Article from EscapeArtists.co.uk

I'm sure this goes against the over-romantic grain of a worry-free future at sixty plus but retirement, too often, can be a bore. No more regular letters, telephone or e-mails to remind oneself of a lost sense of belonging. Daily travel routines, paid holidays and occupational links quickly disappear, no new ideas to explore and the gang one has known for years soon forgets you even exist. Even worse, as the ageing process continues, partners die or leave, your neighbourhood becomes a lonely place and, as a singleton, pubs become more attractive than they should with holidays alone losing their appeal.

You can, of course, if you survive this first blitz, join voluntary organisations, read the Guardian obsessively, think about part-time work and seek an outside world for oneself. The problems here with groups such as charities, not-for-profit businesses and the like is that new generations have now, inevitably and quite properly, taken over. Many of them, as one describes years at the grass-roots with lessening confidence seem, irritatingly, unable to comprehend that this reform and that innovation had been thought about many years before. No-one ever rings back, what you thought was a unique range of networks fails to reply even to unpaid offers of help and 'who did you say was calling' commonplace? Even Universities of the Third Age, brilliant though they are, can be somewhat didactic, arguably over-passive and fail to re-engage with the real world of breaking new, integrated ground.

So often aimless leisure, especially if you are alone, means that when you wake up in the morning you find yourself still listening to Radio Four at ten, shouting at John Humphries, Melvyn Bragg and even Andrew Marr who all, annoyingly, show no signs of listening. Followed by the big trip to town for the paper and/or the library, cinema or shopping at the Coop where you rarely see anyone you knew before.

Even with excellent radio four programmes, backed up by the superb BBC World programme where they really try to involve themselves with common people, the media generally fails to connect with listeners seeking to improve the quality of their sometimes lonely days. Unaware perhaps of the need to learn new, grass-roots oriented skills about our new worlds. 'Only connect' wrote Forster but, in reality it's often a tough world out there. So who was it coined that remark, which I even heard on the radio today, retirement means consigning people to the scrapheap?

You could even try starting a social enterprise, community business or the like but, again, it's incredibly hard to make progress as membership of the Old Farts Club takes root.

I have two recent memories of starting initiatives from scratch, intensive funding challenges and over-competition from newcomers certain they can reform the world alone and who seem to have learned nothing from past generations. Gradually a sense of despair takes over as you look for some niche based on past experience, knowledge and a sense of cooperation. It's alright whilst you are still active, walking, talking and biking but, too quickly, despondency sets in.

Perhaps what we should all be doing is thinking more pro-actively about ways in which our life-skills could connect with other people’s action, research, ideas and future planning, aggressively keeping our intellects, and bodies, alive and well.

Which could also be an effective way of combating inevitable health problems as the ageing process accelerates. How many of you out there have had a PSA tests recently as strokes, heart attacks and dementias threaten? If we could achieve this more radically, and I cannot see any evidence of any debate that turns the problems, and benefits, of ageing on its head, perhaps we could all rejoin, in a small way, the world outside. After all over-glamourised travel supplements, even if you can afford them, quickly tire. As does too much reading, television and not enough conversation with outsiders. These thoughts may seem rather pessimistic but there's no good reason why we shouldn't stride more confidently, if our knees and hips allow it, down this often uncharted and badly signposted route.