Age is Just a Number E-Book

Francis Brennan

• Herausgeber: Gill Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 269

Beschreibung

Francis Brennan is getting older, but instead of slowing down, he's busier and more excited about life than ever. Yes, he's had a few knocks, from health scares to losing loved ones, but with the wisdom of his years under his belt, he is certain that his best years are ahead of him. In this guide to growing older gracefully, Francis speaks to the experts and shares practical advice based on his own experiences. It will show you how to stay connected to the world, continue to challenge yourself, maintain good health and psychological wellbeing, navigate change with a positive attitude and look after your finances. And naturally, Francis will also share his tips for staying stylish and having fun – whatever your age!

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

1. Work and After

2. Your Emotional and Physical Health

3. Age is an Attitude

4. Friendship and Relationships

5. Family with a capital ‘F’

6. Looking Good and Feeling Great

7. Finances for Older People

8. Going Home

9. Francis’s Twenty Tips for Growing Old Gracefully – and with Joy!

Copyright

About the Author

About Gill Books

Introduction

This idea came to me because I’m getting old! I never thought I’d say it, but I will be 70 this year, and although I’m still running around, I’ve had a couple of health scares and have begun to experience some of the losses and the challenges, as well as the benefits, of getting older. I am a diabetic and recently had a stent fitted after a heart scare, so I know what it’s like when life catches up with you.

However, no matter how much giving out we do about the modern world and all its stresses and strains, there’s no doubting that life for older people is a great deal better than it was even 50 years ago. For a start, our life expectancy has increased. In 1925, it was 57.4 for men and 57.9 for women; according to the most recent CSO figures, from 2016, it is 79.6 for men and 83.4 for women. That’s an extraordinary leap in less than a hundred years and, health permitting, gives us an extra quarter-century in which to enjoy our lives.

We know that old age can often be a time of loss, but also of unexpected opportunity. I was happily minding my own business as a hotelier in Kerry until I was almost 60, when I was asked to do a TV show called At Your Service. I had no idea where it would lead, but it’s been great fun, travelling all over the country meeting people. It’s been all the more enjoyable because I never expected it. Life truly can be full of surprises. Yes, some of them might not be all that brilliant – but the key is to meet each change with as much positivity as we can.

There’s no real ‘manual’ for those of us who are getting older but are still full of beans, despite life giving us a few knocks. This book will hopefully fill that gap, with lots of practical suggestions and examples from my own life and what I’ve learned as I’ve gone through it. It won’t be preachy, I promise, but I hope it will have something for everyone – not just those who can afford a certain lifestyle or who have plans to travel the world, but also those looking after older loved ones, or facing health challenges, or simply wondering how to navigate the closing chapter of their lives.

My mother died in early 2020 at the ripe old age of 96, and I miss her and our daily phone calls terribly. Thankfully, she died before Covid, which I think took a lot out of all of us, particularly the elderly, as our isolation increased. But Mum was a great example of how to grow old with dignity and grace. She lived life to the full to the very last, with a constant stream of callers to the house and a full social life. I hope I grow old just like she did.

Happy reading!

1.

Work and  After

‘There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.’

Bill Waterson, Calvin and Hobbes

I decided to start this book with something that I know I’ll have to face eventually: retirement. I’m hoping to keep working for as long as possible, but I know that I’m at the gateway to the final period of my life. However, as you saw in the introduction, that period might well last another 20 or 30 years! Imagine that. My poor dad died in 1988 of emphysema, having had the disease for 17 years, and hardly had time to enjoy his life in retirement, so I’m determined to make the most of the opportunities that I have – many of which my father gave to me – and to enjoy this phase of my life.

