Active, Older...
Living Life to the Full

People are living longer these days and with the “baby boomer” generation reaching retirement age, most can expect many more years of active life than their parents and their grandparents enjoyed. For one thing there has been better healthcare throughout their lives, far greater prosperity and comfort. Safety in workplaces better regulated, working hours shortened, and living conditions improved beyond all recognition.
This year’s retiree at 60 or 65 was born when austerity was a fact of life and people simply had to make do with what they had. Housing conditions were generally poor, they’d be dismissed as unacceptable these days. Fathers would likely have seen active service during the war, some returning as complete strangers to their children, some sadly not returning at all. National Service saw a great many more men sent overseas in the post war years, but through a child’s eyes at the time those years were normal, everyone was in the same boat. There wasn’t much too eat thanks to rationing, unless you grew or raised it. There was no shame in hand me downs and things like sweets and cake or toys were very rare and precious treats.
Most children then also enjoyed a freedom that doesn’t exist today. They were naturally fitter as a result of playing outside from dawn until dusk. No computer games or TV for them, or lifts to school. No junk food. School was much more formal and even though the leaving age was much lower than it is now, most children still left with a full grasp of arithmetic, neat handwriting and good spelling ability. The decades that followed saw this generation showered with opportunities to better themselves. Some emigrated to Canada or to Australia or New Zealand. Others were able to find apprenticeships to learn trades that led to good well paying jobs and their own businesses. There were more traineeships too for clerical workers and plenty of skilled and unskilled jobs in factories in a nation that was in major rebuild mode.
The work ethic was well ingrained in this generation as was the value of money. By 2007 and their retirement, most have eclipsed what their parents had achieved, by often owning their own houses outright, having cars, having company or private pensions, and savings. Many will have travelled widely too for pleasure rather than war. And even those who didn’t quite manage to scrape together the money to buy their own houses enjoy the kind of luxuries that their parents couldn’t have dreamt of. The things we all take so easily for granted – like the near universal access to hot and cold running water, indoor lavatories, central heating, carpeted floors, electric lighting, double glazing, TVs, washing machines, microwave ovens, cars…
Now it is time for the baby boomers to hang up their boots and retire. Likely the fittest and most active generation of retirees this country has ever seen. But what of the previous generations, those born in times of less opportunity many of who retired from the hard slog of work quite literally worn out. Sixty, sixty five, seventy, seventy five, eighty… these milestones aren’t necessarily considered old these days but there is massive gulf in wellbeing between those who have kept up their interests and stay active and those who have simply consigned themselves to the state we used to call “old age”. We are, of course, not all blessed with physical fitness. Many older citizens suffer a range from a range of conditions which can be crippling to some and darned bothersome and painful to others. Take rheumatism for example and arthritis which affect a high percentage of us in old age to some degree. Others have problems with their circulation or digestion, weakened bones and general stiffness, failing eyesight and hearing, and problems with balance. And perhaps worse still, dementia.
A sprightly eighty six year old, Alice, helps a few days a week out at her local Age Concern shop “If I didn’t do this then I’d be very lonely,” she said. “I love to be out and doing something worthwhile and meeting people. It is not as hard for women though because there are always little jobs to do around the house or people you can help. When my husband retired, for the first month he didn’t know what to do with himself. He’d mope about, getting in the way, feeling useless, like the stuffing had been knocked out of him. But then a friend suggested he take up some voluntary driving, taking some much older chaps to their hospital appointments, helping them with their gardens and that sort of thing. It gave him a whole new lease of life and made both of us realise how fortunate we were to have our health and all our faculties. Joe passed on last year. He was 89 but he’d lived such a good life and we enjoyed those 24 retirement years together. We even got to visit my dear sister, nieces and nephews in Canada in 2000, the furthest either of us had been. Life is what you make it really. ”
One of the key things that retirement brings is the opportunity it presents to do all of the things you’ve longed to but never had the time for. It might be as simple as taking trips to see old friends or in the case of one amazing lady, Jackie Fowler, who came through Ilfracombe recently, setting off on her own to walk all the way around the UK’s coastline. We await news of latest adventures as she makes her way back to Inverness… others may take up drawing or painting, writing or studying, or get involved in a whole new area of business or volunteering that appeals to them. When the need to go to work every day is over, whole new world is there waiting to be explored.
The important thing is to enjoy the precious gift of time and to make the best of it.