What does it feel like to be described as the voice of our times? I can hear you say, well, you’ll never know, pal. You’re far too far up yourself to be considered as the selfless, objective representative of your tribe. And a very fair point that is, I can be a tad introspective when it comes to the thorny (for me) topic of retirement. So why are you even raising this as a question for discussion? I’m not really, it’s just that an old friend having read my blog for the first time, and all due to Facebook which is a part of social media that I don’t have much to do with, if this is the kind of feedback you get perhaps I should pay it more attention. Anyway I digress, he made the observation that my blog was ‘wonderful’, see that’s a direct quote and I was, another quote, ‘the voice of our times’, which I changed slightly in the title to generation. Not too greater liberty I hope. He was of course being amusing, I do get that, I’m not so egocentric as to take his flippant remark seriously, well, not very seriously, but it did spark a train of thought. And at my age that’s good.
It started me wondering what the ‘voice’ of the retirement generation or ‘our’ times might look or sound like. I suppose it would have gravitas (to speak with authority), to be reflective, aware of all the issues concerning retired people, objective, interesting, thought-provoking, wise, witty even. I would also have to rename my blog to something like Baby Boomers Speak Out; Voice of the Boomers; the Voice of ’48; a View from the Retirement Bridge? And then I thought, bloody hell, that’s too much, let’s just forget this ‘voice of a generation / times’ bollocks and concentrate on what I do well, that is being the voice of one miserable old git struggling to come to terms with being retired.
That said, it’s not a bad moment to be reflective because I am coming up to two years retired (end of this month). I do remember listening to a programme on Radio 4 (I thought that was what I was supposed to do as a recently retired person) just after I had retired. It was Clare Balding and her rambling series. In this programme she was walking with and interviewing a group of retired people who had banded together to walk the countryside. I would rather have my testicles trapped in a vice than join a group of retired people and doubly so for one whose main purpose was to walk. But I do remember the words of one of the interviewees who said that it had taken him three years to forget about his job and enjoy his retirement. Long time, I thought, won’t happen to me. I’ll have this retirement business sorted way before that. Dream on. My next-door-but one neighbour retired as a clinical psychologist seven years ago and he still misses his job. He moved into our street about two or maybe three years ago and last week was the first time I have had any kind of conversation with him – that’s an indication of just how sociable I am – but I’m intrigued by what he had to say and I’ve invited him for a beer at our local pub (one he has never been in), if it happens I may find out more. Anyway I digress, again, after two years I should be in some kind of position to reflect on this retirement business. Be in a position to say wise things about how to make a success of it. And I’ve been asked – again – to write a piece for Retiresavvy, the Skipton Building Society blog about retirement, so it would be great to write something startlingly insightful about the whole retirement experience.
That’s not going to happen I can hear you say. No solid evidence of that so far in any other of your blogs, you say. My retirement seems more typified by the conversations I have with other people I meet walking our dogs. I, of course, would ignore them but, as you’ve probably gathered by now, Mrs Summerhouse is a very different kettle of fish, socially. She speaks to them –fellow dog walkers – and occasionally I get dragged into the conversation. I’ve invented a new form of conversation. There has been street talk, trash talk and now drivel talk I specialise in such lines as – so how old is your dog? Or what is his/her name? Or what do you feed him or her on? You get the idea. So great insights may be in short supply here.
But I digress, I do that a lot I know. I call it free flow of consciousness writing and I believe Jack Kerouac wrote the whole of On the Road in this manner. Admittedly he was on drugs but then so am I although mine are for my diabetes and I’ve just had my annual review for that but I’ll keep all that for another time. Anyway I make no apologies for my rambling which is different to Clare Balding’s. It would be pointless to say sorry anyway because that would imply that I intended to change and of course that would be impossible, I only have one literary style and that might be politely summed up as rambling drivel or a drivelling ramble. That sounds quite a long way from the voice of a generation unless that be a generation of rambling drivellers or drivelling ramblers – actually that could work for some of the retired people I know, but let’s be more optimistic about my generation, plenty of inspirational stories around about how great old people are, let’s think of them when I give my summing up.
So summoning all my two years of experience, I reckon, speaking as the voice of (another Pete Townsend reference) my generation, we need to be flexible but with a backbone of structure, focused but not obsessed, positive but not in a happy clappy way, occupied but relaxed, active but in a moderate manner, on holiday but not all the time. Oh and supportive of others but only if they put out first. By heck this is good stuff, maybe I could be the voice of my times after all. People try to put us down, well bollocks to them, forgotten the rest, old age you know. Is that a thousand wise words on retirement speaking as the voice of my times?