I was listening to the radio one day last year and the journalist Tommie Gorman was being interviewed about his retirement. What was plain to me was how much he missed the cut and thrust of the newsroom in RTÉ. ‘Work keeps me alive,’ he said. That’s a statement I agree with. For me, work is such a large part of who I am. It gives structure to my life, provides me with lots of challenges and is very fulfilling. I consider myself a lucky man. But another thing he said interested me: that he felt he had a moral obligation to let the next generation have its time. I had never really thought of it in that way, but he’s right. The next generation needs to learn the ropes, and sometimes that means that we older people need to hand the baton over. I do feel that older people still have a lot to offer from all of our years at work, but we can do this in other ways – in my case, it’d be talking in catering colleges and training up new recruits to the hotel business, passing on the skills they’ll need to succeed, but leaving the day-to-day running of the Park Hotel Kenmare to others.

I’m well aware that for some of us, who are lucky enough to do work that we love, retirement is not something we relish, but others can’t wait to get out the door and onto the golf course or to pursue other interests. I had a coffee with a friend the other week, and she was telling me about her retirement, and I found what she had to say very interesting. She had decided to pay her mortgage off as early as she could, so that she’d ‘buy’ an extra couple of years (though bear in mind that you might face penalties if you do have the extra cash to pay off your mortgage early), and then she’d made a plan. And the plan was to have no plan! She’d decided that, after 40 years of working, her priority was to be unscheduled and unstructured, to go where the wind took her and to do whatever she felt like doing at the time.

I can understand that impulse, but because I don’t work to a particular schedule in my day job, I would actually like to have some structure in my retirement. At the same time, I became a TV ‘personality’ (I say that in inverted commas!) after a long career in the hotel business, so I suppose that’s been an incentive to keep going for as long as I can before I retire. I still travel for the hotel trade shows, too, even though I no longer need to, simply because I enjoy getting out and about and meeting people. I still consider myself a hotelier, first and foremost. Having said that, in my second career, as I like to call it, there are opportunities that have come out of left field, so I want to make the most of them. If I do have a plan for retirement, it’s to spend more time with friends and family, with my nieces and nephews, and to garden more. Otherwise, I’m perfectly happy to keep on working.

No two retirees are alike. Some, finances permitting, will want to travel, others will want to spend time in the garden, some will want to spend more time with family, others will want to mark things off their bucket lists, and so on. A friend of mine is returning to college to do a degree in environmental science with a view to undertaking his own rewilding project, having worked in the media for his entire life. It just goes to show that we can have second acts – and that these can be as fulfilling and exciting as our first.

Planning Principles

1. I think it pays to have a general plan, even if, like my friend, it’s to have no plan. That requires planning in itself – to take up an invitation to visit a friend, to go to the movies once a week, to buy the book-club book (you can always order it from the library, just so you know!) or to indulge in the occasional treat or few days away. That way, you’ll be able to factor it into your thinking about retirement.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask about your entitlements. There is no need to be embarrassed about it – why would you be, when you have worked hard for your entire life, whether outside the home or not? You might be surprised what you’re entitled to.

3. Think about whether you want to ‘work’ after your official retirement. This might be part-time, on a consultancy basis or as a volunteer, giving back to your community. Many people, myself included, find that having meaningful outside interests helps with the transition from employment to retirement. See above!

4. What hobbies would you like to explore? Have you always wanted to learn Spanish or, as in the case of a 70-year-old man I read about in the paper recently, learn to ride a motorbike? Time is the one thing you’ll have at your disposal, so having some ideas about how you’d like to spend it will be just the ticket. Remember, hobbies don’t have to be expensive. You can visit galleries and libraries, you can join community book groups and voluntary organisations, all of which cost nothing.

5. If you wanted to, could you make money from your hobby? Side hustles are all the rage nowadays! A friend of mine told me about an acquaintance who is a passionate fly fisherman, but his day job was in the public sector. However, someone approached him by chance and asked if he’d be interested in being a rep for a popular fishing brand. It wasn’t a full-time job, but it was a sideline, and out of that grew a thriving business. The key is, he did this gradually: he built his website, mailing list and the informative videos he posts on all matters fishing while he was phasing out his day job, so when he was ready to retire, he had a nice little earner to support him.

