other has grown to love their independence. It’s natural to make assumptions about someone you think you know so well, but each side needs to be aware that the other’s interests and desires could have changed dramatically over the years.

The most important issues to consider are:

• Timing. Would it be better to retire together or one at a time?

• Territory

• Ambitions and dreams

• Finding a balance between separate interests and doing things together

• Sex

• Where to live (more on this in here)

• Spending and budgeting (more on this in here)

Timing: retire together or one at a time?

For some people it’s important to retire at the same time, and to embark on the new phase together. But their partner might not agree! In any case, there’s not always much choice; finances play a part, as does any age gap that might exist. The problem pages often feature letters from women who can’t persuade their workaholic husbands to stop. Meanwhile, women who put careers on the back burner while their kids were growing up often get a new enthusiasm for work in their fifties and sixties.

It goes without saying that joint decisions, discussed well in advance, are always best. Fashion designer Betty Jackson, who ran her highly successful company for over thirty years with her French husband, David, says, ‘David wanted to retire much earlier than I did. But he never ever said and that was great. I knew that if I’d gone on for another ten years he would have continued to support the whole thing. He never influenced the decision but the moment I mentioned retirement he said “Yes! Great! When?”’

For most couples there will be a phase when one partner is retired while the other carries on working. In such cases, some tension is inevitable. Workers might feel resentful because they’re still slogging away while their partner lives the dream. Meanwhile, retirees might feel their life is a poor shadow of that of their partner, who is still in the working world. Research suggests that it’s easier if the wife retires first. When men retire first the classic scenario is that their wives leave a list of jobs and men don’t do them. In Paul’s household it’s become a bit of a joke. Since he left the police force he has worked part time as a voluntary ambulance driver, while his wife, Carolyn, still works full time. ‘Me being retired has definitely changed our relationship,’ says Paul. ‘We both laugh about it – you’ve got to. You have to get used to each other in a different way. Carolyn was so used to me being out on shifts and working long hours and then all of a sudden it was like bang, hello, I’m here twenty-four hours a day seven days a week, like it or not.

‘For years we’d got into such a rigid routine. And suddenly that was out of the window. It did take quite a bit of adjustment, and you both need time apart. That’s why I prefer to do the 12-to-8 shift in my volunteering job, because it gives Carolyn a bit of time to herself when she gets home from work. And I get time to myself in the morning.

‘She might have a little dig at me now and again. I admit I am a bit lazy at times and I’m certainly not one for DIY, but on the whole stuff gets sorted. She says you haven’t done this and this, and I say I haven’t had time because… and she just shakes her head and walks off. She knows what I’m like after twenty-seven years of marriage! But she’s threatening to start leaving notes. The best thing about being retired is that if I haven’t seen Carolyn much for a couple of days because of work we meet for lunch or a coffee in Newcastle. That’s really nice.’

Territory

Territory is another classic source of potential conflict. One study of spouses who hadn’t ever worked indicated that they found adapting to the change in their relationship harder than their retiring partner did. It’s inevitable that the home-based partner has come to regard the domestic sphere as theirs, whether they were working at home or looking after the kids or retired first. They understandably feel their space is being invaded. Leo, who has been the househusband since he and his wife, Marion, moved to Norway eight years ago, says, ‘Home is my domain now: I do all the cooking and cleaning while Marion is at work. I’m not looking forward to her retiring, because when she’s at home it feels like an intrusion, it disrupts my routine. I don’t think us both being retired is going to be a happy place at all. You’re with each other 24/7 yet you’ve got out of the habit of functioning together as a couple. Our interests are very different now, so we’ll need to make some adjustments to our relationship.’

Some irritations are minor and easily ironed out as both sides get used to the new status quo. Other irritations seem trivial when in fact an iceberg of conflict lurks just beneath the surface. Relationship counsellor Suzie Hayman says, ‘Many couples have conflicts over territory. What often happens is one partner – usually the woman – gets resentful because she feels the other is invading her territory. But in fact he’s just trying to make himself feel useful in his new environment and make his mark. Both sides need to recognise that while it’s not fair for the bloke to rearrange everything and generally try and take over, it’s equally unfair for the woman to stick to the idea that it’s her domain and not make room for the other person.’

Couples need to negotiate a new way of organising the space and their routines. The kitchen is a big bone of contention, even if you’re used to sharing the cooking and clearing up quite companionably in the evenings. It’s all too common for the invader to start moving things around and sorting out cupboards. Even trivial stuff, like over-zealous surface-wiping or restacking the dishwasher, can feel like an intrusion. Martin, whose wife, Sally, still works full time, complains, ‘I do all the washing now, and that’s fine. But if I hang the washing at the weekend I can guarantee that the pegging will be changed because I haven’t pegged in the way Sally thinks is right. That’s quite undermining. I’ve just had to accept that it’s OK if she moves things around and takes things out of the dishwasher whereas I’m not allowed to.

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen when she retires. I do feel this is more my house than Sally’s, and that’s something to think about. I think she’s worried about me being around. I’m not so worried, because when we’re on holiday we get into a companionable understanding that you do this but not that. One big difference between us is that I like to have music on more than she does. How will that work? Will I have to wear headphones? We’ll have to work out how we use the house and what we do separately and together. What’s most likely is that most days we’ll be out doing separate things, and there’ll be one day where we’re both at home and maybe doing something together.’

It’s much better to be honest from the beginning, rather than bottling up issues that will do less damage if they are nipped in the bud. For example, if you would rather not have a chat every time you make a cup of coffee, say so nicely. Your partner has no way of knowing whether you’re looking for company or want a bit of peace. And a bit of peace is exactly what many people crave, but they don’t want to hurt their partner’s feelings. ‘Suddenly having to be with Rob all the time I do find myself gritting my teeth,’ says Sara. ‘I’m just very aware that he is there, all the time. He doesn’t go out much so I never get the place to myself. I hadn’t realised how important it is to me to have time on my own – not just when I go out but when I’m at home.’

One way to accept the idea that from now on the territory belongs to both of you is to make joint decisions about a new use of space. Decluttering together is a positive first step (see here), which can lead to discussing how to rearrange rooms and redecorate them. Each partner needs their own space, whether it’s a shed, a room, a desk or a corner of the sofa. This should be sacrosanct, with no tidying up or borrowing of pens permitted.

In time, many couples settle into their own separate zones quite naturally. It’s essential in a one-bedroom flat like David and Pru’s. During the day Pru, who does a lot of work at home, automatically bases herself in the bedroom with her laptop, while David listens to music and reads in their living room. But in other households the need for separate spaces may need spelling out. Monique’s is a salutary tale. ‘We bought this flat before we retired because the sitting room has a lovely view and that’s where I was planning to sit on the sofa and read. But now Tim’s moved his desk in there, and he sits clicking away on his laptop playing patience all day. It’s impossible to concentrate. So I end up retreating to the kitchen at the back of the flat. It drives me mad. But in that blokey way Tim is totally oblivious.’

There are particular issues if one person works at home after their partner retires. For years they’ve been used to settling down to a day’s peace after the morning flurry to get out of the house. They don’t take kindly to interruptions, however well meant. One couple’s solution is to communicate through emails and texts, even when they’re in adjacent rooms. It sounds almost farcical but it avoids the kind of irritation Margaret experienced: ‘I was used to being completely on my own in the house until James retired. I remember one morning he came in to my office to ask the price of a first-class stamp. I nearly killed him. And because I’m much better at computers and technology he’s always asking for help when things go wrong. It was extremely irritating. But at least we retired one at a time, we weren’t both suddenly finding our habitual spheres of influence had completely changed. And we talked about it. In the end we developed a strategy that works for us. We decided to live through periods when the other person is driving us mad and talk about how we might have managed it better a couple of days later.’

Ambitions and dreams

It’s clearly important to sit down and talk about big plans for the future. This is an exciting discussion to have, but it can be disconcerting if your partner’s dreams turn out to be very different from your own, and from the assumptions you’ve made.

Throughout their lives people often have ideas about what retirement with their partner will look like, and the kinds of things they will do together. But they may not be aware that their partner has very different ideas. ‘One partner may have spent a lot of time thinking about finally having time together and being able to do x y and z. And if that doesn’t happen that is very upsetting. But often people don’t communicate that upset,’ says Andrew G. Marshall, a marital therapist and author of several books about long-term relationships. It’s possible to work out even very different expectations as long as you talk about them.

It may even be that one of you dreams of making a big change, or doing something quite drastic, such as volunteering abroad for several months. There are big decisions to be made about whether to join in, or stay behind and do your own thing. Some couples are fine with spending long periods apart, but the practicalities as well as the potential impact on your relationship need careful consideration.

A simple way to start the discussion about big plans is to write down separate lists of all the things you really want to do over the next ten years, with no holds barred. Try not to self-censure. At this stage it’s fine to be selfish: this is about what you want, not what your partner would enjoy. The time for thinking about compromise comes when you have compared notes. When you do that you may be surprised by your partner’s response. Do the same with a list of your top five holidays.

Finding a balance between separate interests and doing things together

Experts agree that the key to a happy co-existence is finding a good balance between time apart and time together, maintaining independence while building a new identity as a couple. The only problem is that by this stage couples may struggle to find common interests because they’ve got into the habit of living parallel lives when they were busy with work and kids. There are ways to bring back the closeness. The couples I really envy go to dance classes together. Good alternatives are taking up a sport or learning something together. Even simple activities, like a game of cards or Scrabble, are companionable and offer a different way of communicating. One couple I know are learning chess together: a clever investment of effort for the years ahead. Holidays are perhaps the most obvious way to breathe new life into the relationship, find fresh interests and try a range of different activities.

But there’s another problem. Many men struggle more than women in retirement. That sounds like a grossly unfair generalisation, and of course there are loads of blokes this doesn’t apply to. But it’s a real concern for many women, who often complain that their partners expect to be entertained. They feel anxious about how their husbands are coping with retirement, because even if they’re busy at home, they’re less proactive about finding new social networks, perhaps because they just don’t know where to start. To some extent the advantage women have is simply a question of circumstance: women generally spend more time at home, they have more opportunities to build a wider social network, they’ve got more strings to their bow.

Tony Chiva, who used to be head of education and training at the former Pre-Retirement Association, says, ‘Retirement is often more difficult for men. Men don’t tend to have the same social patterns that women have, especially as the pub culture has decreased. Women tend to be more embedded in their communities than men, which often starts when they have children, with NCT classes or whatever. Women on retirement courses used to say “I married him for better or worse but not for lunch”. That sums it up really; they don’t want their husband under their feet all day every day. Any difficulties there have been in relationships tend to get highlighted in retirement, which leads to higher divorce rates.’

Women often feel responsible for helping their partners find stuff to do; they feel bad about pursuing their own interests if it means leaving their husband mouldering around at home. ‘He needs to get out there more, he needs to get involved with more stuff’ is a common complaint. Irene, who has been semi-retired for ten years, is looking forward to her husband joining her in a few months’ time. But she’s worried he won’t cope as well as she has: ‘I think retirement is different for men. Danny is always busy in his shed, he’s got plenty to do, but he won’t go anywhere on his own, it has to be as a couple. It’s always me who suggests things, although he’s usually happy to go along. That will affect how I spend my time, and the clubs I go to will probably have to change. I wouldn’t like to leave him on his own too much so I may adjust my classes to fit in with Danny’s new part-time work/retirement schedule so that we have time together and plenty of long weekends to travel together.’

Sex

Talking about your sex life is the first step towards getting it out of a rut. Yet by this stage many couples have no idea where to begin. Sex has become the elephant in the room, a subject too risky to bring up. Andrew G. Marshall says, ‘Talking about sex is difficult because if you introduce the subject the immediate response is “What’s wrong with it?”. Retirement is such a pressure point, because many couples have spent the last twenty years coming up against things that stop them being intimate with each other, like work and the children. Suddenly those things are not there any more and that is uncomfortable. But most people don’t look at it, they just find new excuses.’

Putting up with the way things are, even if it means resigning yourself to a life of quiet desperation, often seems preferable to risking rejection. A standard way of coping is to pretend that sex doesn’t matter, that you’re too tired and preoccupied. It’s natural to worry about how your partner would react if you said that you would like things to be different.

An important first step is to rebuild the closeness in your relationship by doing things you really enjoy together, perhaps things you haven’t done since you first met or that you’ve never tried before. There’s something very special about discovering a new place or a new activity together, making mistakes and egging each other on. Communication is never purely verbal; a reassuring smile or a supportive hug can make you feel just as close. It’s a way of seeing each other in a new light. When couples first fall in love they’re willing to try new activities because they mean a lot to the other person. Retirement is a great time to recreate that same sense of exploration and fun.

Andrew G. Marshall sees retirement as a good opportunity for couples to reinvent their sex lives. He says: ‘I see a lot of affairs in clients around eighteen months after retirement. People haven’t thought through the impact that giving up work will have on their identity. It’s important to still feel wanted and still part of the world, and unfortunately the way some people achieve that is by having an affair. That’s particularly likely if they feel their partner takes them for granted or is not very interested in them, or if their sex life has become rather routine.’

He recommends that couples start by talking about the impact retirement might have on their sex life and how they would like it to change. If any problems come up they should write them down, put them to one side and talk about them later. This is not the time to talk about negatives. The next step is to think about practical measures to implement change, such as putting a date in the diary to go to bed early one night a week, or to have a bath together or even take a course in tantric sex. ‘Ninety per cent of the problem is embarrassment and the feeling that sex should happen spontaneously. If you allow yourself to plan it helps a huge amount. And if at the same time you broaden the definition of sex to include all the wonderful sensual things like cuddling and stroking, then you can completely revolutionise your sex life.’

COUPLES COUNSELLING

There is only one way to deal with issues that cause conflict: by talking about them. I know it’s annoying advice. I know how hard it can be to bring up difficult subjects, and how you wake up one day and wonder where on earth the easy communication of the early days together has gone. But I also know that it’s worth finding a way to talk. Just imagine the relief if you plucked up courage to say even one thing, and it was met with understanding and led to a whole new deeper dialogue.

The irony is that spending more time together seems to make communication harder. Couples who’ve been together for years get out of the habit of talking about the stuff that matters: they’re more likely to have a conversation about putting the bins out than about how they feel about each other. If that’s the case, it can really help to work with a couples counsellor. You don’t have to be experiencing problems to justify it, and the earlier you start discussing how retirement might affect your relationship the better.

The sad thing is that most couples wait until there’s a crisis to have counselling. Partners in their fifties are less likely to seek help than younger people: only about 18 per cent of Relate’s clients are over 50, while less than 1 per cent are over 70. That’s a shame, because problems can be nipped in the bud, or even avoided altogether, by airing them with a counsellor. In a neutral context, people often say things their partner is surprised to hear.

Tavistock Relationships’ new Couple 50+ MOT programme is a brilliant idea, because it prompts couples to start thinking about how they’ll negotiate the retirement upheaval that lies ahead. It doesn’t feel quite as drastic as couples counselling, and it takes less time. Dr Sabah Khan, who developed the programme, explains: ‘It’s quite different from the kind of counselling we usually offer, in that there are only four sessions, and it’s more preventative and preparative. Often it can be such a normalising experience for people just to hear what their partner thinks, and their hopes and fears or worries.’

Just making a regular commitment is a powerful statement of faith in your joint future. And it may mean more to your partner than you think. Owen, 65, and Marie, 55, have been together for ten years, but they have never lived together. When I met them, Owen had just given up his job as a production manager to go freelance, a decision he was terrified would turn out to be a mistake because he is still supporting his two daughters from his first marriage. Other big decisions about their future were still hanging in the balance.

Owen says: ‘Having that hour every week in which all we had to think about was us was so precious in itself because in the past it was hard to find a time that suited us both, when one of us wasn’t preoccupied with stuff happening at work. When you’re living a busy life you tend to be ready to talk at different times; one of you is keen but the other one has too much else on their mind.

‘Being a bloke, I had been concentrating on the concrete side of what retirement meant: the reduction in income and selling the house. Because we have never lived together it’s not just about giving up work but also very big changes in where we are going to live and what our lifestyle might be. My house is still a sanctuary for my daughters, and so selling it is a huge step for me. It feels like everything is changing almost all at once. And that was what I was anxious to try and work out.

‘In the counselling sessions I was drawn away from those anxieties to focus more on us as a couple, and about our feelings. That was really good, because sometimes you assume that the couple bit is all sorted out, and you take it for granted while you carry on worrying about where the money’s coming from or whatever. I was able to say things I had been bottling up because I was worried about Marie’s reaction, that it might cause some difficulty. It was cathartic, there was a sense of release. It was very emotional, and there were times when I felt quite tearful. At one point Marie said she had never believed she could ever have a proper house to live in. That was sad, and I remember being really surprised that she thought that.

‘Marie used to complain that I left her out of my thought processes. The counsellor made me see she’s right! I have a habit of thinking I’ve told Marie something or expressed the way I was feeling when I haven’t. I think things through and decide things on my own and forget to communicate it.

‘I came out of every session feeling better than on the way in – more positive about us and more hopeful about the future. There are still things we haven’t completely addressed yet. We have different interests, and we’re going to have to balance those a bit. I would like to go back to doing a bit of sailing; Marie goes to the Buddhist Centre and loves walking. It’s helped me to understand what’s important in the decision-making process: the two of us, Marie and me. I want to hold on to that as a driving force as we sort things out.’

Marie says: ‘It was my idea to try counselling, not because we had problems, but because although we talked about retirement a lot we weren’t getting anywhere. I felt that if I knew for definite when Owen was retiring then I could make decisions about winding down myself and selling my flat. But we weren’t getting near a decision, and I felt there was a lot of underlying emotional stuff that was stopping us. There was always a reluctance to talk openly about the issues. When I suggested counselling Owen was really up for it. He even took time off work to go, which was really important to me.

‘Initially I was worried about what might come up, that counselling might reveal other problems in the relationship we hadn’t thought about. I was worried the counsellor would say, you’ve been together for ten years, why aren’t you living together? But it wasn’t like that at all. It was really helpful having a third person to mediate. When it’s just the two of you, you often wait for the moment and it comes out in a slightly aggressive way, and then you both get defensive.

‘I was able to say things that felt quite deep and vulnerable-making, things I would never have said to Owen on our own. Saying “I want to be first” was really hard and very emotional. I had never said it before because I understand about his daughters, although I don’t have kids myself. There is a great vulnerability where the children are concerned, particularly after a divorce. I had always imagined that Owen’s response would be “everyone says that to me” because he takes his responsibilities very seriously, to his 98-year-old father as well as to his daughters. But in the counselling session I think he heard it in a different way.

‘One of the most emotional moments was when the counsellor identified that Owen feels he has to take all the responsibility for these big decisions whereas of course there are two of us, we are in this together. We don’t know what that’s like because we’ve never lived together. Dealing with the emotional stuff helps sort out the other, practical issues, because that’s what’s underneath it all.

