Sixty Five
This weekend will mark my 65th birthday. For some reasons I only partially understand, this birthday seems to carry some extra significance.
One reason for the significance must be that for most of my life, 65 was the state retirement age for men and 60 for women. Some time along the way some politicians woke up and realised that people were living longer, enjoying longer retirements and costing the state money they could not really afford. This happened in parallel with policies aimed at equalising more things between men and women.
I am told that the implementation has been so slow – and politically difficult too – that I can start collecting a UK state pension quite soon, within a few months, although my health is always vulnerable and I also hope to be a taxpayer in Portugal by then. Whatever the outcome, the number 65, and my upcoming birthday, will retain some special relevance for me.
65 as an age was never especially relevant for me, apart from the pension question. I joined Shell straight from college, and they were so rich in those days that our normal retirement age was set at sixty, even though the physical stress of the work of most of us was rather small. Then I chose to lop ten more years off my working life, leaving Shell at fifty. With some help from freelance work, I managed to hold off taking my Shell pension until I was 57. People thought this was a risk, but I calculated that I would have to live until 90 before those choices would cost me money. Of course, as these stand now, it all looks rather wise. In any case, I was lucky to have had these opportunities. Many people nowadays do have such chances, but most choose instead to slave on, often well past 65.
When I recall the long era of the pension at 65 (or 60 for women), I often think of my father. I don’t think he was given any choice but to retire at 65, and his body was certainly tired at that point, even if the main contributory factor behind that was not mining coal but puffing fags. There was nothing unusual about that, and the outcome was probably quite a common one too. He retired in January, had a major heart attack in March, then took on a job as a cabbie, which he loved and served him to sail past his 65th birthday in June. But an even bigger heart attack followed in the next March which did for him, so he never made it to 66.
A plot of male death ages during that era would probably indicate 65 as its mode. Retirement offers liberation, but for many the additional stress of rebuilding a marriage and of finding enjoyable things to do. Heavy smoking often catches up with us pretty quickly too.
What about myself? Well, barring a rapid catastrophe today or tomorrow, I have at least made it to the milestone age of 65. On my 63rd birthday I did not rate my chances of reaching 64, and 65 seemed a long way away when I turned 64. Looking back, I didn’t fully realise it but I believe cancer was already active by my 62ndbirthday. I did not feel well that summer and the symptoms were surely there if I had been looking harder. Thank goodness I actually did something about my eyesight symptom, and rather more quickly than most.
Now I suppose I have to think of the chances of making 66. I don’t see any reason to change my internal model for that, some sort of modified Poisson distribution. At 62 and a half, once diagnosis was established and prognosis possible, I alighted on a guessed life expectancy of 12-18 months. Furthermore, as long as I felt much the same and displayed similar symptoms and response, that life expectancy would stay about the same.
There have been a few bumps along the way when 12-18 months seemed rather optimistic, but luckily these have all passed so far and my overall condition remains much as it was. A 66th birthday still seems a long way away, and we continue to use a three month calendar for planning. Anything further away than that seems too far to anticipate.
I should also note that there some immediate benefits from turning 65. It varies by country, and I will have to do some research for Portugal, but I think I can now expect free busses, discounted cinema tickets and a wealth of other minor benefits. I have quietly been enjoying some of these for years already, without much attempt at cheating. The first time somebody offered me their seat on a Dutch tram I was still in my mid-forties – but then I always looked old for my age.
Are there lessons to glean from such rambling? Probably not many, and the most significant might be to remember my old age entitlements before throwing cash at people. At the more significant end, there is the luxury question that many can now ask themselves, about whether and when to retire, recognising that retirement can look very different for different people.
Pn balance, following the old joke about people approaching St Peter with the wish that they had worked harder (i.e. nobody). My guess is that more people would be wise to take retirement rather earlier, but I understand how personal such a decision is. For me, on this subject as well as so many others, I have no regrets at all.
Now, after this weekend, you can officially call me old.