6. Friends are essential in life, and particularly in retirement, but ironically we can lose touch with friends with our busy lives and then find ourselves isolated when we are no longer working. Maintain your friendships now, and make sure that you have friends outside of the office and in the younger generation to keep you up to date.

7. Get to grips with technology. I say this as a man who isn’t that brilliant with tech, but it’s essential for us older folk. The other day, my nephew introduced me to Revolut, for example, and I was astonished that it was so easy – and so quick – to spend my money! Seriously, the younger generation are your friends here, and my nephew was a great help in showing me how to use the online banking app, how to use a virtual card and so on. We need to be aware of security issues, without getting too excited about it, and here our banks can help with security questions. Many of them have specialists in the area who will talk to you about how best to protect your account. Generation Tech – www.generationtech.ie – is a group that offers support to older people with all matters technical, which is an excellent idea. Their website has lots of information and they even have a hotline, manned by volunteers, so if you don’t have handy youngsters in your lives, give them a try. I did read somewhere about an old lady who referred to the ‘Plus’ channels on her TV – ITV 1 +1, RTÉ 1 +1 and so on – as ‘the aftermath’, which made me laugh out loud. I know what she means!

8. Plan to be a joiner – no, not someone who saws bits of wood! If work is your main source of a social life, diversify a bit. Join a community group, a sports centre, a sailing club, a group of hardy outdoor swimmers. Whatever form it takes, being part of something is essential to our well-being. I’m not a huge hobbyist, apart from my love of gardening, but I am a member of lots of hotel- and tourism-related groups and I love going to all the board meetings, as well as meeting all kinds of people on my travels.

– The Passage of Time –

It seems that as we get older time speeds up – at least, our perception of it does. As I found out in a Harvard University paper, the reason time seems to speed by has to do with the ability of our brains to process images. When we’re young, we can capture so many more in a minute, or an hour or a day, than we can when we’re older, so a day can seem to last for ever. When we’re old, our ability to do this declines. So time isn’t actually going faster, it’s just us!

However, one thing that does take some getting used to in retirement is having all those hours to fill that were once occupied by work. Some of you might even be wondering if all the years slaving away were worth it. Maybe we have regrets about roads not taken, careers we might have had or choices we did or didn’t make. This is perfectly normal. If it helps, reassure yourself that you were doing what you had to do to support your family or to keep a roof over your head and pay the bills. And you succeeded! And, hopefully, you’ll have got something out of your work above and beyond that – just like my father, who worked every day of his life in his shop and loved it. Whatever your situation at this stage, you’ll probably have learned that life often doesn’t take the shape that we expect, and all we can do is make the best of now. We simply don’t know what lies around the corner.

But while we are still – hopefully – relatively healthy, it’s a good idea to give some thought to how those eight or so hours a day will be filled when we retire. After the hubbub of the retirement do, there will come a time when it’ll hit you – that you are now, officially, retired.

It might be a bit scary to imagine that first day post-work. Maybe you will feel relieved and delighted that you have the time to do things you enjoy. Perhaps you’ll feel lonely after all the years of company in the workplace, where you felt that you were an essential part of the team. You might feel that you still have essential skills that you’d love to share. Mixed emotions are part and parcel of any life transition, whether it be having a family, moving home, a sudden illness and so on. But giving it some thought before you retire and exploring the possibilities for filling your time will make the transition easier. For example, thinking about the aforementioned career choices: would you like to try something new in retirement? Something you’ve always wanted to do but told yourself you never had the time to pursue?