‘The main thing counselling did was put the joy back, and made us both look forward. It helped us to see that retirement really is about opportunity. The plan now is to put his house on the market next year. Part of me would like it to be sooner, but that’s what Owen feels comfortable with.’

COMMUNICATING WITHOUT COUNSELLING

There are other ways to start talking if counselling feels like a big step, or if you can’t persuade your partner to go. Some pre-retirement courses encourage partners to come along too, and they are a good way to get the cogs whirring about how your lives will change. Check the agenda beforehand to see how much time is devoted to different subjects: any course worth its salt will include a session on relationships. Because the approach is primarily practical, and the group setting makes the whole thing less personal, it can seem less challenging than couples counselling. All couples need to discuss practical matters like money, and conflicts that might arise around spending. But this might also feel like a safer route into broader discussions about your relationship.

Of course, it’s perfectly possible to talk without outside help. One simple strategy is to put a regular slot in the diary that is devoted to discussing your relationship and your plans for the future, just as you would if you were going to counselling sessions. That’s already a clear statement of commitment. A regular slot will focus your mind during the intervening period and allow you to create an informal agenda by jotting down thoughts that occur along the way.

Margaret talked in earlier chapters about how she and her husband, James, go away once a year without fail to discuss their plans for the future. I’m including them again here because they show how important it is to give a long-term relationship the attention it deserves, and that an unusual yearly commitment like theirs is one very straightforward way to prevent partners taking each other for granted. They don’t just talk about practical matters, but take on the difficult emotional stuff too; discussing both together probably makes it less daunting. They start on Friday evening by writing down what’s currently bugging them, which could be about the relationship or life in general. This list is then put aside until Sunday, because hearing what the other person feels unhappy about straight away could be painful. By the end of a weekend spent talking and listening it’s much easier to bring up difficult concerns. Margaret says, ‘James has been completely on board from the beginning. The fact that some of it involves having detailed discussions of your sex life or whatever is something he is prepared to put up with. The relationships section forces you to say to each other I am not happy about x. We talk about things we could easily get cross about. It makes you think hard about what you want and what you do not want, and about what you say and how you say it. You need to be frank about the issues you’re facing and identifying what’s important to you. That’s all pretty exhausting and emotional. I quite often cry in the bath before dinner. That’s fine, I’m an emotional person and I’m perfectly happy to cry in the bath. And then, rather than addressing the divergence, we address the way we’ll deal with it.’

HOW TO REKINDLE CLOSENESS

• Don’t make assumptions about your partner’s likes and dislikes. You’re both changing all the time.

• Make separate lists of activities you would like to do together, from big adventures to smaller outings. Then compare notes and pick at least three things from each other’s list, and vice versa.

• Try playing cards or a game; it’s not much more effort than watching telly, but it sparks a different way of communicating.

• Psychology professor Ellen Langer advises: ‘Notice five new things about the person you live with, All of a sudden they become more interesting.’

• Read aloud to each other. It could be from a novel you’re reading, or from the newspaper, or a poem.

• Dr Sabah Khan from Tavistock Relationships advises, ‘Imagine you’re telling a third person how you first got together and what you really liked about each other.’ Think about the music you used to listen to and the dates you went on when you first met.

• Take a break from sex for a few weeks. Focus on touching instead.

• Go to bed at the same time. Or, if you’re heading off to bed before your partner, tell them so they know you haven’t just gone for a bath or whatever. Simple communication helps.

• Set aside a specific time once a month to check in with each other and talk about the relationship.

• Take a long walk together. It’s often easier to have deep discussions side by side than across a table.

• Make a list of five top holiday destinations and choose two from each other’s lists.

• Watch a film that deals with issues you want to talk about. It sounds blatant, but it can be an effective way to kickstart a discussion about the difficult stuff.

10

Friends

My favourite fantasy about retirement features me and my mates hanging out in the way we used to when we were students. I have this idea that at last it might be possible to go back to the simple pleasure of just being with people, to experience again the excitement of getting to know new friends, sitting up into the wee small hours sharing secrets and ideas.

Of course life has moved on: it would be a different group of mates for a start, and we don’t live in communal houses or smoke roll-ups these days. But I don’t think it has to be a fantasy. Retirement offers the perfect conditions to recreate those heady days when friendships were a top priority in our lives. It’s not just about having more time; there’s also a deeper appreciation of how precious friendship is. Most of us have at least one friend who has died; it’s the saddest thing about this stage of life. John, a semi-retired painter and decorator in his eighties, says, ‘All the chaps I used to go to the football with are gone. The last one went two years ago. It’s so sad. They were close friends, real friends, not just acquaintances. You’re lucky in life to have a real friend.’ For Betty, this is the hardest thing about retirement: ‘When I have dark moments they’re nothing to do with retirement itself. What upsets me the most is losing people; I’ve lost three great friends this year, all wonderful people, and that has been really awful. There’s so much you should have said, so much you should have done together.’

‘You don’t just lose the friend, you lose the part of yourself you were with that friend,’ explains the psychotherapist Mark Vernon. ‘Friendship is about knowing yourself in someone else. It’s one of the most meaningful relationships you can have.’

Studies show that friendship networks grow after retirement. It may be that the quality of friendship improves too. At a time when people are re-examining what has enduring value, friends come high on the list. When you’re working full time, friendship has to be squeezed into hectic schedules. If you’re juggling work with a family there’s even less room for other people. No wonder friendship networks decrease in midlife. There’s simply not enough time – and perhaps not the emotional space – for it to have the importance it has when you’re young. Adolescents (and I reckon students too) spend 30 per cent of their time with friends; adults a measly 10 per cent.

When you stop working full time there’s more room in life to put in the spadework that good friendships require. You no longer have to rush off after the lunch break; you can get so engrossed in a teatime conversation that you haven’t noticed the candles being lit. With the luxury of time you can reconnect with old friends you never meant to lose touch with, nurture friendships with people you’ve known for years, support them through a crisis. And most exciting of all, there’s time for new friendships to grow.

Friendship is good for your health and well-being – it may even help you live longer and contribute to a healthy and well-functioning brain. An Australian study published in 2005 followed a group of 1,500 adults aged over 70 for ten years. Those who reported having five or more friends were found to be a quarter less likely to die over the period of the study than those who did not. Research at three London universities suggested that maintaining strong friendships can provide a similar kind of emotional support as a partner.

The Harvard Grant Study echoes these findings. It followed the lives of a group of male graduates for over 75 years, throughout adulthood and into retirement, and found that strong relationships were a key predictor of life satisfaction. ‘How happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,’ the study’s director Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, told the Harvard Gazette. ‘Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too.’

WORK FRIENDSHIPS

In surveys, friendship routinely comes up as one of the most important factors in people’s working lives. Colleagues they used to see every day and people they met through work are among the things people miss most when they leave. Fashion designer Betty Jackson remembers, ‘Work was like a family. You work so closely and so emotionally with people, you’re interwoven with each other: everyone has a role and they each bring different things to that whole process, which is quite magical. I’m still in touch with many of them and I still get birthday messages from people; we always made a big thing about birthdays.’

Work relationships that survive into retirement can be a solid source of support during the transition. But many fizzle out if work is the only thing you have in common. Missing workmates is bearable if you stay in touch, and if you have other groups of friends outside work. But if most of your friendships are work based there can be a lonely gulf before you meet new people who become part of the new social fabric of your life. Dr Oliver Robinson’s research into personality and retirement shows that friendship is arguably as important to retired people as it is to teenagers, and that retirees without friends have much lower life satisfaction than those that do. He says, ‘If people have no social sphere outside their work, life is taken away when work is taken away. Post retirement they really flounder.’

What’s unique about workmates is that they’re often a rich mix of people of different ages and different walks of life. As well as the people you’d count as real friends and the colleagues you quite like, there are all those random people you say hello to – the receptionist, the techies, the backroom boys. Even if you don’t know much about them, never mind like them, they’re a part of working life you don’t miss till it’s gone. They keep you in touch with a range of different experiences and with people of all ages.

Solidarity and camaraderie are the backbone of stressful professions. Letting off steam with workmates is a key part of any tough job, whether it’s surgeons sharing a pint after a gruelling day in theatre or miners soaping each other’s backs in the showers. The greater the solidarity and support at work, the more you’re likely to miss it, as Jean found when she left the police force ten years ago. ‘For thirty years my colleagues were my trustworthy soulmates who totally understood what I was feeling and thinking, and vice versa. We spoke the same abbreviated language and jargon. There was no need for explanations, it was all understood. And they brought a humour to a situation that took you past the stress of it. There was always a feeling of being in it together. We had our own social clubs and venues so we even socialised off duty with each other.

‘A few months after I retired I met up with some of my old colleagues who were still in the force. It was great to see them, but it wasn’t the same. They no longer shared information with me or talked about what was going on at work. I’m sure they were just being considerate; they didn’t want to bother me now that I was retired. But it was a bitter disappointment.’

Workmates are thrown together by circumstance. Outside work you have more choice. Again, there might be a common bond, whether it’s through a shared interest in movies or football or preserved railways or drinking. But when you retire, people are less interested in your status, or in what you can do for each other. Professional networking is redundant; you no longer have to worry about ulterior motives. Away from the complications of office politics, friendship is stripped bare. It can now be life-enhancing, pure and simple. From now on, people want to spend time with you because of who you are, not because of what you can do for them.

This new honesty in friendships fits well with the wider territory of retirement: the search for what’s really important in life. Mark Vernon, a psychotherapist and specialist in friendship, says, ‘The best kind of friendships are the ones where you allow yourself to be known as you are in yourself, rather than for a role that you have, and vice versa. You can be friends with people who are very unlike you; you don’t necessarily have to see yourself mirrored in them. The question is whether you can really expose yourself to them. That is the bedrock of friendship. And of course if you’re comfortable allowing somebody else to see you then that is good for your own flourishing. That means you’re comfortable with yourself, you’re not at war with yourself.’

MAKING NEW CONNECTIONS

Recreating the same kind of rich social networks you find at work takes imagination and a bit of effort. It’s not exactly friendship that people miss most, it’s the random mix, the acquaintances as well as the allies, the people you might not come across in the rest of your life, but who turn out to be really nice. At work you don’t have to make an effort to see people, you bump into them in the corridor, in the coffee room, in the lift. When you leave work there are no water-cooler moments, so you have to be proactive. It’s up to you to make new friends and acquaintances.

The happiest retired people are often the ones who seize the bull by the horns, who take the initiative in befriending people rather than waiting to be asked. And while blokes often get a bad press when it comes to friendship, many of the men I spoke to were good at making things happen. The Lady Boys cycling group that former school head Anthony goes out with on Friday mornings is a good example (it’s named after the Lady Bay area of Nottingham). It all started because their partners were busy doing stuff together, so the men – some fully retired, some working part time – formed various groups of their own. Not just cycling, but badminton and fantasy football and a film club.

Anthony says, ‘I’ve got a few situations where I get work colleague substitutes: volunteering at Bikeworks, which is like work anyway, and Lady Boys. They’re like work colleagues because I don’t know them very well – not yet, anyway – friendships might develop. I joined on the coat-tails of someone I knew from book group and I was quite reserved at first and careful not to be a know-all about routes and stuff.’

It takes gumption to walk into a new club or class on your own, and some people find it more challenging than others. You have to be a bit brave, and keep an open mind. But even if it turns out not to be your cup of tea, it’s always worth giving things a try. Going alone rather than with a friend makes it more likely that you will meet new people. All you have to do is smile and introduce yourself. What’s the worst that can happen?

The best way to meet a good mix is through some kind of regular activity: a course, a class or volunteering. According to research, the opportunity to meet new people is one of the main reasons retired people volunteer. Being part of the same group or class that meets regularly allows you to get to know people gradually. That’s important because anyone who’s been on a course knows how misleading first impressions can be. Groups often seem cliquey at first, and it’s not easy being the newbie. It takes a while for the quieter people to open up and gain confidence, and for the bigger personalities to calm down and stop putting their hands up. There’s an added bonus in the support you get from classmates. It may just be my own personal experience, but I’ve found a real warmth and mutual encouragement in the classes I’ve been to.

I’ve tried loads of weekly courses myself – playing traditional music, writing radio drama, history of art, Scottish dancing, knit ’n’ natter. The people I’ve got to know there became my equivalent of office colleagues, which as a freelancer were missing in my working life. We’d go for a drink after the class, read each other’s plays, and get nervous together before performing Irish jigs in a pub. I got to know a bit about their lives; some remained friendly learning companions, others became friends. It’s taught me to keep an open mind, and to give new things the benefit of the doubt, at least for the first couple of weeks. Having said that, I did give up one class after the first session because I couldn’t stand the dreary mood and the sexist comments. There’s a new ruthlessness in retirement that comes from wanting to make the most of your time and not to waste it on anything you don’t enjoy.

I also learned it’s best not to be too desperate. Meeting someone nice while volunteering or learning something that genuinely interests you should be the icing on the cake, not the primary motive. In any case, if you’re doing something you really care about you’ll have more to talk about and you’re more likely to come across real friends.

HOW FRIENDS HELP THE TRANSITION

Friends, both old and new, are a mainstay of support during the move from work to retirement. The psychologist Dr Oliver Robinson believes that making new social contacts before retirement is one of the best ways to cope with the transition: ‘Starting an activity with a social element before retirement – preferably quite a long time before, so that it’s bedded in – is invariably a profound source of positivity for people,’ he says. ‘It acts as a form of continuity; when so much is changing they have this constant source of support.’

That support is exactly what Lily has with a group of six women friends, which she describes as a bit like a therapy group. They get together for a whole day once a month. ‘We support each other through all kinds of issues you go through at this stage with husbands and partners, elderly parents, grandchildren. We’ve known each other through work for over twenty-five years; it all started because one of us was really interested in astrology so we used to get together to look at birth charts. That naturally opened up a lot of discussions about personality and behaviour. The starting point of our meetings is always food; people bring delicious things to eat. Then we often have a specific focus for discussion, such as our relationship with our mothers.

‘It’s grown into the sort of group where we can say absolutely anything to each other, and you know it’s not going to go any further. Underneath that is a real bond. We know each other so well. We all feel that at any time we could say anything and get help with anything. It’s a gift beyond rubies.’

Old friends are a constant, they anchor your sense of self when it might be feeling a bit shaky. They know where you come from, warts and all. They provide continuity at a time when so much else is changing, and help define your identity in ways that endure far beyond work. Old friends have supported each other through previous transitions and crises: having babies, going through problems in relationships, suffering illnesses. They can take so much for granted; they know each other’s secrets, their strengths and weaknesses, their sensitivities and sore points. They know when to step in and when to shut up and listen.

Time spent with someone you were once close to – and perhaps still are – brings the past back in a very immediate way. Good friends who share a personal history know each other’s biographies, they know what the other person was like before the subsequent strata of identity were laid down. And that’s important as you get older. Mick, 77, has three good friends from the period during and immediately after university, when he was just finding his feet as a young geologist. ‘I’ve had three really close friends all my adult life, and they’re all very important to me in different ways. I met them during that formative period when you are becoming who you are. We were all going through that process of becoming adults together, at that time in your life when lots of decisions are made about what you’re going to do subsequently. We don’t see each other as much as I’d like, because we live at opposite ends of the country, but whenever I meet them it’s as if they’ve just walked out of the room and come back in.’

REUNIONS

It’s surely this need to feel grounded that prompts people to make contact with friends from the past, which happens so commonly at this stage of life. Suddenly people who once balked at the idea of a school reunion find themselves strangely drawn to attend one. There’s always the worry that everyone else will be two stone lighter and running the world, but there is still an irresistible urge to find out how the cleverest boy in the class coped with life’s crises, and whether the school bully ever got what she deserved. There’s a need to revisit an identity that predates work.

Even if it’s a one-off and you have no desire to see any of them ever again, a reunion can reconnect you with parts of yourself that may have lain dormant. It’s about recalling how it felt to be the person who played football on Sunday mornings and went on demos and had Mucha posters on their bedroom wall. It reminds you of the things you really cared about back then. Helen, whose husband died seventeen months after her retirement, is finding old friends a huge support. ‘Bit by bit I’m building up a network of people I liked over the years and lost touch with. There’s one woman I was at school with who used to drive me mad. But she’s been so kind since Peter died, she wrote me such lovely letters. At school we were teenagers battling against each other – I was Miss Goodie Goodie, she was the rebel. She lost a nine-year-old son many years ago. Tragedy happens. As you get further on in life you realise we’re all battling everything all the time. You’re no longer polarised, you’re going along in tandem. I’ve found it much easier to keep in touch with people since I retired, and I really like it. To me relationships are what life is all about.’

REINVENTING YOURSELF WITH NEW FRIENDS

While old friends ground you in the past, new friends inspire and respond to your changing identity; they encourage you to try different things and forge a new direction. New friends see you in a fresh light, they’re less likely to buy into your self-limiting beliefs, so they’re more likely either to ignore or to challenge them. Friends who are going through retirement at the same time offer a safe space to share feelings, thoughts and anxieties. If they’re one step ahead and can offer a few pointers they can be helpful role models, even if their way turns out to be not right for you.

This kind of informal mentoring has been shown to be incredibly helpful in retirement. The new friends Karen made during a week-long retreat in Tuscany helped her see her situation more objectively. ‘Most of the people there were also going through a major transition in their lives and one woman in particular went on to become a great friend. We still use each other as sounding boards. All my old friends thought I was mad to retire early because it would mean I’d lose so much money, but talking to the new people I met about what they were doing made me see what I really wanted to get involved in.’

WHEN FRIENDSHIPS END

When people go through any major change or transition, some friendships inevitably fall by the wayside. Friends take sides when a marriage breaks down; they drift apart when children arrive on the scene; new confidantes take their place. By the time you retire you’ve met a lot of people, and it’s inevitable that some friends outgrow each other. People lose touch when they move to new pastures and don’t bother to keep in contact. Old friends might feel threatened or out of tune with the way you’re changing post-work; by the same token, you might feel brought down by their negativity or undermined by their eagerness to score points. Retirement can be as competitive as any other stage of life.

Ending a friendship sounds drastic, and it’s only to be considered after doing your utmost to make things better between you, and trying to understand where the other person is coming from. One way out is by simply not returning messages, making excuses, hoping the relationship will just fizzle out. It’s cowardly, but at least that way good memories might survive intact. Yet sometimes honesty is the only option, and can even save a friendship: if you’re upset, you owe it to the friendship, and yourself, to come clean about why and to listen to the response. Time and friendship are too precious to dwell on past grudges.

FRIENDS OF ALL AGES

There’s a natural tendency, whatever your age, to make friends with people of a similar age. It’s incredibly helpful to have a peer group who are going through the same issues at the same time. And there’s an automatic understanding that comes from having grown up and lived through the same historical period. But it’s crucial to have friends of different ages as well as a core peer group. It’s fun, for a start. It’s also one obvious way to overcome prejudices on both sides of the age divide. Contact with younger and older friends offers different perspectives and keeps it real. It lessens the chances of ever coming out with the dread phrase ‘In our day…’ It encourages flexibility, a key element of a happy retirement.

