Old Age

That is all sensible, Clive, and, if I may be rather presumptuous, very admirable.

But I have one suggestion to make that WILL make your retirement much happier: drop Norwich now, and switch your support to Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man Ure or whoever.

As Sir Robert Mark (if I remember correctly) used to say on TV adverts, ‘You know it makes sense’!

(I’ll undertake to call Delia, and explain all.)

On a more serious note, after my frivolity above, I enjoyed very good health all my life, until the start of this year, when I was admitted to hospital, with digestive problems. I’m in a care home at the moment, and hoping to be discharged home very soon. Life is a very precious commodity, don’t take it for granted! I suspect most of us subscribe to the ‘It Won’t Happen To Me’ outlook on life, especially when we’re young(ish). I’ve discovered this year that 'it ain’t necessarily so", sadly.

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Some of my fellow workmates would tell you I retired at 55, whereas I’m telling you I went at 60 & then did a day a week consultancy for the company for a further 3 years!

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Believe me Graham, virtually every other week I want to drop them but there is something in me, that I am at a total loss to explain, & that prevents me from doing so.

What makes it more odd is that I am not from Norwich (Maidstone originally) & my devotion to them began within a month after a business transfer to there in 1979 (until 1983). Best place I ever lived between Maidstone, Canterbury, Manchester & now, even Cornwall.

I have been following your dreadful situation Graham &, along with everyone else here, send you my best wishes for the future. I think it’s important to have something to get up in the mornings for, other than simply being glad you are still alive.

As with me, you have your music & photography &, for me, this is the type of thing you look forward to in retirement. You may care to look at my America photos in the ‘Nice Photos’ thread, posted since Tuesday.

I have also being trying to play acoustic & electric guitar for over 30 years with no success at all. It just seems so bl00dy difficult to me, despite being adequate at most things I try. Eric Clapton will not loose sleep over competition from me!

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Thank you for your good wishes, it’s excessively kind of you indeed. Pleas don’t get me all teary, though.

I’m sitting in my private room in the care home just outside Brighton with very few of my possessions around me, other than my iPhone and this rather old Mac, which is all that is keeping me as sane as I’m ever likely to be these days. But I do have those two lovely unused 40 year-old F2 Titans sitting on a shelf, which I so want to load up with film and start firing away.

There’s a TV in the room, which I have tuned to Radio 3 most of the time. I can confirm, though, that daytime TV really is the sphincter of the entertainment world.

PS I’ve had a look at the great photos. It so happens that I used to spend a lot of time in Chicago and New York on business, meeting other lawyers. I was taken once to a tiny blues/jazz club in Chicago, which I wouldn’t even try to find again.

I might be able to find the Blue Note jazz club in New York, though, where I saw the great singer Nancy Wilson.

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Whilst they may not be your cup of tea, the best memory I have of New York 2007 (along with many others) was seeing Genesis at Madison Square Garden, which, by pure coincidence, coincided with our holiday there.

An unforgettable experience with 3 Brits, OK, plus a couple of foreigners (!), setting the place alight with a sensational near 3 hour set.

Gosh Graham and Clive. You have provided very useful advice in your posts above. I hit 60 next year and will look to either stop work or cut down my working week. I am fortunate that financially I could stop completely, but to be honest having too much spare time frightens me a bit. Bizarre I know.

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I don’t have any Genesis music, but I have nothing against them at all. I think I prefer the stuff with Peter Gabriel.

Speaking of Brit singers in New York, once when I was in a restaurant in New York with a small group of NY lawyers as hosts, I saw Jarvis Cocker at an adjoining table. My elder son James was a Pulp fan, so I went over to ask for an autograph. He couldn’t have been more charming. He got a piece of the restaurant’s headed paper, and wrote ‘James, don’t play games, Jarvis Cocker’. My hosts were amazed at my audacity and at JC’s gracious manner.

James had the signed paper framed, and has it on a wall of his home in London.

Perhaps in 100 years from now one of James’s family will take it to whatever is the TV equivalent of Antiques Roadshow.

I count myself very lucky to have put enough by in savings that I was able to retire at the age of 45 at the end of 2000. I was doing a high intensity job in The City, and it seemed a good idea to get out, with my health intact, to avoid burning out. I do not, and will never, regret that decision. But I was fortunate to be able to retire when I did.