Of course, things like being as fast as Usain Bolt or filling Elon Musk’s space shuttle might be a bit far-fetched, but if you’ve always wanted to run, try a Couch to 5k. I’ve seen them all running around like mad things in Kenmare doing the Parkrun as well on Saturday mornings, and the brilliant thing is you get lots of encouragement and meet like-minded mad people! If you’ve always wanted to be a journalist, could you write pieces about your area of interest or hobby? There’s nothing better than the internet for promoting and discussing this kind of thing. You can be as ‘niche’ as you like and still find an audience. So, if you have a passion for fly-tying or volleyball, why not share it? You could even have your own website and blog.

You could also practise being retired, if that makes sense. Rather than walking out the door on that last day in work, see if you can phase yourself out of work by going part-time or freelance (pension permitting) to see how the looser structure suits you. Don’t panic if it seems a bit much at first – it’ll get easier. Anything that allows you to get a picture of what retirement might look like will be helpful.

– Double Trouble vs Singledom –

Some people envy the fact that I’m a single person: they often say things like, ‘Oh, you must be only delighted to get up and go whenever you like.’ Or, ‘Isn’t it great not to have any responsibilities in life?’ I don’t get too upset about it, because my choices are my own and I’m happy with them, but I’ve found that I’ve had to give my old age some thought because of my status. I don’t want to assume that my family will look after me, because they have their own lives, but I also know that I might need help at some point in the future and that I have to plan for that.

According to the latest available data from the CSO, ‘The share of the population aged 15 and over who were single increased from 41.1 per cent in 1996 to 43.1 per cent in 2006, but has fallen back to 41.1 per cent (1,544,862 people) in 2016.’ Interestingly, however, the proportion of single populations has grown in cities such as Dublin, at 53.2 per cent, and Galway, at 53.3 per cent. That’s a lot of single people, so I know that I’m not alone.

We single people used to be considered outliers, referred to as ‘spinsters’ or ‘bachelors’ – remember the term ‘maiden aunt’ for an unmarried aunt, or worse, ‘old maid’? Apparently, the term ‘bachelor’ originated in the works of Chaucer, whose ‘lively bachelor’ spent his time carousing and jousting and generally having the time of his life! According to a fascinating article I came across in Smithsonian magazine, spinsters were simply women who spun yarn for a living. It was only in the nineteenth century that the term became a negative one, with writers like Jane Austen fully understanding the implications for women of remaining single. I enjoyed this description of Jane’s acceptance of a marriage proposal from a Mr Bigg-Withers, which I came across on her fan website www.janeausten.org. ‘Sensing the practical measure of both their situations, Jane agrees to the marriage. Bigg-Withers is due to inherit a sizeable amount of real estate and is well off. His one negative seems to be Jane’s indifference to the man as a whole.’ Well, that would certainly do it! She wrote to him the following day and rejected the offer, but this was most unusual at a time when women depended on men for their financial well-being.

Of course, we know all about the bachelor farmer from our own history. A newspaper article from 1914 notes that, while English bachelors amounted to 12 per cent of the population, the number in Ireland was a considerable 27.3 per cent. Farming was to blame, according to many, with eldest sons being kept on the farm to help out and thus remaining single. The implication was that you’d somehow failed at something, but now singledom is increasingly regarded as a life choice, both for men and women. This means, of course, that we will, in all likelihood, remain so into old age.

One of the biggest things single people worry about is financial security in their old age. There’s no doubting that we have to give this some thought, because we’ll be entirely self-reliant and unable to lean on our other halves in old age. If you can, put in place some plans as early as possible – you’ll see more about pensions below and in Chapter 7. Have a think about your will and whom you’d like to leave your worldly goods to. This is particularly relevant to single people who may want to choose a particular relative or relatives to benefit from their will, rather than, say, a brother or sister. I’m just giving examples here, not suggestions!

The other thing I’ve had to think carefully about is EPA or Enduring Power of Attorney. I look at this in Chapter 7 also, but I’ve given the matter a lot of thought, because I know that the person I appoint will be responsible for my financial affairs and my medical choices in the event that I’m no longer able to do so. It’s quite a responsibility. So, recently, I decided to bite the bullet and go to my solicitor to get it done. However, I was slightly miffed that I had to answer a range of questions to prove that I was mentally competent, like ‘Who is the President of Ireland?’ and ‘What date is it today?’ I got the second one wrong!