Yet as you get older it gets harder to come across people of different ages and different walks of life. The over-sixties are corralled together in a way that would be unthinkable with other ages (apart from toddlers, perhaps). Bargain deals for the over-sixties put retired people in their place. And there’s a high price to pay for saving money: the discounts usually apply at off-peak times when everyone else is at work. I understand that venues want bums on daytime seats, but I still wish that more senior reductions took a leaf out of London’s 60+ Oyster travel card, which can be used at any time of the day and night. Retirement course organiser David Sinclair agrees: ‘I always emphasise the importance of having contact with younger people, but it takes a bit of effort. The tendency to mix only with other retired people is inevitable because things are less crowded on weekdays and during the day. One of the best ways is to join a sports club.’ Another way to find other age groups to mix with is to vote with your feet by choosing evening classes and going to movies when you feel like it. Or seek out volunteering roles and courses that attract a wide range of different people, help out in a school, or take in a student lodger.

A big appeal of living in a community, whether it’s in the middle of a city or in an isolated country village, is that age is no barrier to friendship. One of the most striking things about Coigach, a community of 260-odd souls in the north-west Highlands of Scotland, is that there’s no hint of the ghettoisation of older people that exists in many other places. And they make their own entertainment, with skiffing teams (made up of teenagers to people in their seventies), fishing competitions, Highland gatherings, half-marathons and ceilidhs, which naturally draw people together.

This is not just me romanticising: Lesley, who has set up an art and craft hub above her ceramics gallery and workshop where people can work and meet, concurs. ‘There’s nothing worse than being compartmentalised, age-wise or class-wise. That doesn’t really happen here. This is still a functioning community with a range of ages and classes and attitudes, and they all mix. They have to. We may not all agree but we get along.

‘People in retirement are wanted in this village, they’re used, they’re drawn in. You see older and younger people chewing the fat in the pub together; younger people are aware that older people are quite a resource. I feel the same myself about people who are older than me and I really enjoy the company of a far wider age range of folk than I did when I lived in larger towns and cities. Retirement here means you are included in a lot of younger people’s concerns and if you are open-minded you’re included and welcomed in all sorts of activities and local organisations. Take the sword-fighting class I go to. In general life a woman of 62 would seldom be seen having laughs in the bar with a group of young Goths, but up here you might well.’

Perhaps people mix more readily in close communities because they help each other out, whether it’s with fixing a car or babysitting. John Mac, a retired IT consultant, has lived in a housing association scheme in the shadow of Grenfell Tower in West London since the 1970s. ‘It’s been a very rich experience, to have neighbours who have become friends. The Grenfell tragedy has brought us all together. A few people have had illnesses and everyone helps look after them. It’s a very special feeling, that sense of community. In the summer there’s always someone sitting in the square. The other day one of the mums needed someone to let her kids in from school and I was happy to. To be able to help people out feels great.’

NURTURING FRIENDSHIPS

• Don’t be nervous about getting back in touch with friends you haven’t seen for ages. People understand long absences; they’ve got their own lives, after all.

• Write letters. It may be old style, but writing and receiving letters is one of life’s great pleasures. Invest in quality stationery and a good pen.

• Remember birthdays.

• Mark other significant anniversaries in friends’ lives, such as the death of someone they were close to, with a note or a card. Knowing that someone is thinking about you means a lot.

• Think up new ideas for outings with a friend or a small group. Make a regular date and take it in turns to decide where you’re going next.

• Work through a bucket list with a friend.

• Never take old friends for granted. All relationships need work and consideration to flourish.

HOW TO MEET PEOPLE

• Classes allow you to get to know new people gradually over a long period; you also share a common interest to help break the ice.

• Choose a volunteering role that provides a variety of social contacts.

• If you’re shy, try a walking group. Many people find it easier to talk shoulder to shoulder.

• With new people, ask leading questions that will open up a conversation.

• You can have stimulating and wide-ranging conversations on organised group holidays; you may also make lasting friendships on them. Go with an open mind and give people the benefit of the doubt when you first meet.

• Start your own local group, based on whatever you’re interested in doing. Be brave: ask anyone who might be keen, and advertise on community websites.

• Find a cinema, theatre or eating-out buddy; take it in turns to choose what’s next. Don’t worry if your tastes are slightly different: you’ll broaden each other’s horizons.

• Men’s Sheds are community spaces for men to connect, converse and create. Find your local group through the UK Men’s Sheds Association.

11

Grandchildren

Reflecting on the arrival of her first grandchild, the journalist and author Angela Neustatter wrote, ‘I had no idea what a transformational rite of passage it would be.’ That’s what grandparents always say: it’s more wonderful than they ever imagined, even better than having children. But for parents like me, who haven’t got there yet, grandchildren seem like another country. I loved bringing up my children, and I would love to have grandchildren one day. But at the moment I’m still rediscovering the bit of me that got buried by motherhood and enjoying my empty-nest freedom.

What makes me apprehensive is the evidence all around me that grandchildren turn retirements upside down. You’re no longer in control. Suddenly your plans to travel and volunteer and start your own business fly out of the window. It sounds a bit like when you’re pregnant for the first time: it’s impossible to know how you’re going to feel before the tidal wave of emotion hits.

So I wanted to find out more about how grandparents today juggle their busy retired lives with grandparenting. Grandchildren are clearly life-enhancing in the extreme, but do they also get in the way of dreams and ambitions? The truth is that there are many different ways to be a grandparent today. You can be a one-hundred-per-cent hands-on carer or keep a devoted distance, and there are infinite permutations in between. There is no right way other than what suits you and your family, and hopefully it should be possible to find a match between the two.

The joys of grandparenthood clearly go much deeper than showing off the latest cute snap. Whether you see your grandchildren every day or once a year, they give life a new focus. There’s a constant awareness in the back of the mind of a new life in the family changing and growing every day, with the first step, the first word, the first day at school. Grandchildren make things fall into place; they make life make more sense. They introduce continuity and progress; they might even make mortality a bit more bearable. Mick, 77, whose seven grandchildren range in age from 8 to 19, says, ‘Grandchildren make you look into a future beyond your own lifetime. I’m not religious, so for me there is no afterlife, when I’m gone I’m gone. But I find great solace in knowing that there is an after-my-life for my grandchildren. In many ways I wish I did believe in an afterlife, because then I could see them grow. It’s concern about their future more than anything. You want to be there for them. You can’t help worrying about their future, because our generation lived through a golden age and I don’t see that being replicated.’

Like many grandparents today, Mick, who retired a year after his first grandchild was born, has seen his older grandchildren grow from babies into adulthood and through all the sometimes challenging stages in between. The increase in life expectancy means that grandparenting lasts much longer for this generation – over a third of their lives on average. There’s a huge luxury in having more years to get to know each other and for a richer relationship to develop through all the different phases. As grandchildren get older and more independent, the dynamic changes; they can visit grandparents by themselves and form a relationship that’s quite separate from the one they have with their parents. Grandparents are in a unique position to offer unconditional love, an objective sounding board and a very special kind of haven.

Retirement allows grandparents to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the role in a way that may not have been possible with their own children if they were working long hours. Grandfathers often say it makes them realise how much they missed the first time round. Single parent and grandmother of two Frances says, ‘What I’ve had through living with my grandchildren is the experience I missed with my own son as a baby and young boy. The relationship I have with my four-year-old grandson is very like the relationship I had with my son at the same age. The difference is that I can be a little bit more relaxed and less authoritarian, because as a single parent I was in many ways a father figure to my son.’

A close bond has huge benefits for both sides: several studies have pointed to the positive impact on mental health and well-being for both grandparent and grandchild. It’s not surprising that involved grandparenting can fend off depression, according to a study of grandfather grandchild relationships at Ohio State University, which showed a positive impact on older men’s mental health. It’s such fun, apart from anything else.

It’s also a simple way to break down stereotypes about older people. If children have good relationships with grandparents from an early age it appears to have a lasting impact on the way they view ageing and older people generally. It may continue into adulthood and ultimately have a positive impact on how they feel about their own ageing. In one study, Harvard-based psychologist Professor Ellen Langer looked at elderly adults who as children had started living with a grandparent when they were under two. This usually meant that the grandparent was relatively young when the child first had contact with them. She compared them with a similar age group who had lived with a grandparent after they were thirteen. The first group had a more youthful mindset about their old age and tended to be more active, alert and independent.

GRANDCHILDCARE

These days, the trend – the expectation, even – is for grandparents to help with childcare. In the UK grandparents are now the single biggest source of childcare after parents themselves. According to a report for the International Longevity Centre, 65 per cent of grandparents provide care without the parents present, for an average of eleven hours a week. And the overwhelming majority of those – 82 per cent – do it because they enjoy it. It’s a pattern that is repeated across Europe, with over half of the grandparents in France, Denmark and Sweden providing some childcare.

Many grandparents throw themselves into the role of carer with energy and enthusiasm. They do a great job, taking their grandchildren to libraries and playgroups and doing things like robot making and reading stories. Some make huge sacrifices by uprooting themselves from their old lives to move nearer to the children. But it’s not the only way to be closely involved, and even the most devoted grandparents don’t necessarily want to help with childcare. They want to be the fun in their grandchildren’s lives, not a parent substitute. They might well be juggling their own work commitments with volunteering or studying. Indeed, a study of grandparenting in Europe for the charity Grandparents Plus warned of the potential conflict between rising pension ages and grandparents’ ability to provide childcare, which may in turn make it harder for younger mothers to go out to work.

Nick, who was a single parent and now has a six-year-old grandson, says, ‘I told my daughter very early on that I was not going to be an unpaid carer, although I love taking my grandson camping and having him to stay. My daughter’s absolutely fine with that. I’ve already done it once. I want to be able to go off and do my own thing.’

It’s pretty obvious why grandparents are parents’ first choice when it comes to childcare. It’s not just because it saves them loads of money, although that’s a huge consideration. Soaring childcare costs – over £200 a week for a full-time childminder, or more for a nursery place – mean that having the grandparents do the job for free is the only way some parents can afford to work. And in many areas suitable childcare is hard to find. But the most important consideration for parents is that leaving your child is tough, and it’s much easier if the person looking after them loves them as much as you do. Grandparents provide the one-to-one attention you would get from a live-out nanny (over £500 a week), and they’re far more experienced. Of course, there may be complications: disagreements about discipline and differences about bedtimes. But overall it’s a happy arrangement for most families.

There are huge benefits for grandparents too – above all, the lasting connection and deep understanding that develop between grandparents and grandchildren who routinely spend a lot of time doing ordinary things together. Looking after grandchildren is mentally stimulating, and it provides good motivation to keep fit and energetic and stay connected with a wider world. It’s highly enjoyable and provides the new purpose in life that many people long to find in retirement. It’s the perfect outlet for their energy and provides a new role that makes up for the loss of work identity.

Jean admits that caring for her grandson was a lifesaver. ‘I struggled for a while when I first retired. I had no structure, no cause, no reason to get out of bed. Everything changed when my daughter asked me to look after my baby grandson while she went to work. I became his carer nine hours a day, five days a week. His development became my new focus in life. Looking after my grandson was so satisfying. It made me realise that not looking after my own two full-time had been a huge miss, and I revelled in having a second chance.’

The only danger is that with grandchildcare increasingly becoming the norm, people feel guilty if they can’t – or don’t want to – make a regular commitment to looking after their grandchildren. Pressure is hard to resist, whether it comes from their children or their own peer group. David Martin, who is developing courses to support people approaching this next stage of life, says, ‘A lot of people feel quite apprehensive that relatives and friends will presume to take over their time, and assume that they’ve got time on their hands, particularly when it comes to grandchildcare. The phrase people often use is “being a sitting duck”.’

It’s particularly difficult to say no if you have yet to discover your own new purpose. Looking after grandchildren fills a yawning chasm left by work, but it may also hold grandparents back from finding their own new direction. It’s lovely and fulfilling, but it can also be a distraction that takes up some of the energy and time you need for exploring what you want to do next. The obvious solution is not to commit too much of the week, and be flexible. And learn to say no nicely.

Ruth Nemzoff, the American writer and expert on parenting adult children, speaks from personal and professional experience when she says, ‘Often you can say no by saying yes. As in “I can’t babysit full time but I could do three hours every day, or one morning a week, or pick up from day care, can you fit around that?” If you do offer to babysit full-time you have to be honest about your energy levels and open about what you want. I never wanted to be a full-time babysitter myself, because I’m still working and volunteering. I don’t know if my daughter would have liked me to, because it just wasn’t ever on the table.

‘I learned a lot from my own mother-in-law. She told me she would take any one of my kids any time, and multiple kids in an emergency. Just knowing that was an enormous help to me. I remember thinking this is great, she really knows herself. I knew I could absolutely count on her.’

The one thing all grandparents agree on is that looking after grandchildren is exhausting. Before rushing in with offers of help, think about your own needs and how much time you can realistically commit. The most helpful thing is to be clear about exactly what you’re committing to from the word go. If you’re happy to help out temporarily, perhaps to tide the family over between childminders, don’t be vague: put a time limit on it. And if you make a regular commitment, make sure you give plenty of notice if you want the arrangement to change. Both sides need to constantly evaluate and adapt to each other’s changing needs. Looking after one child is manageable and fun, but things get tougher if a new baby comes along. Some people love babies, others prefer seven-year-olds.

DIVIDING HELP FAIRLY

If you’ve got more than one set of grandchildren it may be a challenge to divide your attention equally, especially if one lives nearby and the other is miles away. My friend’s granddaughter keeps a tally of the days her grandparents spend with her compared with her cousins: on their last visit she triumphantly chalked up six days to their three. Six of Ruth Nemzoff’s grandchildren live near her in Boston, while the other four are an hour’s flight away, in Washington, DC. She advises, ‘It’s important to be fair, but needs are always different. So the question to consider is, are you being fair to each according to their needs? It’s important to be open and to constantly re-evaluate as circumstances change. And to be creative about how you can make something work. Because we’re all learning and developing; it’s a growing experience for grandparents too.

‘My daughter in Washington DC knows I’m on call whenever the family need me. And when we visit them we offer to look after her children so she and her husband can go away for a night or a weekend. With my daughter who lives near us I’m committed to Thursday mornings. She knows I can’t do more because of work commitments. But I try not to schedule anything else and if I have to I always check with her first.’

SOLE CHARGE

What’s wonderful about grandchildren is that they bring adult children closer to their parents; there’s a new warmth and understanding, which comes from going through the same extraordinary transition, even if it is thirty-odd years later. Finally your children may even ask for your advice! Yet new parents are understandably prickly about grandparents’ opinions on childrearing. They’re painfully sensitive to any perceived criticism, which is often simply well-meaning concern. It doesn’t help that they’re exhausted; remember how you felt at that stage. ‘He’s fine!’ I’d snap at my poor mum when she suggested giving my hungry breastfed baby a bottle, or hinted that he might be crying because he just needed a nap.

When grandparents are left in sole charge, whether it’s for the odd afternoon or every day, it’s important to be clear in your own mind that it’s up to the parents to decide the rules about snacks and manners and bedtime. Grandparents are there to support, not to interfere or undermine by doing things differently. Attitudes to childrearing change with every generation. You won’t agree with all of the ways your children are bringing up their kids, but it’s up to them to decide. Valerie, 75, who has seven grandchildren, says, ‘There are things I don’t approve of, like staying up until 10 p.m. on a school night, when the children are exhausted all the time. And one son has always been far too indulgent manners-wise with his two. There are times when I really want to step in, but I try not to. I always start by saying, “I’m only going to say this once” and I try to stick to that.’

There are ways to say what you think without sounding as if you know better. ‘I wonder if it would be a good idea to…’ is suitably non-confrontational. But it’s often better to keep quiet and focus less on the details and more on what really matters. The wisest course is to choose your battles, and only take issue if something seriously worries you.

MOVING NEAR YOUR GRANDCHILDREN

Moving near your grandchildren is a big step, and all three generations can benefit in complementary ways. Parents have the reassurance of knowing there’s always backup in everyday emergencies that are par for the course in family life, as well as for the major crises. Grandchildren have another adult in their daily life they know well enough to talk frankly to, and who has a different perspective and loves them unconditionally. That’s a real boon when things get tense, particularly in the teenage years. Regular contact gives grandparents a direct line to their grandchildren’s daily concerns; it would never occur to them to say, ‘My goodness, how you’ve grown!’ because they see them changing all the time.

And while there are disaster stories, they usually involve grandparents who haven’t thought things through before making the move. I heard of one couple who uprooted to a remote country village even though the husband couldn’t drive. He got bored and pined for city life, while his wife missed her friends. But they were stuck: although they wanted to move back they’d burned their bridges on the property front.

The key to success is maintaining autonomy and independence. Before you take the plunge, look thoroughly into what’s on offer in the new area: courses, classes, places to volunteer or work part time, sports facilities, theatres, cinemas. Spend time there on your own, really getting to know the place. Imagine what your average day would be like, and look realistically at concrete ways you will be able to build a new life outside your family. Consider the future too: think about what life will be like in five or ten years’ time, when the children are older and their needs have changed. There’s always a possibility that your family might move away from the area. Ask yourself how you’d feel and what you would do if that happened, and line up a plan B.

MULTIGENERATIONAL LIVING

The growing number of grandparents providing childcare is often seen as a 21st-century reconfiguration of the extended family, in which the joys and burdens of childrearing are shared more widely. That sharing is taken to another level in multigenerational households, which increased by 70 per cent in ten years, according to the UK Office for National Statistics, and are predicted to increase to 2.2 million by 2025. Sharing a house with your children and grandchildren is a whole other level of commitment, and it’s usually driven by economic necessity. Living together is an obvious solution to soaring property prices and childcare costs.

But there are huge emotional and practical benefits too. In the past forty or so years I’ve come across several families who’ve shared houses successfully, some for a couple of years, some for decades. You might think the joy of multigenerational households would come from rubbing along together in a fairly relaxed way. But in fact what works for many families is a new formality and having separate, clearly demarcated living spaces.

Multigenerational households are not new. In the 1980s Frances brought her son up in a four-generation household she shared with her parents and grandparents, a highly unusual arrangement at the time. It worked so well that she has chosen to do the same with her son and his wife and their two young sons. They bought a farmhouse together when the first baby was on the way and Frances was still working full time. He’s now four, he’s got a baby brother, and Frances is semi-retired.

She says: ‘We all knew this was going to be tricky. We quite openly discussed how it would work, and my daughter-in-law came up with the idea of “related neighbours”. They would never assume that I would be free to babysit, time would be booked in advance and we put as much in the diary as we possibly can. All the disciplines you normally apply to neighbours, such as knocking on the door before you come in, we applied quite rigorously. We’ve been able to soften that as we’ve got used to the arrangement.

‘One of the joys of all this is I don’t think my relationship with my son has ever been so good. On Friday nights I drive him to the pub to have a drink with his mates and drive him back. I don’t stay with him. What I get is the conversation there and back. It’s a good time to talk in the car, away from the house.