I took well to my life of leisure, I’ve listened to a huge amount of great music, and I can usually crack The Times crossword in about an hour these days, which keeps the brain ticking over. Sure, if I’d stayed at work for another five years, I’d have more money in my bank account, but that’s not important to me.

As they say, you’re a long time dead.

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Goodness, I’m not sure what to say. Your post arrived while I was typing my last reply, but you can see how and why I made my decisions.

One thing I would add is that it’s important that you have, or can develop, interests that make you want to bounce out of bed every morning with things to do. You obviously have music (otherwise you wouldn’t be a Member here), but there are so many other things that you can look forward to each day.

In my case, in addition to music, I love cooking (but not baking!), I like to travel (although I hardly ever go as far as I used to for work), I love photography (especially with two brand new 40-year-old SLR cameras) and my six-year-old granddaughter is the most precious little girl in the world to me.

Having some dear friends also keeps me sane and happy, if ever I’m feeling down (which is part of the human condition).

And, funnily enough, being able to vent feelings on this Forum, with so many people that I have come to regard as friends that I shall never actually meet, helps a lot too!

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Clearly you can’t move in New York without tripping over rock stars.

During our 2007 trip we stayed at the Hyatt Hotel on 42nd Street, between the Chrysler Building & Grand Central Station & a stones throw from the UN.

Just as this year, every two years there is a UN conference attended by most world leaders towards the end of September & 2007 was no exception. A lot of the more minor leaders were staying at the Hyatt, including the lunatic Iranian leader at the time. We were on the 32nd floor & a lot of the rooms had armed guards outside. My wife was quite alarmed & I could not comfort her by saying that, at the time, we were probably in the safest place in America, armed guards & security men inside & armed police (& troops each time the Iranian leader arrived & left) outside. I actually shared a lift down one morning with a chap & his body guard who began a conversation with a fellow passenger ‘When I was Prime Minister of New Zealand…’!

Anyway, in the large lobby there was a lot of political schmoozing going on & we were sitting watch this one evening when in walked Bono to shake a few hands & no doubt, try to influence some of the assembled politicos.

I have felt guilty since then over never ‘getting’ U2, other than perhaps their half a dozen ‘greatest hits’!

I think there is a bond in this Community where we genuinely care about each other and in my experience that’s not something you find in the real world.
I have found great comfort when I’ve used this platform to get things off my chest and the older you get the more important that becomes.

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Or film and TV - my haul was Eva Mendes, Conan O’Brien, Paul Newman, Liza Minnelli and my personal favourite, Kristin Davis. That was just the ones I noticed.

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Is it hereditary?

P.S how do you retire at 55? That was my dream, but 57 is approaching now and the cost of living situation is not helping, so on plan B of part time work, which is pretty good really.

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I’m two years in and would have to say, the transition between free time being precious to almost worthless is the biggest adjustment.

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Well as for 55…… you can, but the state pension now kicks in at 66. So i was on a company pension based on final salary….they offered me a redundancy deal. I had 35 years service, so i get 35/52 of my final salary plus redundancy. Also the government started taxing pension pots……i got out in time. It’s why the Doctors are in short supply………tax of pensions….just retire and go locum or just retire.
Hereditary for dementia……there does seem to be a spate of them on my wife’s side of the family, some quite young?

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I couldn’t disagree with you more about time since retirement being ‘worthless’.

I see it as giving me scope to do whatever I want to do - as long as it’s legal and doesn’t scare the horses! [I must find out where that lovely phrase comes from.]

I wonder if you feel able to say what you think is holding you back? (I have no wish to pry, of course.)

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I’m pretty much the same, went down to the wire, and now just plain bored. Of course it wasn’t helped by retiring three weeks before the first covid lockdown. In that first year both cars went through less than a tank of petrol. :grinning:

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It’s been put to me that it’s important to have something to retire TO and not just retire FROM. The lockdown thing derailed the plans for a number of my friends and former colleagues who were then stuck for ‘plan B’ and their general take is the same as those in this thread who are bored. However, whether it’s charity work/volunteering, travel, U3A or whatever, I now see plans crystallising, enthusiasm returning and folks are hard to get hold of they’re so busy!

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Graham, by worthless I mean scarcity. While working, I would have paid someone to spend 3 days powerwashing my decks and driveway.
Today I do that myself, since I still have enough time to pursue all other interests. While working, those other interests would have been mutually exclusive if I didn’t hire someone.

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