‘This family is more important to me than work could ever be. My vision is to recreate the model of retirement in my family, which was not typical. When I left my husband I moved in with my parents and they looked after Sam while I went out to work. The hours were long and I had to do a lot of travelling. Dad was on his pension, I was the breadwinner. He had retired early to help my mum look after her parents, who moved in with them when my grandmother got very ill. He was a great role model both for me and my son.’

GRANDPARENTING AT A DISTANCE

At the other extreme are grandparents who are separated by oceans from their grandchildren. I’ll never forget an old friend saying she felt as if someone had stuck a knife in her heart when she found out that her daughter was moving to New Zealand with her two young children. Of course technology helps, but Skype and videos and photos are no substitute for a cuddle.

Valerie has learned to be sanguine about separation. For several years she went through the sad but all too common experience of having virtually no contact with her two older grandchildren after her son’s divorce. Meanwhile, her younger daughter was living in Southeast Asia when her three daughters were born, and stayed there until the youngest was two. She says, ‘It’s heartbreaking when they’re so far away but you just accept it and you cope with it. I had recently retired when my daughter’s first baby was due, so I was able to fly out a day before she was born. Sadly my husband couldn’t get there because of a health crisis with his mother. I used to count the days until we were next going out to see them or they were coming to see us. We arranged our year around them, which could be tricky because although we were both semi-retired we still had voluntary and part-time work commitments and both our mothers needed a lot of support. Mine was disabled after a series of strokes and my mother-in-law was in the early stages of dementia.’

At least once you’re retired you can take advantage of off-peak fares. And technology has made it much easier to stay close at a distance and be a devoted grandparent, even if you live far apart. Helen reads stories to her two grandsons in Vienna on Skype while their mum feeds their baby sister. They put a date in the diary, and the little boys insist on a new story every time. Ruth Nemzoff copied a friend’s clever idea of starting an exclusive two-member book club with her teenage grandson, who lives four hours’ drive away. Discussing books on the phone or on Skype is a good way into wider-ranging conversations about each other’s lives. With her other grandchildren Ruth finds out what they’re studying at school and dips into it herself.

Distance and seeing each other only occasionally inevitably brings a new intensity to the relationship. There’s so much riding on your limited time together, and when you’re not used to it, close proximity is likely to be stressful for everyone. It often helps if you can stay nearby rather than under the same roof, although that could take away some of the joy, not least the 6 a.m. wake-up call!

And then there is the strange business of being a guest in your child’s house. I’m intrigued to know how that works, and whether staying with your son is different to staying with your daughter. Valerie’s children have very different attitudes to bringing up their kids: ‘When the grandchildren come to stay with us it’s my rules. But if we’re visiting them we adapt to their way of doing things, which of course varies a lot from house to house. Staying with your son’s family is very different to staying with your daughter’s. My son’s second wife was very strict about manners at mealtimes, whereas we tend to be a bit more relaxed.

‘My daughter is quite strict too. When we stayed with them there was often some issue, and things would escalate, especially at mealtimes. We’d be sitting at the table wanting to say something, and eventually one of us couldn’t stand it any more and we’d say something like, can we just stop that now? But I’m very aware that we’re able to be more tolerant, simply because we’ve got more time. They’re busy raising the children and working, whereas we’ve got nothing to do but look after them, so we have a different dynamic.’

There are plenty of people who buck the current trend towards hands-on grandparenting. They deserve a mention, I think, because they show that you can be a devoted grandparent without giving up your passions. It’s clearly sad for both sides, and they feel torn at times, but the bottom line is that their children know they can rely on them to drop everything in an emergency. Penny has a son, a daughter and four young grandchildren who live far away from her. She’s devoted to them, but she has work to do on the co-housing project that is both her home and a cause she believes in passionately. She explains, ‘I was already involved in this project up here when they started having children. I’m a bit sad to be so far away from them, and I think they feel sad. But I’m very committed to them; if they call me I’m there. I go down to stay for weeks or weekends and I’m always on hand if there’s a crisis. But this place is where most of my attention and my time and energy is. It’s the first place I have ever really felt at home.’

Geraldine Forster, aka Backpacker Granny, spends her retirement travelling the world; her possessions are scattered between her friends and her three children. We met when she was on a visit to the UK to see her younger son. ‘It’s lovely to see my grandchildren and it’s lovely to have that rapport with them; however, I am a free spirit, I can’t help it, I always have been. Sometimes I spend a month with one and another couple of months with the others and then it’s time to leave. I don’t mind admitting that there are moments when I long to be back in Thailand where everyone’s calm!

‘I would do anything for my children; if I had to give my life for them I would. If they were ill I’d be on the first plane home, if they need something I do whatever it takes to help. When I was last with them I gave my Spanish-speaking ten-year-old grandson English classes and I have just taken him on holiday to London. This year I’m going to Amsterdam with my other grandson, who is 16. I miss them all, of course. But I’m not one of those mothers who wants to monopolise their children’s lives. Fortunately they think it’s great that I am a constant nomad. Occasionally I think that perhaps I should be a full-time granny but then again, I did bring my three children up on my own after my husband left us. I worked very hard, so I feel that my mission was accomplished and now it’s my time.’

QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE COMMITTING TO CHILDCARE

• Where will you look after them? At their home or yours?

• How long will the arrangement last?

• Set a time limit on ‘temporary’ arrangements. But be as flexible as you can.

• Agree to review the situation after a few months.

• How would things change if they have another child?

• What would happen if they move away from the area?

• Who will pay for outings, swimming, cafés, snacks? Grandparents do childcare for love, not for money, but there’s usually an understanding that parents will pay expenses. Your adult kids might assume you’ll pay through sheer force of habit, but as a grandparent, you should never feel obliged to fork out for everything.

• If you are under the state pension age (65 for men and 65 for women from November 2018) and you spend time looking after a grandchild aged under 12 while a parent is out at work, you could get National Insurance credits. They are called ‘Specified Adult Childcare credits’ and they may help fill in gaps in your National Insurance record, so that you could get the full state pension. You have to apply, however; for more information, visit www.gov.uk.

GENERAL TIPS

• Don’t worry if you have to say no occasionally when you’re asked to babysit. As a result, the parents will know that when you say yes it really is fine, and that you’re not feeling put upon.

• The most reassuring thing for any parent is to know that the grandparents can be relied on to help in an emergency.

• Accept that you don’t always know best. Try not to judge, don’t criticise and don’t drop hints.

• If you feel strongly about an issue, the wisest approach is to find a quiet moment when the grandchildren aren’t in the room and be direct.

• Grandparents can be competitive with each other, but try not to get sucked in. Your grandchildren’s other set of grandparents may buy them expensive treats, or spend more time with them than you do, but you can have just as much fun, in a different kind of way.

• Children’s lives are busy, especially when they get to secondary school. Don’t take umbrage: be creative about finding ways to fit in with their lives, and accept that it’s hard for them to find time to arrange things.

• Build communication by finding common ground with your grandchildren. Take the lead from their interests: have a look at their favourite television programme, try their computer games, read the novels they’re studying at school.

• Ask other grandparents for advice; we can all learn from each other.

MULTIGENERATIONAL LIVING

• Before you commit, go on holiday together in a shared self-catering house.

• If you’re sharing facilities like washing machines, make a rota and stick to it.

• Don’t bottle up issues that upset or irritate you. Be honest but sensitive.

• Put a regular slot in the diary when you discuss issues that come up. Keep it informal and relaxed.

• The biggest potential irritation is lack of privacy. Both sides need to be sensitive to the other’s needs. Never barge in; always knock or text first. And let the others know when you’re going to be out or away for the weekend.

12

Home: Moving, Downsizing, Staying Put

Home takes on a new importance in retirement for the simple reason that you’re now spending more time there. That’s a cause for celebration, and a bit of a novelty for people who are used to working long hours. ‘I’ve never spent a lot of time in my home over the years,’ says fashion designer Betty Jackson. ‘At collection time I used to leave at 7.30 and not get back till midnight. Now I can spend as much time as I like at home and I really enjoy it. My current ambition is to make sure we’ve always got enough milk and learn the piano. Retirement has brought me different experiences on lots of levels, and this is one of the nicest.’

So it matters more than ever that the space you live in makes you feel good. That’s not just about comfy sofas and a warm atmosphere – although these are basic essentials. Location, the view, the immediate surroundings, and access to friends, family and all the stuff you like doing matter just as much. And it goes without saying that if you share your home, it should be with people who enhance your life and make you feel good.

Moving house is one of the best ways to kick off a whole new direction in life; downsizing provides a welcome injection of cash. But moving is not the only way to make a fresh start. It’s easy enough to make changes to the home you already live in to create an inspiring new space that is a firm statement of intent, making it clear that this is a new phase of your life. If you’re an empty-nester, it may be the first time in a while that you’ve been able to put your own stamp on the place. And that can feel very good, although people vary as to how they feel about the home they brought up their children in. Some empty-nesters can’t bear to leave precious memories behind. Others feel their feet are stuck in the past if they stay put, and that the only way to move forward in life is by physically upping sticks and taking root somewhere new.

MAKING A FRESH START WITHOUT MOVING

Staying where you are has many advantages. People who decide not to downsize often guiltily admit to loving the extra space. Home is a reliable source of stability; a garden provides solace and continuity when so much else is changing. Neighbours and local shopkeepers know a bit about you, whereas in a new place there’s a danger that you’ll be seen as the retired person. There’s room for the kids to visit – and to move back home if they need to.

There are ways to build on that stability without feeling stuck in the past. You don’t have to spend vast sums of money or make drastic structural changes. It’s more about seeing your home in a new light and making changes to suit your new life. You could even take in a lodger or share with a friend: both are good ways to introduce a new energy and shake things up in a positive way.

Decluttering is a liberating first step (see here). As the backdrop to your new life, home takes on a variety of different roles when you spend more time in it. It’s a comfortable – and comforting – retreat, a stimulating environment and a welcoming place for friends. Rooms that were used mainly in the evenings now get a new lease of life during the day. Different lighting, fresher colours on the walls and moving furniture and pictures around can all have a big impact. For example, it’s fine for the telly to dominate a room that is used mainly after dark, but not so great for a space you spend more time in during the day. It could be moved into a different room or replaced with a less obtrusive one.

If you’re planning to work at home, set aside an office space or studio area that is strictly yours. It’s important to establish your own territory, which other people respect, and to create a space that focuses the mind. A supportive chair and good lighting are absolute essentials. A pinboard for inspiring images and blinds rather than curtains both help to establish a more business-like frame of mind.

A bedroom or living area that doubles up as a workspace could be divided into two areas by a screen, with different lighting in each section to create a change of mood. If you’re using the guest bedroom to work in, arrange things so that major lugging around of furniture isn’t required when people come to stay.

Frances is not the only person to miss commuting: ‘I liked the physical separation of work from home. So I have been trying to put in place some kind of separation by having a shed office. All my books and job applications are there. But it has to be said that in practice my most creative work is done in my bedroom or front room, or on the train!’

Other living spaces can be demarcated for particular uses: a cosy area to read in with a well-stocked bookshelf and plenty of cushions; a well-lit workspace for DIY or crafts with tools and materials right there, so there’s no major rummage needed every time you feel like setting up. If you’re prone to prevarication it’s best not to have to search for what you need.

Above all, home is more than ever a place to nurture friendships, old and new. There’s more time to have people round, to cook for them, to have friends to stay. If there’s no spare room, invest in a sofa bed with a good mattress or a top-quality inflatable bed. The main thing to remember is that if you feel comfortable in your home, your friends will too. What people like most is a chilled atmosphere where they can relax, have a laugh and a chat and find a sympathetic ear.

Any outdoor space is a haven, and making it the way you want it is a project in itself. There’s no need to spend hours gardening, unless that’s what you like doing. All that’s required is some comfortable seating, a few pots and some shade. And perhaps a pond. It doesn’t have to be ambitious. I’m not a great gardener, but two years ago I finally got round to installing two ‘ponds’: an old kitchen sink and a half barrel, which I dug into the ground myself. I filled them with rainwater and planted miniature water lilies. Finding my first frog was exciting; finding my first newt made me ecstatic. It still does.

Finally, there’s one simple but highly effective way of transforming a home: an animal. People who work long hours have often held back from getting a pet until they retire, because it’s just not practical and they don’t like leaving them on their own. Now there’s time to keep chickens, or walk a dog. The two rescue cats that Lily acquired soon after she retired have changed her life. She says, ‘I really missed having a cat when I was working full time, but I never felt it was fair to have pets because I worked such long hours. A few months after I left work we got two rescue cats. It was a really important change for me, which I hadn’t really thought about before. My husband and I don’t have children together, because we’re both on our second marriages, and bringing the cats into our home was a shared enterprise. They’ve been an absolute delight.’

MOVING HOUSE

Moving house automatically closes one chapter and opens a new one. There’s nothing like a change of scene to wake up the senses and make you see the world with new eyes. The preoccupying business of moving can be a huge help in managing the parallel upheaval from work to retirement. Doing up a new place and making it your own is a retirement project in its own right. For John Mac’s father, moving from Scotland to Morecambe was transformative: ‘On my dad’s retirement my parents bought a house that needed a year’s work. Having that intense period of working on the house and the garden was a very necessary transition for him. It would have been terrible if they had moved to a pristine place that didn’t need any work; he always liked to be busy busy busy. Once he’d done that he could move on to develop his music. He started composing and going to ceilidhs in a pub in Lancaster every week.’

With work no longer dictating where you live, the world is pretty much your oyster. The great British tradition of moving to the seaside or to a rose-covered country cottage or the Algarve still has huge appeal. After all, retirement should be about fulfilling dreams. It’s fine to let your imagination run wild when you’re thinking through the different options. It’s all part of the creative process, the kind of blue-sky thinking that allows you to examine fantasies about where you’ve always wanted to live and tease out what’s realistic. Now you really could go and live on a remote Scottish island or buy a houseboat or spend half the year in India. It doesn’t have to be permanent; you could do it for a year or six months. There’s time to experiment and even make mistakes, as Kitty and Greg did when they sold their Edwardian house in Manchester and bought a flat in a country village popular with retired folk. Within months they realised that living in a flat didn’t suit them and they felt cut off from the real world; it didn’t help that their upstairs neighbour was extremely sensitive to noise and complained frequently. Within eighteen months they sold up and bought a house in a country town. This time it turned out to be the right decision.

MAKING THE DECISION

There are so many things to consider if you’re thinking about moving. Experts agree that the priority has to be people – the community you’ll be moving to – not the views or the amount of sun. It’s easy to fantasise that a place where you’ve spent idyllic holidays, either at home or abroad, would be equally idyllic if you lived there permanently. It might well be, but there are boring practicalities that must be taken into account. Moving abroad can be a whole new lease of life, but it’s vital that there is more on offer than just good weather and an easy-going lifestyle. There needs to be plenty of stimulating stuff to do, as well as ways to get involved in local life and meet people; ideally you should also be able to say more in the local language than the words for ‘red wine’.

People don’t always take the social side into consideration when they’re planning a move, but it matters even more in retirement. If you move away from family and friends, travelling to see them needs to be factored in to your decision. A place with plenty of opportunities for making new friends is more important than a location that looks idyllic on paper. Whether you live by yourself or with a partner, being within walking distance to shops and facilities or moving into a friendly community can make a massive difference to your daily life. Once you’ve picked a potential spot, do plenty of research into transport options and community activities and stay for at least one weekend, ideally in the winter so that you see the place at its least romantic.

Moving nearer to adult children is one option, but it’s generally considered unwise to build retirement plans around your children, not least because their movements are unpredictable. But there is no reason why it shouldn’t work as long as you’re up for building your own separate life. You need to be realistic about how you would find new interests and social networks, and what you’d do if your kids moved again. This was a guiding principle for Frances, a single parent who bought an old farmhouse with her only son when she was still working full time. ‘I really want to have my own independent life, not tagging along with my son and his wife. So it’s been incredibly important to me to do things in my own right, to have my own circles and my own new interests. My work as a magistrate has given me my own roots in the community, it’s made me drive to places I wouldn’t normally go to, it’s introduced me to new people.’

When Margaret and her husband, James, moved from the city to a small country town in their mid-sixties, they knew they’d have to make an effort to make new friends. Margaret says, ‘There’s a lovely community feeling here, and lots of people came and introduced themselves. We knew one or two people, but nothing like a network, so we both had to think hard about how we were going to establish ourselves. James got involved with care home work through some new friends he made playing tennis, and I’ve met people from joining a choir. I also go back to my old book group once a month – that’s a really good way to keep in touch with my old friends.’

Yet when they started planning their retirement, Margaret and James were in fundamental disagreement about where to move to: she had her heart set on the Lake District while he wanted to live by the sea. In the end they both had to make compromises, as Margaret explains: ‘It felt like we were being pulled in all sorts of different directions and as a result we didn’t do anything. We got to a point where we knew we had to act quickly if we were going to establish ourselves in a new place and enjoy it before we were 110. Part of me – the not very thinking part – had always assumed we would retire to the Lakes. I feel very emotionally attached to the place. My mother was born and brought up there and we used to go there for holidays. But James, who likes sailing, wanted to be on the coast.

‘We booked into a hotel for the weekend to discuss our plans for the future in detail; it was important to get away. Over that weekend I began to see that moving to the Lake District was a dotty idea. It was impractical on so many levels. Our children were all living in the south, so we would have seen so much less of them. It’s also a viciously expensive area to buy a house. But I’d been so wedded to my dream for so long that it took me a very long time to get to grips with the fact that it just wasn’t realistic. Eventually I got to the point at which I could relinquish my dream. That was a big thing for me.’

DOWNSIZING

If possible, it’s sensible to test the water before committing to a permanent move. That’s what David and his wife did when they swapped a spacious house in the north of England for a one-bedroom flat with a sea view. Their experience illustrates the pros and cons of downsizing. One definite con that needs factoring in is how much room there’ll be for friends and family to stay in the new, smaller place. If the budget won’t stretch to a spare room it’s worth checking out affordable accommodation nearby. David says, ‘I didn’t want to live in a small flat, but I have really happy memories of childhood seaside holidays and so I always thought I would live by the sea when I retired. The sea is wonderful. I do a lot of walking up and down the beach; I love the space and the quality of light. But I miss having a house, and a study with a desk, and enough space to have people to stay. When my kids and grandchildren come they have to rent a house nearby. Downsizing and getting rid of stuff was quite a challenge because I am a natural hoarder of things that might come in useful one day.

‘When I stopped work I had nothing to keep me in the area, so it seemed like a natural move. But we decided to test the water first. We rented the house out for six months and put our stuff in storage and used the income to rent a flat here. The plan was that if we didn’t like it we’d move back and think of something else. But we were lucky; there was never any question of it not working. When I first retired I was really glad to have this big project, which totally occupied me and which was very hard work. By the time it was finished the world of work felt so distant, there were no magnetic pulls to take me back there.’

DECLUTTERING

Whether you decide to move or not, one simple step can transform your life: decluttering. Clearing the decks is a great way to make physical and mental room for your new direction. It’s a very practical way to make peace with the past and stop clinging to it. If you decide to move you don’t have much choice: decluttering is par for the course. But even if you’re staying put, it feels like a liberation rather than a chore. The time feels right to let go of what’s no longer needed to make way for new priorities. Aggie MacKenzie, domestic guru, agrees: ‘If you’re surrounded by clutter it can be quite paralysing: it blocks your energy physically, mentally, psychologically. If you let stuff go and clear space in the home, it clears your mind. It’s a bit like a tree, which has to shed its leaves to make way for new growth.’

Now more than ever before the priority is to be surrounded by things that make you feel good and uplifted. As William Morris said, ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’ The problem is that by this stage most people have accumulated vast quantities of stuff that is neither! It’s worse if, like me, they haven’t moved for thirty years. Aggie advises: ‘The first step is to go through each room with a critical eye and ask three questions: Do I love it? Do I need it? Will I use it? If that vase or picture or book is just gathering dust, it doesn’t matter how much you liked it twenty years ago – take it to the charity shop. Do it with a friend if it helps.’

Aggie concedes it’s fine to keep letters, but she takes a hard line on old photos. ‘If you keep photos in a box you don’t get to see them. It’s much better to edit them and keep the ones you really love; hang them in frames or put them in albums so that you can really enjoy them.’ The problem with keeping anything in a box at the back of a cupboard is that it’s always in the back of your mind that you’ve got to sort it out one day; even if you’re not thinking about it consciously it’s there on some level. Whereas if you clear space by letting stuff go it allows you to move forward. It allows new possibilities, new things to happen.

DOMESTICITY VERSUS SPONTANEITY

Once the work’s done, the focus can shift away from the domestic sphere and on to the new activities in your life. Home should be a comfortable backdrop for your life, not the main event. The danger is that with more time on your hands, domestic admin can swallow up time that would be better spent doing stuff you really want to do. It’s so easy to spend all morning pottering about and find that you still haven’t got round to paying the gas bill. Domesticity can detract from what is surely the most wonderful thing about retirement, being able to do things on the spur of the moment. Margaret says, ‘Recently we’ve identified the need not to get dragged down by the day-to-day business of running a house. When we first moved here five years ago we put a lot of effort into making it nice for our friends and our children to come to stay. But now we both want to be more spontaneous, to say, it’s a gorgeous day, let’s take a canoe out on the river or go for a long walk.’

There’s no denying that some people see it as a real luxury to have more time to cook or do DIY; they might even turn their domestic talent into a kitchen-table business. It’s very much a question of individual choice: what one person sees as a tedious chore another person sees as a creative pleasure. Only you know whether jam-making or pottering in the shed is a displacement activity that hoovers up time you would really rather spend doing something else, if only you could work out what the something else was.

And old domestic habits can be hard to break, as Irene found. ‘I was just as fanatical about cleaning when I cut down to two days a week at work as when I worked full time and was trying to prove I was Superwoman. Then one day I suddenly thought, why do I keep doing this? I’ve got better things to do. My attitude’s completely changed. I’m very laid-back about housework now. I don’t bother with ironing at all.’

Meanwhile, retired men often find they’re doing more cooking and housework than they ever did in the past, especially if they retire before their wives. Indeed, it’s often a source of tension for couples. Yet men don’t seem to be plagued by guilt in the way that many women are. Take Lily: ‘When I first retired I used to feel I should be washing the kitchen floor all the time. It took a while for me to give myself permission to do what I wanted to do, and not beat myself up about reading a book or getting my paints out. Now that I’m absolutely in control of my time it’s become much more precious. You would think that when you’re at work you’d be more worried about wasting time doing stuff like shopping. But it’s the opposite, which is surprising. Since I stopped work I’m much more resentful of my time being taken up with things I don’t think are worthwhile.’

SHARING YOUR HOME

Sharing your life with other people, whether it’s a friend, a lodger or a flatmate, can be just as much fun in retirement as it was when you were twenty-something. It’s someone to do things with – or even better, to do nothing with. It’s a source of mutual support, especially if you’re at a similar stage of retirement. And of course it’s sensible to share living expenses, cooking and chores.

I often think of the fine example set by my former headmistress, who shared a house with the Geography mistress when they retired. They were confirmed spinsters in the old style, lifelong friends who regarded it as entirely sensible to pool their resources in retirement. Their lives were greatly enriched by each other’s company. When I visited them in the care home where they lived together into their nineties they were still sharp, witty and sparky, which I’m sure owed a great deal to the stimulation of their companionship.

Yet people tend to ignore the positive advantages of living with another person, whether it’s a friend or a paying guest. Lodgers can be positively life-enhancing, as well as a source of extra cash (for more on this, see here: Money). Another possibility, if you don’t need the money, might be to offer a spare room to someone in need, such as an asylum seeker. In retirement, people often assume that they’ve become too selfish and set in their ways to share their home. In fact, though, the over-fifties are more flexible and open-minded than their reputation might suggest. They’re wise about what can go wrong, clear about their needs and know how to pre-empt problems.

CO-HOUSING

The growing popularity of co-housing both here and abroad is understandable; it’s a great option for retired people. Most co-housing is for people of all ages, although there are a few schemes just for seniors. Not to be confused with communes, co-housing means renting or buying your own private home on a site with shared facilities, such as a car pool and laundry. It ticks a lot of boxes, whatever your age and whether you live on your own or with a partner or family. It’s particularly good for retired people because of the lower living costs and the supportive community. It’s easy to find other people to hang out with, and you can choose not to cook every night if there are communal cooking facilities in addition to individual kitchens. Retired people also have time to put in the voluntary work that’s required in such schemes.

There are now over twenty co-housing schemes fully up and running in the UK, with about fifty more in development. There are hundreds more in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and the USA. Most have taken years to set up by a vanguard of people passionately devoted to the cause. They show the way forward in setting up new schemes for others to follow. At the same time, it’s becoming easier for ordinary folk to move into existing co-housing properties.

But co-housing is not for everyone. It requires a much bigger adjustment than your average move, as a whole new way of life is involved. It demands commitment to the community and its prevailing philosophy, whatever that might be. Each scheme has its own idiosyncrasies. Each has its own rigorous system of vetting newcomers. It’s equally important for potential new residents to invest time and energy in working out if the place is right for them before they commit themselves.

I wanted to visit a co-housing project to see for myself what life in one is really like, because on paper it often sounds too good to be true. I’m not keen on the idea of segregating retired people, so I approached Lancaster Cohousing, an intergenerational eco development of thirty-five leasehold homes on the banks of the River Lune. The residents were good enough to put me up in their guest room and talk frankly about their experiences, warts and all. Around sixty-five adults and fifteen children live there and share the beautiful riverside space. In addition, the mill next door houses workshops and event space where the residents can work, take or teach courses, do yoga and create things. There’s a cooperative food store, a communal laundry and a car pool. Some people have their own washing machines, but only a handful of residents own a car.

It’s striking that not one of the half-dozen retired people I spoke to counted retirement as a reason for moving there. What drove them primarily was a desire to put dearly held ideals about communities and sustainable living into practice – to walk the talk, if you like. It’s only now, having lived there for a few years, that they’ve seen how much co-housing enhances their lives in retirement. Plans are afoot to build a separate co-housing scheme for seniors next door.

Most people there admit they were originally seduced by the stunning setting; many of the residents first signed up in 2006, when the place was no more than a bramble-covered building site. All the houses overlook the rushing River Lune, where you can swim or canoe as dippers swoop into the water; if you’re lucky, you might catch a glimpse of an otter.

Living in an idealistic new community requires commitment, work and compromise, and that’s even after the hard graft of setting up the place has been accomplished. But a new challenge is exactly what many people, like Charles, aged 74, are looking for when they retire: ‘For Judy and I, coming here was about having a more challenging way of life. We’d lived in the same bungalow down south for twenty years, because that’s where our work was. It was very comfortable, we had more space, and our grandchildren lived ten minutes away. So it was quite difficult to decide whether to move here. Judy grew up in a small suburb in India, and she could see the negative aspects of a community that was nurturing but also inquisitive. But the eco aspect was a big attraction; and co-housing living fits naturally with our wish to grow older in a supportive community, helping others and gaining help when we need it too. We wanted to be part of a wider range of ages and interests and have kids around. If we’d stayed in the village down south my life as a retired person would have been very different. Local councils who are worried about social care ought to be quite keen on co-housing, because there is little doubt that it would lessen demand on local services.’

Clearly, one of the benefits of co-housing is this mutual support. If you can’t find a hammer or you’ve run out of turmeric you just send out an email and it will be on your doorstep within minutes. When anyone is ill, a whole network springs into action with offers of lifts to hospital, meals, shopping, as well as a shoulder to cry on. Patrice, who used to be a health visitor, and her French partner, Corinne, have discovered the strength of this support over the past year. Corinne is on the waiting list for a double kidney and pancreas transplant and has a dialysis machine in the house.

‘The hospital can call at any time of the day or night; it’s happened three times in the past couple of months. We just have to drop everything and get there as quickly as we can. People here have been incredibly supportive. You send out an email and get thirty offers of help. We have a list of people who will drive Corinne to hospital if I’m not around, and feed the cats. So that’s one massive worry we don’t have. And if there’s a power cut, which might affect Corinne’s dialysis machine, we immediately get two or three emails asking if she’s OK and offering to help.

‘On the whole the older people here are a very fit cohort, but there is definitely a sense that it’s good to be in a supportive community when you retire. If someone isn’t able to do a certain task there’s always something else they can do. There’s no resentment because you’ve got a disability. We’ve got one neighbour who has had a serious illness since she retired. We set up a rota of people to do her shopping, make sure she had meals and give her lifts to hospital. But that was a one-off. We haven’t yet had to face what we may have to ten years down the road, when a few of us will be in our eighties.

‘I didn’t feel lonely in the village where I lived before, but I think I might feel lonely if I went back to that life now that I’m retired. I used to get involved with village stuff, but it’s not the same as here. It feels more like you belong to a community here. There’s lots of stimulus, there’s always something going on. You don’t feel close to everybody, but there are enough people you do feel close to. Most of my friends who’ve come to visit say it’s great for you, but they couldn’t do it themselves.’

QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN DECIDING WHERE TO MOVE

• Do you want to move nearer the centre of town, to the country or the suburbs? Make a list of the pros and cons.

• If you fall in love with a place on holiday, make sure you do plenty of clear-sighted research: living there permanently is likely to be very different.

• Are there shops, cafés, pubs, parks and a GP’s surgery within walking distance?

• How far from your family and friends can you bear to live? If your parents need support, now or perhaps in the future, is it easy to get to them?

• Transport: how good is the bus and train service?

• How much driving would an average day involve, and what’s the local parking like?

• House versus flat: space, noise and neighbours are key issues to consider.

• How important is a garden? Even if you don’t love gardening, access to outdoor space is a huge asset. The size of the garden is also key: too big and it could become a guilt-inducing chore rather than a source of pleasure.

• Is there a thriving local community?

• Facilities: how accessible are the activities you like doing, and what are the opportunities to try out new activities?

• Downsizing: is there enough room for visitors? If not, are there places for friends and family to stay nearby?

• Imagine in detail what an average day would be like.

• Think long term. Is the area hilly? Does the house have steep stairs? Some ninety-year-old people believe that climbing stairs every day has kept them fit. But as you get older, hills and stairs could turn out to be a big problem, so it’s important to factor this in.

WAYS TO CHANGE YOUR HOME WITHOUT MOVING

• Simple, inexpensive upgrades can be as effective as costly ones. A lick of paint, fresh colours, new curtains and upholstery can have a huge impact.

• Move the telly and furniture around.

• Convert a spare room into a creative space.

• Experiment with using rooms for different functions.

• Declutter.

• Get a pet or keep chickens.

• Bring in fresh energy by taking in a lodger.

• Ask a friend to move in.

• Give the garden a revamp.

13

Living Alone

Living alone and loneliness should never be confused. Many people choose to live by themselves and wouldn’t have it any other way. But retirement changes things. Living alone when you’re working is completely different from living alone when you stop. When you go out to work the day has a built-in structure, the evening is a natural contrast, the weekends have a totally different vibe. When you stop work the absence of the changes of gear that are part of life with another person becomes more marked. There’s no kiss goodbye, no key in the door, no one to mull the day over with. There’s no one to do nothing with, to watch telly with, to say what do you fancy for supper? You have to invent your own rituals to change the pace of the day. Indeed, you have to be more proactive generally.

Yet living alone suits retirement in many ways because it allows people to be themselves after years of pleasing everyone else, both at work and beyond. You’re queen or king of your own castle. You can do exactly what you please. I’m sure I’m not the only one who wonders what that would be like, because at this stage in life it’s a possibility you’d be foolish to ignore. We’ve all heard of people who lost a partner within months of retirement. And meanwhile, the silver divorce rate continues to soar. So it’s sensible to spare a thought for what life would be like on your own, even if you’re happily married and your partner appears to be in the peak of health. It’s realistic to think about how you would manage the practicalities you rely on the other person to take care of, whether it’s the ironing or the driving or sorting out the finances.

Like most people, I enjoy my own company, but only up to a point. I hate eating by myself, I get nervous at night and I would need the radio on all the time for company. I’m rubbish at solo travel and I can’t imagine what it would be like to have no one around to share wine o’clock. I’m pretty sure I would look for alternatives, like sharing with friends or co-housing.

Yet solo living is becoming a new norm in retirement. In the UK the number of people aged 65 to 74 living alone has risen by 22 per cent over the last decade. The trend is growing elsewhere in the world, among people of all ages. Over half of households in Sweden and over a third in Japan are one-person. For increasing numbers of people, like John Mac, who has been retired from working as an IT consultant for five years, living alone is a positive choice. He says, ‘I feel very content on my own. More and more these days I go out to meet friends with the thought of the pleasure of coming back and shutting the door behind me, and not having to answer to anyone or make any compromises.’

There are certainly advantages. You can listen to the World Service if you can’t sleep, you don’t have to feel guilty about going out three nights in a row, and you can have whoever you like round for dinner. And on a deeper level, solitude brings many blessings. It allows people to explore what they really want, and to think more creatively. It’s no coincidence that there is a long list of artists and musicians who immersed themselves in solitude during the final phase of their lives. Often it proved to be their most creative period.

But conversely, even people who have lived happily on their own for years often find it no longer suits them when they retire. If they relished the contrast between a hectic working day and the peace and solitude of home, they’re often taken aback to find a solo existence has less appeal when they stop working. But there are ways to make life easier, and happily plenty of alternatives to living alone, whether it’s sharing with a friend or moving into a more sociable local community, or even living with your kids in a multigenerational household. All offer independence without isolation.

SILVER DIVORCE AND BEREAVEMENT

It’s particularly tough if you were used to being married and living alone was thrust on you by bereavement or divorce. Life is bound to be sad, painful and lonely at times. First there’s shock and grief. Then there’s the long journey of adjustment from life as a couple to a totally new way of being. You have to face the massive upheaval of retirement without the support of a partner, and at the same time deal with the loss of a partner without the support of work.

The recent rise in retired singletons is attributed in part to silver divorce, which has increased by about a third in ten years. There are various theories as to why this should be. The increase in life expectancy makes people think twice about spending the next thirty years in an unsatisfactory relationship once work and children are no longer there to paper over the cracks. Couples who have clung on to a failing marriage until the children leave home find that the empty nest exposes long-term problems. Retirement piles on the pressure: being forced to spend more time together can often break already vulnerable relationships. Many people take a leap in the dark because it feels like a last chance of happiness. The fear of being alone is overtaken by a new sense of hope about the possibilities that lie ahead. The dramatic rise in the numbers of silver splitters could be seen as chiming with a new optimism about retirement, and with a desire to grab all the opportunities it offers.

Even if it was your decision to leave, there will be deep lows as well as highs, and moments where you wonder whether you’ve done the right thing. That’s what Sue Plumtree, a life coach who specialises in the over-fifties, found when she left her husband after thirty-seven years: ‘Although I was the one who walked out, it was one of the most painful decisions I had ever made and I grieved bitterly. People don’t want to be on their own; it’s a very common fear. That’s why I stayed with my husband for so long, even though I often felt lonely and unloved. For all that time I tried to change him. I felt I couldn’t abandon him, and I thought I was being selfish to even think about it.

‘Then when I was approaching my sixtieth birthday I had a lightbulb moment. I saw that I had been living my life on automatic pilot simply because I didn’t know what else to do. I suddenly felt I couldn’t do this any more, and that I deserved better – I deserved to be happy. That finally gave me the courage to leave. And I’ve never doubted even for an instant that I made the right choice.

‘I love living on my own. I have fabulous friendships and I feel totally happy and fulfilled. Since I left my husband I’ve discovered all sorts of new things about myself – not least that I love cooking, particularly for friends. For years living by myself I didn’t feel that anything was missing. But then when I was least expecting it, at the age of 70 I met a man who is my soulmate, my friend, my lover – everything I believed I would never have.’

Life after bereavement

Adjusting to being single after years of marriage is hardest if it’s precipitated by a partner’s death. It is particularly cruel if that coincides with retirement. The widowed person faces massive changes on several fronts without the support of work or their partner. For Helen there was an added poignancy, because although she had been married to her second husband, Peter, for eight years, they had never fully lived together until her retirement. Their jobs had kept them apart during the week; now, finally, they were looking forward to a proper married life together. But it wasn’t to be. Peter was diagnosed with a rare form of intestinal cancer seventeen months after Helen left her job as a secretary and he died within a matter of weeks. That was in 2014. Since then she has been grieving his loss as she adjusts to a future that is totally different to the one they had planned together.

‘I remember saying to Peter, we’ll probably live into our eighties, we’re only two-thirds through our lives. I really believed that. We were both fit and healthy, Peter had recently had a clear health check. We were both really looking forward to making the most of the opportunities full retirement presented, buying a house and building a new life together.

‘Instead I’m trying to work out how to live on my own for the first time in my life. When my three children finally left home I replaced them with Peter. And then he died. So it’s only since he’s gone that my nest has been entirely empty. I remember feeling when I married Peter that everything lifted, all the responsibilities that I had been carrying on my own for so long. There was a terrific sense of relief and release because from now on we could do things together, and suddenly everything was much more manageable.

‘Living on my own is a huge adjustment. It is very strange. I don’t mind it some of the time, just not all the time. There are some pros. You can be selfish, you can do exactly what you please. But it’s quite a big ask to manage all that time on your own. My son and his girlfriend, who live in China, are staying at the moment and I just really like having people around. We were having lunch in the garden yesterday and it was just so nice. I could do it when I’m on my own but it would feel very different, a bit weird.’

HOW TO MAKE LIVING ALONE WORK

For living alone to work well, you have to be proactive and take charge of your life. That applies across the board, to who you see, what you do, what you eat. That’s often a big change for people who are used to being part of a couple, and who are used to making decisions together, or who perhaps allowed their partner to take the lead. ‘If you’re in a couple retirement is easier,’ Helen says. ‘When you’re single you have to make more of an effort to actively arrange things. That’s what I find hardest. Before I retired I had a list of all the films I’d missed and I was really looking forward to going to the theatre more. Since Peter died I have to arrange someone to go with and book the tickets, and I end up thinking, do I really want to see that anyway?’

Even people who have lived alone for years may find they need more of a routine when they retire, to create new rituals to punctuate the day. Something as simple as going out for a coffee changes the rhythm and injects a new energy. Depending on your circumstances, it may be refreshing or just plain sad to feel you can do exactly what you like. With a bit of thought you should be able to achieve a balance between time spent on the solitary pursuits you enjoy, such as reading or painting or making things, and time spent in company. It should also be possible to find more social settings to do the solitary things, either in addition to or instead of what you do at home.

What’s interesting about the general trend towards solo households is that for many people it’s no longer the temporary arrangement it used to be. After divorce or bereavement it’s not uncommon for people who have made it through a hellish period of grief and loneliness to discover unexpected benefits in living alone. Indeed, some people get so used to it that they wouldn’t have it any other way. Frances says, ‘I was originally keen to marry again, and I had three serious relationships. The last one broke my heart: you are never so lonely as when you’re in a crowd. I have no desire to go there again. Talk about investing energy in getting a job! The time and emotion you invest in trying to find a partner was infinitely more. The Albanians have a phrase, “Sworn Virgins”, for women who’ve never had a partner and dress like men to fit in with a patriarchal society. I feel a bit like one of them!’

In many ways solo living is easier than it’s ever been. It’s certainly more acceptable, particularly for women, to do things on their own, whether it’s travelling or eating out. Part-time One Born Every Minute midwife Linda Abbott still lives alone eleven years after her husband’s death. ‘I’ve had a long time to get used to my own company. I like living by myself now, I couldn’t be taking up with anybody else, I don’t want to pander to a man’s whims again. I’ve got two good friends who are widows and they’re like me – we all like being on our own. You get used to pleasing yourself. Yet before my husband died we were both really looking forward to retiring together, and that does make me very sad sometimes.

‘I don’t ever feel lonely, except sometimes at the weekends. That was the idea of choosing to work shifts on Saturdays, because at first I found weekends were when I was loneliest. My daughter and her husband were tied up with their family life. But I’ve got used to it and now when I’ve had Saturdays off it hasn’t bothered me. If I want to see someone I easily can. I’ve got loads to do, loads of friends and I’ve just been on a big holiday to Machu Picchu with an old friend – we always thought we’d do it before we retired but life sort of gets in the way.’

Most of the retired singletons I’ve come across have an equally dynamic approach to life. Research at Cornell University in the US showed that people who live alone are more likely to reach out, socialise and build strong social networks than their married peers. That’s presumably because they’re used to organising things themselves rather than expecting someone else to do it. Even people who admit they would much rather be in a relationship just get on with making life work for them. They have a richer social life than many couples. They make their own fun rather than mouldering around aimlessly at home.

Yet the downsides of living alone are impossible to ignore. Mary is disarmingly frank about ‘the dark bleakness’ she occasionally felt when she moved to a town in the Lake District when she first retired. She is highly independent and was accustomed to living on her own. But it became more challenging when she gave up her work as a lecturer in social anthropology. ‘I had a very good, rich life in the Lake District. I had an entrée from friends and I was very active in loads of different things. Living in a town was great because you could walk everywhere or get the bus. I never sat down and thought I was lonely. It’s only when I look back and analyse it. Occasionally there would be two or three days in succession when I didn’t speak to anyone except maybe a bus driver or a shopkeeper. That was when the dark bleakness came in. And I don’t think that is rare or that my reaction was unusual. There was a clear-cut correlation between the amount of my social interaction and my feeling depressed. I got depressed in those circumstances; the bleakness didn’t descend on the days when I met people. I don’t need to go back to what happened in my infancy to explain or understand it.

‘We are pack animals and most people need regular, even daily, social interaction. I think living alone can affect your character in ways that aren’t good: you become more self-absorbed – I did anyway. So I think I would have been foolish not to have moved to somewhere more social.’

Some people find that being alone is particularly hard if they don’t have children – which applies to about one in five people aged over 50. They may have loads to do and plenty of friends, but some may find that they mourn the lack of the thread of continuity into a future beyond their own lives. There’s added concern about who will support them if their health fails, particularly now that the burden of care is shifting more onto families in the face of cuts to public services. But many childless singletons, like Karen, remain sanguine: ‘There have been a few times in my life when I did wonder about having children. I lived with someone for a while but it didn’t work out. I don’t have time to think about it now, there are so many different things I’m interested in doing, and I’ve got different circles of friends all over the country. I enjoy my friends’ children; it’s great to be part of their life, to pick them up from school or take them to the park, which wasn’t an option when I was at work.’

Research draws a distinction between living alone (can be good) and loneliness (always bad). Of course the two can be connected, but they don’t have to be. People who live alone aren’t necessarily lonely. As Mary points out, ‘It’s the nature and frequency of the social interaction that matters, not whether you live alone.’ One UK survey found that old people who lived alone had higher life satisfaction and no more cognitive or physical impairments than those who lived with other people. However, if you live alone you are obviously more prone to loneliness when you stop going out to work every day, as Mary found.

Endless studies indicate that loneliness – as opposed to living alone – can be bad for both physical and mental health: one much-quoted US study found that the heightened risk of death from loneliness was the equivalent of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. A study at University College London found that social isolation increased the risk of cardiovascular disease, infectious illness, cognitive deterioration and mortality, as well as high blood pressure. Loneliness is bad for mental health too. Research for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2015 found that lonely people were twice as likely to feel anxious, and ten times more likely to report feelings of low self-worth.

And it appears that men are most at risk. Studies indicate that men’s health suffers when they’re widowed or divorced because they’re used to relying on a partner to make sure they’re eating well and getting enough exercise. It’s usually women who badger their partners to go to the GP and for routine screening. Many of the wives I spoke to worried that their partners got through a lot more booze when they were on their own.

John, a painter and decorator who is still working in his eighties, bucks the trend, perhaps because he learned how to fend for himself as a teenager. He’s lived on his own since his wife died eleven years ago, shortly after she retired: ‘The local council sends me leaflets about things I could get involved in – conversations with other old people and that sort of thing. My daughter keeps telling me I’m not an old person. But I’d probably end up like one if I stayed at home all the time; it’s much better for me to work part time. I make sure I look after myself. I love fresh fruit and vegetables and I cook a proper meal every night and make a packed lunch. My daughter comes over two nights a week and I cook the dinner for her. I look forward to having her over, it’s lovely to have her company. Before I got married I had been on my own since I left Ireland to come to this country when I was 16. Perhaps that stands me in good stead for now. You see these old blokes just sitting in the pub all afternoon. I don’t want to go to the pub – not in the daytime anyway.’

Again, how well people adjust to being on their own largely depends on how successful they are in adapting to a change in circumstances. In this case it’s a question of breaking habits developed as part of a couple: men only have problems looking after themselves if they’re not used to it, while women are often a bit rusty about money because they’re out of practice dealing with the financial side of things. It’s a terrible generalisation, I know, but I’m only passing on what retirement educator David Sinclair told me: ‘It really worries me that a lot of women say they haven’t got a clue when it comes to finance because their husbands take care of all that. Many women are unprepared, and they really need to think about that side of things.’ I’m ashamed to admit that in my case it rings true: I also don’t know how to change a tyre or use a drill or do any of the routine tasks that my single friends are effortlessly competent at.

Experts agree that the sooner loneliness is dealt with the better, because negative thoughts can quickly spiral out of control and make people feel even more isolated. It’s important to stay in tune with how you’re feeling, identify twinges of loneliness and do something about it. It can take a while to put your finger on it, because no one likes thinking of themselves as lonely – there’s still a stigma attached to it. If you enjoy periods of solitude and find them creative, it’s often hard to recognise the tipping point when it’s just all got a bit too much. Ironically, it’s often hardest for people who are used to being self-sufficient. Mary says, ‘I’ve always been a very independent person, and I’ve lived on my own for many years. But of course independence deludes you into thinking you don’t need people, so you can end up being even more alone. Whereas if you’re someone who knows you need people you make efforts to have them in your life.’

Spending too much time alone, with too much time to overthink, can lead to a spiral of negative thoughts that lowers self-esteem and can result in anxiety and depression. Without a sounding board, a gloomy view of the world becomes your home page. With no one around to challenge you, it’s easy to get the wrong idea about what people think of you and how you feel about them. You start making excuses not to go out – it’ll be a nightmare to get there, he only invited me because he feels sorry for me, I’ll have to get back to feed the cat – and end up withdrawing even further into your shell.

The best way to halt negativity in its tracks is by forcing yourself to get out and meet people. That’s the view of Tony Clack, who founded the LaterLife retirement courses: ‘I firmly believe that if you get out there from day one of retirement, spread your wings and join things, you can avoid social isolation, because you build a new social network. I think that is really important. Walking groups are good if you’re not a particularly social person, because you’re not put in a situation where you’ve got to talk to someone; a lot of the time you chat to one person, and then another. Another solution, if you enjoy watching sport on TV, is to start going to live games, or join a sports club.’

In retirement it’s vital to keep a check on anything that tempts you to stay at home unless you absolutely have to. So while Facebook and internet forums and all the rest can be a fantastic source of support, there is no substitute for getting out and meeting people face-to-face and doing stuff with friends you can have a laugh and a hug with. The psychotherapist Mark Vernon believes that while social media has obvious uses, it can be an unhelpful distraction. He says, ‘There is always a risk that it can take over, that life becomes just about sharing on social media. And because it’s quite addictive you can develop a habit of using it to try to fend off loneliness.’

INDEPENDENCE WITHOUT ISOLATION

If you’re living alone and it doesn’t suit you, there are various alternatives, from sharing with a friend to moving to a friendly neighbourhood. John Mac loves living on his own, and that’s largely because his quiet flat overlooks a communal garden a stone’s throw from the bustle of the city. ‘It’s really good to connect with life every morning, to step out into the street and see people coming out of the tube station. Caffè Nero is always packed and I just sit there with my paper and watch what’s going on.’ Ideally there should be somewhere welcoming, like a café or a library or a health club, within walking or cycling distance from your front door. Easy access to somewhere sociable can make all the difference to your daily mood. If you have to make too much effort to make contact with people the temptation is not to bother, especially when you’re feeling a bit low and negative thoughts are kicking in.

There are plenty of options that would allow you to be as independent as you want to be, but within a wider social network:

• Moving to housing that has been designed to encourage neighbourly contact, with a communal garden or other shared facilities.

• Moving into a flourishing community. This is as likely to be found in a city street or a suburban cul-de-sac as it is in a country village.

• Moving to a co-housing scheme.

• Living with your children in a multigenerational household (see here: Grandchildren).

• Flatsharing: inviting a friend to move in or getting a place together (see here: Friends).

• Getting a lodger (see here: Money).

BENEFITS OF A FLOURISHING COMMUNITY

It’s hard to be lonely with good neighbours who have the knack of dropping in on each other, but who also know when to keep a distance. The drawbacks of close-knit communities are well known: everyone knows your business; the gossip gets too much; if you fall out with a neighbour, life is a misery. But there are massive benefits in having instant access to friendly souls who help each other out and cheer each other up and have a laugh together from time to time.

Some streets have a neighbourly feel as if by accident rather than by design, although of course the truth is that it’s all down to the spirit of the people who live there. I’m thinking of terraces and cul-de-sacs that might look a bit bland on the surface, but that house a vibrant community spirit. John Mac lives on an estate of low-rise flats built round a communal garden in the inner city with neighbours of all ages. He’s lived there since his twenties, but it would be the perfect move to make in retirement because it offers a great combination of independence and privacy cradled within a supportive community. This is partly due to the thoughtful design: the flats all face the communal garden, so you can always see who’s around, and you only have to stroll a few feet from your front door to find someone to chat to. John says, ‘Living here really helps with living on your own. And this is a great place to be retired. A few people have had illnesses and everybody just pulls together to look after them. I know all my neighbours, and I always introduce myself to new people and ask how they’re settling in. One of them is an acupuncturist and on Sunday evenings in the summer she had about a dozen of us sitting out there in the square, giving us acupuncture. That’s a very special feeling, that sense of community.

‘One of the downsides of living in a city is that it’s difficult to be spontaneous, but it’s more possible here. In the summer a couple on the other side of the square asked if I fancied going to a late Prom the same night, and we just drove down. I love that. In the summer there’s always someone sitting in the square. But there’s respect for other people’s space. I would always wave to people but I wouldn’t necessarily go and talk to them. I think it helps that we’re in the city; it’s not so inward looking as other communities might be. There’s no gossip here – not that I know of anyway! People here have another reality.’

CO-HOUSING

I’ve had co-housing down as a good option since I stayed in one of the oldest examples, Postlip Hall in Gloucestershire, a few years ago. It’s a beautiful Jacobean manor house divided into eight separate living units, with breathtaking views over the Cotswolds. Families with young children were living alongside retired couples, and it seemed an ideal combination of privacy and communal living for people of any age. Co-housing enables single people to live independent lives yet at the same time have access to shared resources and support networks.

Lancaster Cohousing, which I visited earlier this year, is purpose built and much bigger. On the midsummer evening I got there, a group (including Charles, aged 74) were driving to the Lake District for a long walk. Meanwhile, Penny, who lives by herself, was in the stainless steel kitchen in the common house dishing up supper for twenty-odd people: vegan sausages with two kinds of onion gravy, roast potatoes and chard. (Residents can choose whether or not to eat communally, as every home also has its own kitchen.) Outside, sitting round tables overlooking the river, kids of all ages ate their supper with a nominated responsible adult, a hot-air balloon operator who compared notes on music festivals and maths exams with an 18-year-old.

As part of the membership team, Penny is involved in ensuring that prospective residents understand what it means to join the community and be active members, and helps newcomers to settle in happily. She admits that the MA in Conflict Resolution she took when she first retired has proved useful! Her one regret is that her children and four grandchildren live so far away. She told me, ‘I separated from my husband when my children were little. That was lonely. I think it would be hard to be lonely here. There’s a spectrum of people: some are very gregarious and some prefer to keep themselves to themselves; you can engage at any level. If I want to spend an evening on my own I go home after supper in the common room and shut the door and that’s fine.

‘My real joy is the way I can get up in the morning and there’s nothing particular planned but the day will just unfold. I’ve never been very good at planning my time, but with so many people and so many potential interactions days unfold in a very lovely way. It is never boring here, not for a minute. But it feels pretty challenging at times. It’s like having a family of seventy-odd when four or five is enough for most people. It’s a big shift to being more intertwined in other people’s lives. We share so much here, so you’re not master of your destiny any more, and it can be difficult to move from an individualistic awareness to a community-minded one.

‘The other amazing thing about living with so many people is the access to so many skills and talents. And the energy to pursue ideas. This place feels very vibrant and incredibly creative; the atmosphere encourages kindness and nourishes ideas. There’s something about having a place in your community that’s very precious.’

Earlier in this chapter Mary described the loneliness she occasionally experienced before she joined Lancaster Cohousing four years ago. She remembers, ‘The decision to move here was nothing to do with ageing or being retired. It did flick through my head once or twice that it’s not a bad place to be ancient, because you’ve got the river and it’s flat. But I wasn’t thinking in terms of support or care. I don’t like the idea that people might look after me. I’ve always thought co-housing was a good idea, since the Sixties. I moved into this particular co-housing development because it’s based on ecological values and I felt I would be living with like-minded people. I think life is fuller if you’re involved with other people. I love good conversation and there are plenty of opportunities for it here. I go to the communal meals sometimes, although my deafness is an issue.

‘It takes time to make friends. It’s harder if you’re on your own; couples are insulated, obviously. When I first arrived I was slightly disappointed that people don’t go into each other’s houses much. I mainly meet people in the street or at communal meals and in work teams. I remember feeling a bit dejected at first, of feeling that other people were bonding and having dinner parties. But the social interaction here has increased every year. I’m quite content now. I’ve lost some things, but the net is a gain. And I’ve never felt that bleak depression again.’

INTERNET DATING

If you would like to find a companion, internet dating has got to be worth a try. I totally get why some friends of mine just can’t bring themselves to do it, no matter how much they’d love to meet someone, but the men and women I know who have been brave enough to give it a go have got so much out of it. It opens up a side of life that’s been shut down for a while. They’ve all had enjoyable short-term relationships and made lasting friends, while at least two people I know have met soulmates they’ve gone on to marry.

The secret seems to be not to set your sights too high. That sounds a bit defeatist, but people whose hearts aren’t set on meeting their dream partner seem to get the most out of it. Meanwhile, the idea that men are only interested in younger models isn’t always borne out by reality, according to some of my women friends who’ve tried it. They’ve found that sensible men know that women over fifty are as interesting and sexy as their younger counterparts.

SOLO TRAVEL

Solo travel is on the rise, with one in three foreign holidays now taken alone. Travelling on your own takes gumption, but it brings huge rewards. Generally speaking it’s easier to meet other people if you’re on your own, and you’re more likely to mix with people from the country you’re travelling in. Of course there are challenges. If you’re having a miserable time or something goes wrong it’s helpful to have someone to share it with. But Backpacker Granny, who is a seasoned traveller, is reassuring: she’s always found people go out of their way to help if someone is in need.

Backpacker Granny started travelling seriously on her own in her sixties. She now wants to give other women of her age the assurance to travel, and has set up ‘The Backpackergranny Tour Group’ to show them that ‘hostels can be good and cheap and possibly more fun than staying in a five-star hotel. You will meet beautiful people who often shower you with care and love. I think travelling helps one grow. I’m much more open and self-assured now than I was when I was younger. When you travel and see how many people live in total poverty, it makes you realise how lucky we are.

‘When I first set off on my first big trip I remember sitting at Heathrow with my backpack and thinking, Oh My God, I’m actually going to go round the world on my own. I have this little elf sitting on my shoulder who chats away to me. At that moment he asked me, “What’s the worst that can happen?”. To which I answered, if I hate it I can catch a plane and come home. What actually happened was that a couple on the plane invited me to share their taxi in Bangkok, and it all started to click into place. However bad it may seem, things always have a way of working out. I never looked back.’

But solo travel isn’t for everyone. Call me wet, but I would always rather go with friends or in an organised group, whether it’s walking the Amalfi coast or checking out Moscow and St Petersburg, a trip I did recently. For me, the unexpectedly delicious icing on the cake was provided by my fellow-travellers, a warm, friendly and supportive bunch. So I’m a bit biased, but I think if chosen wisely, group travel is a really great way to meet people. And it encourages open-mindedness and flexibility. Despite first impressions, retired school head Anthony made some good friends when he went on a guided walking holiday in the Picos de Europa last year: ‘The first night I thought, Oh God, what have I done? But people are awkward at first, and I find that very difficult and I should get over that. You have to give people the benefit of the doubt.’

HOW TO AVOID LONELINESS

• Find a balance in the day between the solitary pursuits you enjoy and more sociable activities.

• Go for face-to-face classes rather than online courses.

• Make phone calls rather than always texting or emailing.

• The internet is a good way to connect and communicate, but it’s not enough on its own. Don’t let it take over or eat into time better spent making face-to-face contact.

• Eating out on your own sounds like a challenge, but it’s no longer the taboo it used to be, especially for women. Take a newspaper or a good book for company.

• Offer to help a friend with a project they need support with, such as building a website or planning a garden revamp. The chances are they’ll help you with something in return.

• Establish a regular weekly or monthly outing with a friend.

• Eat well: go for quick one-pan recipes, fresh ingredients and plenty of healthy treats.

• Build sociable exercise into your weekly routine.

• Keep an eye on how much you drink at home.

• Try internet dating.

14

Time to Think and Be

One of the things that most struck me when talking to people about retirement was how often the subject of the meaning of life came up. Even the most down-to-earth types have existential moments in which they find themselves confronting life’s big questions: Is this all there is? Is this enough? One of the most surprising conversations came during an interview with Nick, a retired police sergeant. We were expecting to talk about the dual loss of identity when retirement and the empty nest coincide, which he was finding hard. But he ended up telling me about his spiritual journey, which had taken him to Nepal to volunteer in a monastery when he first left work.

‘I try and meditate for fifteen minutes every day. It’s like a little calling, it’s quite persistent. It’s in that stillness and silence that you start to discover things about yourself. I feel very fortunate that I now have the freedom to allow things to develop in their own time. Before, working long hours and being a single parent, I never really had enough time to practise meditation and I was always getting distracted. Since I retired I’ve had time to read and go on the occasional retreat, and I’ve been able to visit countries where my spiritual interest now lies.’

As the importance of work recedes, people become more interested in exploring ways of being that aren’t about conventional measures of success and achievement. Retirement, like any major life change, prompts soul-searching, reflection and personal growth. You stop caring so much about what other people think, and there’s a new freedom in that. When you are no longer defined by your job, you find yourself up against questions about who you are and what your purpose is, the kind of thing that worries adolescents but generally gets forgotten once the distractions of work and parenthood come along. Intimations of mortality add poignancy and urgency.

So this chapter is about the various different ways that people choose to explore life’s challenging questions. Some return to the religion of their childhood or find a new religious path, some read widely or study philosophy, while others opt for practices that may or may not lead them in a spiritual direction, like mindfulness or yoga or tai chi. Others remain resolutely atheist or agnostic, and refresh their spirits in nature, in what Dylan Thomas called ‘the force that through the green fuse drives the flower’.

These days, spirituality is generally taken to mean something broader and more nebulous than religious faith. It’s hard to pin down because each person has his or her own interpretation of what spirituality means to them. Some people find the vagueness of the definition deeply irritating, but I think that’s the beauty of it. It’s wherever you find it. For one person, spirituality comes in a moment of quiet contemplation with a candle, while for another it’s from gazing at the sea, or from gardening or music.

Several studies have pointed to the tendency to become more spiritual as we get older. It even gets to hard nuts like rock legend Lou Reed. In his later years he meditated for an hour every morning using beads given to him by the Tibetan monk who was teaching him Buddhist philosophy. When I interviewed him in 2007, at the age of 65, he proffered advice on how to meditate and said that although he wasn’t a Buddhist he was trying to achieve something of it. Reed had even taken to writing music to help people centre when doing yoga and tai chi, which he had practised religiously for twenty-five years. The album ‘Hudson River Wind Meditations’ couldn’t have been more different to ‘Walk on the Wild Side’.

The Swedish gerontologist Lars Tornstam believed that as people age they naturally turn towards spirituality and feel a heightened affinity with past generations. He called this process Gerotranscendence. Solitude becomes more attractive; material things hold less interest. Dr Tornstam’s focus was not so much on religion as on spirituality in its broadest sense: exploring meaning that transcends self-interest and the self. His study of people over 75 in Denmark found that a majority reported becoming more spiritual since the age of 50. They also reported becoming less preoccupied with self, having a greater capacity to be in the present moment rather than worrying about the future, an increased sense of connection with the world and a decreased fear of death.

Dr Oliver Robinson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Greenwich University, believes that the shift towards spirituality that Tornstam identifies chimes with the wider changes in lifestyle and higher levels of emotional maturity that accompany retirement. He adds, ‘It also seems to be where culture is drifting generally with the rise of all kinds of practices that pertain to developing more sense of connection with the world and with ourselves. And exploring ways of being that aren’t about how much can I fit into the day? How much profit can I get out of this limited set of resources? This is a very exhausting trait in Western culture and I’m sure that by the time they retire a lot of people feel slightly burnt out by that.’

Dr Robinson tells an inspiring story about a top executive he came across in the course of his own research into life transitions. It’s a welcome antidote to the more familiar trope of high-status workers who lose the will to live in retirement. When he left his post at the top of a large retail company, this man embarked on a spiritual search to explore a totally new area of life. He started by going on a long retreat with the Brahma Kumaris, who help individuals transform their perspective of the world from material to spiritual. In many ways it was the opposite of what his life as a high-flying executive had been about, with its focus on power and status.

It’s easy to see the appeal of faith, particularly as you get older. It’s a great source of solace and a buffer against intimations of mortality. But for many people it’s much more than that. It’s the driving force that informs the choices they make and it gives meaning to everything they do. So it’s not surprising that there is evidence that both spirituality and religious belief are good for health and well-being as you get older. Research has drawn links between religiosity and lower mortality levels, as well as better physical health and lower levels of anxiety and depression. One study found that spirituality helped lessen the effects of illness on the well-being of very old adults.

But that’s not what draws people; these benefits are a side effect, not a motivation. There are many reasons why people become more spiritual as they get older. It could be as simple as having more time for personal reflection, according to one study at the University of Michigan. The new pace of life means there is more time to stand and stare. There’s more mental space to delve into interesting ideas you’ve read or seen, and to mull things over in greater depth. There’s less distracting mental clutter. Retirement makes you look back and reflect; it makes you aware of your own mortality. When you were thirty the milestones seemed to stretch into infinity; now you have to accept that they don’t.

At the same time, the practical search for a new purpose and identity in retirement leads naturally to a deeper questioning of meaning. Being forced to confront big questions is rarely comfortable, as Alex discovered when she retired earlier than she had planned, and found herself with too much time to think. ‘All my life I’ve been quite a doing sort of person and suddenly I was thrown into this experience of what it feels like to be more and do less. It felt very uncomfortable quite often. One friend thought I was having an existential crisis, and I think she was right. I found myself thinking, Why do anything? Why live, why be? What am I here for?

‘I knew I wasn’t going to get answers by following the retirement route, so after a year I took a part-time job. Now I’m recognising that perhaps I won’t ever have answers. It’s easier to live with that if you don’t have time to think about it all the time. Sometimes I think that being back at work is a way of avoiding those questions.’

She’s right, of course. Work is often a welcome distraction from life’s big questions. It helps people to get through crises in their personal lives and stops them thinking about the difficult stuff; it may even keep problems at bay for years. When work becomes less dominant a new opportunity opens up, but it can be disconcerting. This is something Margot Henderson explores in her workshops for people aged over 50 in the Scottish Highlands. ‘There is a real sense of wanting to slow down and take time to reflect on what really matters now, and not take things so much for granted. Yet it’s really hard for people to face the empty space because our whole cultural ethos is don’t just sit there, do something. This time of life can be a real opportunity to meet ourselves in a way we’ve never met ourselves before, and to meet life in a way we’ve never met it before. “What is the meaning of my life now?” “What matters most?” are really important and life-affirming questions, which can be approached with curiosity and interest. The danger is that without support they can make people despair. There is a real need to encourage people to be open to those questions.’

These courses are part of the Transitions in Later Life programme of pilot schemes funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, an international charity whose UK branch focuses on improvements in well-being. Margot Henderson’s courses have proved so successful that they are being expanded to other areas of the UK. They use a combination of practices that allow individual insights and awareness to arise: reflective writing, a form of gentle exercise called qigong (which is a bit like tai chi), and mindfulness. Margot explains, ‘What’s powerful about reflective writing is that people find a voice they might not find just in conversation. It takes them into a deeper place within themselves, they touch into a kind of knowing that they didn’t know they knew. It’s a good way of harvesting from our experience and acknowledging what we’re letting go of in retirement. I also believe that physicality and flexibility in the body through the gentle exercises and relaxation we do contributes to flexibility and stability in the mind. And at the heart of mindfulness is the subtle shift from doing to being, which is part of this life-stage transition.’

When she first retired from charity work, Liz was still running on adrenalin and continued to have problems sleeping. She struggled with the adjustment to retirement until she was finally forced not just to slow down but to stop when she broke her wrist in an accident. It was a turning point because it forced her to focus on her spiritual side. ‘I wasn’t too pleased with who I was when the accident made me stop. I was very frustrated and grumpy and unaccepting of the situation I found myself in. So I decided to spend a bit of time looking at my spiritual practice. My partner and I went on a Buddhist retreat in France, and we are part of a community sangha we go to once a month. I do yoga twice a week and I have Gong baths (healing sound baths), which I love.

‘It all sounds a bit self-indulgent, I know. I have a little voice that tells me I should be doing things and changing the world. But I have a lot more peace now. During my working life I really neglected my body and my spiritual side and it’s a huge privilege to be able to pay attention to it and reclaim bits of me. It’s about coming home to yourself really.

‘Since I retired I realised I had never really grieved for my dad. He died twenty years ago and at the time I was focused on looking after my mum. I was also flat out at work, just getting from one thing to another. So through various processes, including acupuncture and co-counselling, I’ve been reclaiming the bits of me that are my dad that I really love and the bits of me that are my mum. I’m having a great time remembering my dad at the moment.’

CONNECTING WITH THE PAST

It’s hard to ignore the interest in family history that grips people as they get older. Look no further than the popularity of the television series Who Do You Think You Are? Old family photograph albums have a fresh appeal, while online research into ancestors is booming. My father-in-law devoted the last years of his life to compiling books of his own experiences in the war and of his family’s history. They are beautifully bound and illustrated with sepia photographs, telegrams, letters and newspaper cuttings. Dedicated to ‘My three children and their descendants’, they were never intended to be published, but provide a precious personal link with the past and tell stories that he might otherwise have taken to the grave.

The urge to connect with what went before us, as well as with what will follow, is central to the theory of Gerotranscendence. Lars Tornstam pointed to the new affinity with past generations that people often feel as they get older. It’s a frequent topic of discussion for Lily’s ‘informal support group’ of female friends, who meet once a month. They are particularly keen to make sense of what the lives of previous generations of women were like, starting with their mothers. They try to put themselves in their shoes and understand the times they lived through. Lesley’s interest goes even further back. When she retired from teaching in her local Highland school she took up historical sword fighting, and it’s helped rekindle her interest in the past in a very immediate way.

‘Retirement makes you look back. It makes you philosophical. And as you become aware that the number of years you have left is getting less, you think more about the people who were here before you and who are no longer here. I always loved history, but now I’m free to get into it more fully, and I feel a real connection to the past. It’s very easy to feel connected with the past in Achiltibuie: it’s all around you. Here and there the old cottage still stands beside the new house on the croft; it doesn’t get knocked down.

‘I sometimes take my sword down to the beach to practise when there’s no one around. There I feel a real kinship with the past. You wonder how long it is since someone with a sword was on this beach. I know there was a massive Viking influx here: they made some of the local place names, which are Old Norse rather than the native Gaelic. My sister-in-law had her DNA done and she is Viking through and through. I never had time to think about all that before, and maybe it’s only when you’re older that you start to connect with what came before you, when you’ve got time to think about the history of this place.’

RETURN TO RELIGION OF CHILDHOOD

The urge to connect with the past often goes with a revival of interest in the religion of childhood. It can be a profound source of solace even for people who no longer believe. Having felt pretty lukewarm about the C of E for years, I now find myself increasingly drawn to light a candle in our local church on a weekday morning. As I sit on a polished wooden pew contemplating the stained-glass windows, the stony smell of church brings back powerful memories of childhood; it’s both calming and grounding.

John Mac had a less conventional religious upbringing. His grandfather was a spiritualist, and so is his mother; they believe that the spirits of the dead can communicate with the living. That early interest has never gone away: he still goes to the spiritualist church with his mother when he visits her. But as he’s got older and has more time, it has expanded into new directions. When he first retired he took a meditation course, and he now meditates regularly. Meanwhile his spiritualism has developed into an interest in energies. ‘It was a strong thread in my upbringing, the idea that there is a greater reality than this earthly plane and that we should do our best to leave our interactions with everyone as positive as possible, and to keep the energy good. I read a number of channelling websites every day. I do some work for a friend in Brazil who works with channelled energies and crystals; she helps people all over the world through her website. That’s a big interest for me and I’m able to spend more time looking at those things now that I’m retired.’

THE DEATH OF FRIENDS

Intimations of mortality are part of the fabric of daily life as you get older. Deaths of high-profile heroes you once looked up to, whether they’re rock icons like David Bowie or literary stars like Helen Dunmore, are always shocking even though they’re far too common these days. Thoughts of your own mortality are never far away. Throughout his career in the police force, Nick confronted death and dire straits on a regular basis. Then one day towards the end of his career he had a Damascene moment that precipitated his interest in Eastern religion. ‘In the emergency services you see a lot of death and people in extremis. Death is completely sudden, and it can happen at any age. That really gets you thinking. One day I was on the beat in an area of Newcastle that’s known as “the Wild West” for good reason. After the eighth or ninth job of the day I had a kind of epiphany. A voice in my head said, “What is this all about?” What triggered it was that every single person I came across that day was suffering in some way.’

Trying to make sense of the death of a friend naturally makes people think more deeply about life and its meaning. I’m writing this in the week one of my oldest friends died of prostate cancer at 62, and the mood in our house is unrelentingly sad. The future feels very gloomy when someone you love is no longer in the world. There’s such a sense of missed opportunities, of so much you should have said or done together. Steve’s death has made me think about the meaning of his life – and of life in general – now that there’s a full stop and his arc is complete. It brings back memories of our younger selves when we shared a house after university and were taking our first steps in adulthood. Our lives and ambitions stretched ahead and it felt like we had all the time in the world.

It forces you to confront the unavoidable truth that you’ve lived most of your life. In the same way, the process of retiring, which involves so many endings and goodbyes, prompts thoughts of mortality, even if they’re buried deep below the surface. The psychotherapist David Richards, who specialises in work with older clients, says, ‘Many people will have decades of life after they stop work, but there is still an automatic prompt to think about mortality, largely semi-consciously. When we are facing other endings – at work, for example – it often prompts thoughts about the ultimate end.’

Margot Henderson, whose work with cancer patients in the past informs the courses she now runs for older people, doesn’t shy away from bringing up the subject of death, although she’s aware that it makes people uncomfortable. She believes that only by accepting it can people get the most out of life. ‘I want to help people to acknowledge our own mortality and look it in the face and not let it be a morbid thing. I think it can really help us to savour our lives more deeply, and help us to enjoy the time we have more fully. It’s difficult because we’re in a culture that so doesn’t want to go there. I think that’s why it can be very hard for people in retirement to slow down. There’s a real tendency to keep busy, keep going.’

HOW PEOPLE FIND THEIR SPIRITUAL SIDE

Meditation

Nick originally took up meditation when he was still working long hours and bringing up two children on his own. It wasn’t until he retired that he was able to give it the time it needed to develop. Meditation led to a wider interest in Eastern religion, which he’s been able to explore further since he retired. ‘It was my new partner who suggested I go to a meditation session. I was hooked straight away, but life kept getting in the way. Working long hours and being a single parent I never really had enough time to practise and I was always getting distracted. Now I’ve got more time I try and meditate every day. It isn’t just about sitting cross-legged on the floor, although I do that sometimes. I spend a lot of time on the sea front, just watching the sea for twenty minutes, or sitting in the garden letting things wash over me. I find stillness and sitting a huge benefit. Since I retired I’ve been able to visit countries where my spiritual interest now lies. What really interests me is seeing in action what is different about the way people behave in Buddhist and Hindu countries.’

Yoga

In the yoga tradition life is divided into four stages, each with an essential role in each person’s life. The third stage is the self-fulfilment stage, when domestic responsibilities tail off. In the fourth stage the search for spiritual enlightenment becomes the main goal. For many people yoga is a spiritual practice, while for others it’s purely about physical flexibility. But because it cultivates stillness and flexibility of both mind and body, it naturally cultivates a contemplative frame of mind. Helen started going to a weekly yoga class twelve years before she retired. ‘I tend to use it for physical things like posture, staying supple and so on. But it also puts me in quite a calm space, it helps me not to be too busy in my thoughts, and just to be, to stay anchored in the now. We don’t know when our time is going to run out: it could be soon, it could be ages. That’s something I’m much more aware of since my husband died.’

Mindfulness

People can take from mindfulness whatever they find most helpful, whether it’s learning to be in the moment or using it as a route in to meditation. Miranda took a mindfulness course as soon as she left social work three years ago: ‘I like a philosophy that is more interested in being than doing. I have spent a lot of my life rushing around, always wanting to get to the next stage. It occurred to me that the next stage for people our age is not altogether desirable and that it would be a good thing to really focus on and appreciate the present moment. I decided it might be good to slow down a bit and learn how to live in the here and now.’

Gardening

Many gardeners find that digging the earth and nurturing plants is profoundly healing and spiritual. The garden writer and presenter Monty Don has spoken about gardening as a spiritually rewarding thing to do.

Nature

‘Some people want faith, they need to believe in a greater something, but I don’t,’ Pam insists. ‘My spiritual place is being out in beautiful countryside. It refreshes your spirit and makes you feel better about the world.’

Conclusion

People love telling stories about the terrible things that can happen in retirement: the unnamed friend of a friend who dropped down dead within months of stopping work; the woman whose husband walked out after forty years of marriage. I wrote this book because I wanted to hear good stories about retirement.

Because when I started my research I wasn’t too happy about the prospect of retiring myself. I assumed it would be more a question of putting a brave face on things than of embracing the new phase with enthusiasm. But listening to so many different experiences has made me do a U-turn. The people in this book show that retirement can be what you want it to be. These days there is no need to give up the things you loved about work, and it’s possible to find satisfaction in all sorts of different ways. The key is to be open to new experiences and possibilities.

That’s not to deny that retirement is tough. Many of the people I spoke to struggled at times; that’s par for the course with any major life transition. But their experiences show that this phase has the potential to be even more fulfilling than what has gone before, and that the shift to a different pace can spark renewed energy and curiosity. If people approaching retirement can hold on to this notion, that there is light at the end of the tunnel, they are likely to approach the challenges of this huge change in a better frame of mind.

That’s important, because research suggests that the key to a good retirement is a positive attitude. I know that might be irritating to hear, especially if your take on the future is more Eeyore than Pollyanna. Not everyone is born blessed with the natural buoyancy that stands people in good stead. But by this time in their lives most people have developed the qualities they need, often without realising it. After all, a positive attitude is much more than simply looking on the bright side. It grows out of the resilience people develop from getting through tough times and emerging with renewed strength.

The big mistake is to see retirement as a passive phase. At work it may be possible to go with the flow from time to time, bobbing along on automatic pilot. But when you’re retired you can no longer afford to. It’s essential to be proactive, to take control. That has become even more important now that the landscape of retirement keeps changing all the time; it requires ingenuity and determination to forge a path through the maze of new possibilities. One voice that’s increasingly heard, for example – and that will hopefully get more of the response it deserves – belongs to a growing cohort who would dearly love to put their considerable expertise to good use, either in paid, mentoring or voluntary roles. They feel frustrated by the lack of opportunities to give something back, and sad that their skills are underused. They’ve still got a lot to contribute, and they’re flexible about what they are prepared to do and how much time they can give.

They are crying out for some sort of coordinated system that would connect their expertise with industries that need it. And they have a new confidence, according to Sarah Heyworth, who runs a pioneering employment agency for the over-fifties based in Hampshire called Local Treasures. ‘There is definitely a big difference in people’s attitudes since I started five years ago. Then there was a general feeling that they had to find a way of making the next few years go by; their self-esteem was often low. Now it’s much more What can I do next? What’s my next career? Yet society is still not very respectful of experience.’

There’s a powerful argument for a wider range of training opportunities for older workers who either want a complete change or find it hard to continue in physically demanding jobs. As the retirement age continues to rise, the need to support people in finding new ways to work will become more pressing. A 2017 report from the Department for Work and Pensions urged employers to consider offering apprenticeships and training schemes to older as well as younger workers.

It’s even been suggested that individuals should be offered life coaching to prepare for later life. It sounds like a brilliant idea, not least because it puts the emphasis on life as a whole and not just on work, and it acknowledges the significance of the transition. Sadly, however, it seems unlikely to have legs in the current economic climate. Meanwhile, the Chief Medical Officer’s 2015 report on baby boomers pointed out that the health benefits of remaining productive aren’t only derived from work. They are also associated with other forms of activity, such as volunteering; you don’t have to be in paid employment to be productive.

Coming to terms with a broader definition of productivity is central to a good retirement, but it’s a big shift and it can take time to get your head around the idea that so-called hobbies – painting or playing an instrument or taking part in a sport – can be highly productive in a new way. You might not produce a performance or a picture that people will pay good money for, but that’s not the point. Trying to do or make something yourself is life-enhancing. It enriches the experience of going to an exhibition or listening to music or watching a match. You approach other people’s achievements with a new understanding of the skill and effort involved, which you just can’t get as a mere observer or critic.

I’ve noticed this myself when I’ve revisited activities I dismissed when I was busy with work and kids. I gave up the flute – I was never going to be any good anyway, so what was the point? Then two years ago I chanced on a traditional music course and started playing for the first time in thirty years. It’s been a revelation, and it has injected new energy into my life. Now the value is in playing for its own sake, whether it’s nailing a tune when I’m practising or playing with other people. For me, that is what’s most exciting about this stage: new opportunities arise that you might have been too busy to see coming your way, let alone take up, in the past.

That’s not to say I’ve stopped worrying about retirement – not just my own but my husband’s, too. It’s natural to feel nervous about the unknown. But now when I have doubts I turn to the insights people shared about their own highs and lows. I think of former headteacher Lesley, who said, ‘My brain has been unleashed for deeper things’, and of Nick, whose first foray into volunteering ended in calamity and an early flight home from Nepal. He didn’t give up, and says, ‘No one tells you how to be retired. You have to make your own mistakes along the way. But it’s better to go up a path and find you’ve gone wrong than not to do it at all.’

Resources

FAMILY AND RELATIONSHIPS

Tavistock Relationships

Offers ‘Couple 50+ MOT’ preparation for retirement via face-to-face and online counselling. It is currently available in London, Bristol, Leeds and online.

www.tavistockrelationships.org

Relate

www.relate.org.uk

The College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists

www.cosrt.org.uk

Grandparents Plus

www.grandparentsplus.org.uk

WORK

Enterprise Nation

Information and support on starting your own business. Its founder, Emma Jones, is also the author of a useful guide called Turn Your Talent into a Business (see Further Reading section).

www.enterprisenation.com

Local Treasures

Employment agency based in Hampshire, which specialises in recruiting the over-fifties to do a variety of jobs, from gardening and cooking to bookkeeping.

www.localtreasures.me

GENERAL

Positive Ageing Associates

A consultancy that promotes positive attitudes to ageing and offers personal development courses.

www.positiveageingassociates.com

High50

Website for the over-fifties with features on travel, health, relationships and money.

www.high50.com

Gransnet

Social-networking site for the over-fifties

www.gransnet.com

Silversurfers

Features, news and social forums for the over-fifties.

www.silversurfers.com

Probably42

This knowledge-networking project is the brainchild of Tony Clack, who founded LaterLife retirement courses.

www.probably42.net

The UK Men’s Sheds Association

Men’s Sheds are community spaces for men to connect, converse and create, with branches all over the country.

www.menssheds.org.uk

Ageing Without Children

www.awoc.org

The Slow Movement

www.slowmovement.com

HOUSING

SpareRoom

Site for finding and advertising accommodation, with a detailed guide to taking in a lodger.

www.spareroom.co.uk

The UK Co-housing Network

With a comprehensive directory of co-housing projects. More on Co-housing in Further Reading

www.cohousing.org.uk

Refugees at Home

A small UK-based charity that connects people who have space in their home with asylum seekers and refugees.

www.refugeesathome.org

Positive Action in Housing

Another charity that matches hosts with refugees who need a place to stay through its Room for Refugees programme.

www.paih.org

HEALTH AND HOLIDAYS

The Outdoor Swimming Society

www.outdoorswimmingsociety.com

Youth Hostels Association

Don’t be put off by the ‘Youth’; it’s for all ages.

www.yha.org.uk

Backpackergranny Tour Group

Backpacking tours for older women run by Geraldine Forster, whose website is also full of travel inspiration

www.backpackergranny.com

MONEY

Pension Wise

Free government guidance about personal and workplace pensions. Offers an appointment with an adviser of up to an hour.

www.pensionwise.gov.uk

For information about the state pension:

www.gov.uk

The Pensions Advisory Service

An independent organisation grant-aided by the government and which offers free advice on the state pension as well as on workplace and other schemes.

www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk

The government’s Money Advice Service

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk

The Equity Release Council

Essential for anyone considering equity release. Always deal with a firm who is a member.

www.equityreleasecouncil.com

Wise Monkey financial coaching (Simonne Gnessen)

www.financial-coaching.co.uk

EDUCATION

LaterLife

Runs retirement planning courses for individuals and organisations.

www.laterlife.com

PRAGMA (Planned Retirement Association of Greater Manchester)

An independent educational charity, part of Age UK, which runs short courses in the area to help people prepare for retirement.

Workers’ Educational Association

Adult education courses.

www.wea.org.uk

University of the Third Age (U3A)

Learning for its own sake in a friendly and informal context. Members teach and learn from each other. Branches all over the UK.

www.u3a.org.uk

The Open University

Offers flexible part-time study and supported distance learning for undergraduate and postgraduate courses and qualifications.

www.open.ac.uk

Tony Chiva

The former head of education and training at the Pre-Retirement Association now runs wellness and spiritual development courses for individuals and groups.

tonychiva@gn.apc.org

VOLUNTEERING

National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)

Useful information and links to local volunteer centres and a database of volunteering opportunities.

www.ncvo.org.uk

Do-it Trust

The UK’s national volunteering database.

www.do-it.org

Reach Volunteering

Specialises in ‘skills-based’ volunteering.

www.reachvolunteering.org.uk

The Casserole Club

Brings together people who enjoy cooking with people who can’t always cook for themselves.

www.casseroleclub.com

Royal Voluntary Service

Supports older people in staying independent, through lifts to hospital, home library services and the good neighbour scheme.

www.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk

VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas)

Offers volunteering opportunities in developing countries.

www.vsointernational.org

Further Reading and References

60 On Up: The Truth about Aging in the Twenty-first Century by Lillian B. Rubin, Beacon Press

The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity by Lynda Gratton and

Andrew Scott, Bloomsbury

Adult Development and Ageing: Biopsychosocial Perspectives by Susan Krauss

Whitbourne, John Wiley

Cohousing in Britain: a Diggers & Dreamers Review by Sarah Bunker, Chris Coates

and Martin Field, Diggers and Dreamers Publications

Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility by Ellen J. Langer,

Ballantine

Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities by Kathryn McCamant and

Charles Durrett, New Society Publishers

Development Through Adulthood by Oliver Robinson, Palgrave Macmillan

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers, Vermillion

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Rider

Gerotranscendence: A Developmental Theory of Positive Aging by Lars Tornstam,

Springer

Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone by Eric

Klinenberg, Gerald Duckworth

Happy Money: The New Science of Smarter Spending by Dr Elizabeth Dunn and Michael

Norton, Oneworld

How to Age Positively by Guy Robertson, Positive Ageing Associates

‘The Impact of Volunteering on Well-being in Later Life’, a report to WRVS by

Professor James Nazroo and Katey Matthews

The Meaning of Friendship by Mark Vernon, Palgrave Macmillan

‘Personality and Retirement: exploring the links between the Big Five personality

traits, reasons for retirement and the experience of being retired’ by Oliver Robinson, James D. Demetre, Roslyn Corney in Personality and Individual Differences Volume 48, Issue 7, May 2010 www.researchgate.net/profile/Oliver_Robinson10

Presence by Patsy Rodenburg, Penguin

The Psychology of Ageing by Ian Stuart-Hamilton, Jessica Kingsley

The Psychology of Gardening by Harriet Gross, Routledge

Reconstructing Old Age: New Agendas in Social Theory and Practice by Christopher

Phillipson, Sage

The Seasons of a Man’s Life by Daniel J. Levinson, Ballantine

The Senior Cohousing Handbook by Charles Durrett, New Society Publishers

Supporting People Through Transitions by Bridget Pettitt and Liz Kwast, Calouste

Gulbenkian Foundation

The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware, Hay House

Understanding Men’s Passages by Gail Sheehy, Ballantine Books

When I’m 64: The ILC-UK Factpack on Retirement Transitions by Dean Hochlaf and

Ben Franklin, International Longevity Centre

Women of a Certain Age: The Midlife Search for Self by Lillian B. Rubin, Harper &

Row

The Year I Turn… A Quirky A–Z of Ageing by Angela Neustatter, Gibson Square

FAMILY AND RELATIONSHIPS

Can We Start Again Please? Twenty questions to fall back in love by Andrew G.

Marshall, Marshall Method Publishing

Don’t Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships with Your Adult Children by Ruth Nemzoff, Palgrave Macmillan

Don’t Roll Your Eyes: Making In-laws into Family by Ruth Nemzoff, Palgrave

Macmillan

The Good Granny Guide by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall, Short Books

Make Love like a Prairie Vole: Six Steps to Passionate, Plentiful and Monogamous

Sex by Andrew G. Marshall, Bloomsbury

The New Granny’s Survival Guide by Gransnet, Vermillion

Open Your Heart: the 7 Secrets of Strong and Loving Relationships by Sue Plumtree,

The Over 50s Love Specialist

HEALTH

The Drink Less Mind by Georgia Foster, Foster Publishing

Mindful Drinking: How Cutting Down Can Change Your Life by Rosamund Dean,

Trapeze

Natural Solutions for Dementia and Alzheimer’s: The Ultimate Guide to Prevent Short Term Memory Loss by Dr Marilyn Glenville, Lifestyles Press

Our Ageing Brain by André Aleman, Scribe

Wild Swim by Kate Rew, Guardian Books

Yoga Over 50 by Mary Stewart, Little Brown (out of print but available second hand)

WORK

Turn Your Talent into a Business by Emma Jones, Harriman House

FICTION

The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble, Canongate

No! I Don’t Want to Join a Bookclub (and three other novels in the series) by Virginia Ironside, Penguin

Acknowledgements

When researching a book or a feature there is often a turning point when suddenly all the parts of the jigsaw fall into place. It’s always a thrilling moment. Someone describes an experience or a feeling during an interview that hits the nail on the head, and you’re off. With this book it happened so many times that I’ve lost count. So I owe a huge debt of thanks to all the men and women who shared their experiences of retirement – good, bad, challenging and sad – so openly and articulately with me. I also want to thank the sociologists, psychologists, psychotherapists, financial and retirement experts who were incredibly generous with their time, knowledge and wisdom.

Thank you also to executive coach Lisa Zeff for helping me to see the wood from the trees, financial adviser Carol Higgin-Jones for reading the manuscript, and Esther Goodwin Brown of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Alison Cahn of Lancaster Cohousing went the extra mile in helping to organise my visit, and I am very grateful to her and everyone at LCH for their warm welcome.

Finally, a big thank you to my agent, Laura Longrigg at MBA, for her enduring support and to Charlotte Croft at Bloomsbury for her insightful editing and enthusiasm for this project from the word go. Thanks also to the rest of the wonderful team at Bloomsbury, especially Sarah Connelly, Holly Jarrald, the copy editor Mandy Woods and the proofreader Jenni Davis.

Index

adaptability here, here

adrenalin here, here, here

ageing: exercise and here

Airbnb here

alcohol here

Alzheimer’s here, here

annuities here

anxiety here, here

asylum seekers here

bereavement here, here

Brahma Kumaris here

brain health here

brain stimulation here

diet and here

exercise and here

sleep and here

budgeting here

calcium here, here

career average revalued earnings (CARE) schemes here

childcare here, here, here

cliff-edge retirement here, here

close-knit communities here

clothes here

co-housing here, here

Lancaster Cohousing here, here, here

Postlip Hall, Gloucestershire here

commitments

over-committing here

regular commitments here

communication

couples counselling here

without counselling here

confidence here

lack of here

control, relinquishing of here

attitudes to here

going back to work here

knowing when to stop here

and loss here

counselling here, here, here

decluttering here, here

defined benefit (DB) schemes here

defined contribution (DC, or money purchase) schemes here

dehydration here

dementia here, here

depression here, here, here

exercise and here, here

loneliness and here

post-menopause here

diet here, here

divorce here, here

downsizing here, here

early retirement here, here

emotions, mixed: dealing with here

employment rights here

employment tribunals here

empty nest here, here, here

energy here

equity release here

executive (life) coaching here, here

exercise here

and ageing here

and brain health here

and depression here, here

existential issues here

death of friends here

family history here

religious beliefs here, here

spirituality here, here

experiences: value of here

eyesight here

family history here

final salary schemes here

flexi-access drawdown here

freelancers here, here

friends here

age of friends here

death of friends here

ending friendships here

meeting new people here

new connections here

new friends here

nurturing friendships here

reunions here

and transitions here

work friendships here

fulfilment here, here, here

gardening here, here

Gerotranscendence here, here

goals here

and health here

grandchildren here

childcare here, here, here

equal treatment of here

grandparenting at a distance here

moving near to here

multigenerational households here, here

sole charge of here

group travel here

hair care here

happiness: research into here

health here

brain health here

diet here, here

energy here

exercise here, here, here

goals and here

mental health here, here

volunteering and here

homes here

co-housing here, here

decluttering here, here

domesticity v. spontaneity here

downsizing here, here

fresh start without moving here, here

gardening here, here

home sharing here

moving house here, here, here, here

identity here

challenging negative attitudes here

empty nest here

individuality of retirement here

interests beyond work here

loss of here

men and here

money and here, here, here

new identity here

in relationships here, here, here

taking control of here

work identity here, here

informal volunteering here

internet dating here

Lancaster Cohousing here, here, here

language learning here

legacy planning here

life (executive) coaching here, here

list-making here

living alone here

bereavement here, here

close-knit communities here

co-housing and here, here, here

divorce here, here

group travel here

independence without isolation here

internet dating here

making it work here

men and here

solo travel here

lodgers here, here

loneliness here, here, here

avoiding loneliness here

and depression here

loss

death of friends here

of identity here

of purpose here

relinquishing control here

of status here, here

meditation here, here, here, here, here, here

mental health here, here: see also anxiety; depression

mentoring here

mindfulness here, here, here, here

mixed portfolio retirement here

money here

affordability issues here

budgeting here

and identity here, here, here

money worries here

positive economies here

saving here, here

topping up income here

money purchase (DC or defined contribution) schemes here

moving house here, here, here

near to grandchildren here

multigenerational households here, here

music here, here, here

National Insurance contributions here

National Insurance credits here

natural world here

negativity here

challenging negative attitudes here

handling negative attitudes here

Nietzsche, Friedrich here

Omega 3 fatty acids here, here

orthodontics here

over-committing here

overweight here

part-time work here

pension pots here

pensions here, here, here, here

timing here

personal pensions here, here

pets here, here

phased retirement here

post-menopausal zest (PMZ) here

Postlip Hall, Gloucestershire here

posture here, here

power naps here

pre-retirement education here, here

preparation for retirement here

help with preparations here

timing of preparations here

procrastination here, here

puritan ethic here

purpose in life here

barriers to finding here

finding fulfilment here

help finding here

loss of here

qigong exercise here

redundancy here

reflective writing here

relationships here

ambitions and dreams here

communication without counselling here

couples counselling here

divorce here, here

expectations here

identity in here, here, here

separate interests/doing things together here

territory here

timing retirement here

religious beliefs here, here

retirement

attitudes to here

men and here, here, here

and old age here

timing here, here, here, here

retirement courses here

retirement parties here

retirement phases here

dealing with mixed emotions here

first year here

post-retirement honeymoon period here

practical steps here

transitions here

retirement planning here

changing your mind here

DIY retirement planning here

timing of retirement here, here, here, here

type of retirement here, here, here

retraining here

retreats here, here

reunions here

routines here

lack of here

saving money here, here, here

self-doubt here, here

self-employment here, here

and pensions here

self-limiting beliefs here

sex here

shoes here

silver divorce, see divorce

sleep: and brain health here

social contact here

social isolation here

social media here

solo living, see living alone

solo travel here

spiritualism here

spirituality here, here: see also meditation; mindfulness; yoga

state pension here, here

status: loss of here, here

storytelling here

succession planning here

supplements here, here

tai chi here

technology here

teeth here

therapy here

transitions here, here, here, here, here

friends and here

visioning here

vitamin D here, here

voice: care of here

volunteering here

and health here

informal volunteering here

questions to ask here

reasons for here

walking groups here

weight here, here

well-being: research into here

work friendships here

work identity here, here

workplace pensions here, here

yoga here, here

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