However, us singletons aren’t the only people who will need to think about how life will change once we’ve retired. Couples may have different issues, but they still have some thinking to do. Now – i.e. before you retire – is the time to have that conversation! Do you have a retirement project that you’d both enjoy, like travelling together or even building your own downsized home? How much time will you spend with each other? Will you both want to be involved with the grandchildren? You might be surprised at each other’s answers.

If you’ve been at home, the idea of your other half being under your feet all day might be disconcerting, so take a week or two of a staycation to see how you both get along. How will you divide the household tasks now that there are two of you at home? Would you like to have dinner together every evening or just once a week? I can imagine that all these things would be difficult. As a single man, I can do exactly what I like when I like, so I realise that compromise can be challenging.

Accord, the Catholic marriage care service, has some very good advice on their website, www.accord.ie. They acknowledge that while having all this time to spend together can be wonderful, it can also be stressful. A friend of mine told me about her husband getting a ladder out and climbing on the roof of their two-storey home on his first day of retirement. When she asked him what he was doing, he told her he was looking for loose slates … She wondered if this was going to be a regular thing, but after a while, he settled down happily to pursue his own interests and gave her the space she’d always enjoyed. Another friend of mine found that her husband wanted to accompany her to her social activities, which she resented, because she felt that he should find some of his own. Sound familiar to those of you who haven’t spent a lot of time together until retirement? Good to know that these issues are also entirely normal. If you are struggling to adapt, there’s a lot to be said about having a neutral ‘space’ like a marriage counselling service in which to air any issues. No judgement is implied: you are simply working out how to navigate this next stage as a couple.

– Seeing the World –

One of the things you might like to do, either as a single person or a couple, is to travel in your retirement. But travel isn’t cheap, as we know. Still, there are options for those of you who would like a little adventure in your lives, but don’t want it to cost the earth.

• Have you considered house-swapping? There are websites devoted to this way of exchanging your accommodation with that of someone living in your desired location. Yes, you might have to tidy up a bit, but the bonus is the place is free! And people often swap cars, too, so transport mightn’t be an issue.

• Another possibility for older folk is house- or pet-sitting. In exchange for bringing someone’s dog on walkies and feeding them twice a day, you can stay in some pretty nice places. Do check that you can meet their expectations, of course. I loved the listing on one website requiring a house-sitter for six parrots! In six separate cages … But for animal lovers, this can be a brilliant, cost-effective way of seeing the world.

• Walks like the Camino de Santiago are full of older people, who have often ventured on their own. The bonus is that you can meet up with people and just as easily ‘lose’ them if you find them a bit dull! You can stay in the famous communal albergues or opt for small hotels if the thought of snoring/bedbugs doesn’t appeal.

• Small group tours can be a great way of seeing the world if you’re single. You won’t be alone – there will be plenty of others in your situation and you will meet people with a similar sense of adventure. If you would like to go on a cruise, but can’t stretch to the cost of a cabin just for yourself, you can opt to share one for half the price. I know this requires you to share with a stranger, but it also makes a cruise affordable. You never know, you might make a friend for life! Or not … see below!

• Volunteering can be another way to see the world, while imparting some of your skills and life experience to others. Make sure that the company is reputable and that it offers real opportunities to inform and to learn.

• The cost of travel insurance can be eye-watering for older people, but do make sure to buy it. If you fall down the Spanish Steps or are suddenly taken ill, you’ll be glad that you did. Check the small print carefully to make sure that it covers you for all eventualities, particularly if you have a pre-existing condition. Don’t be tempted not to declare it, because it could affect your cover. A friend of mine who was being treated for cancer declared it, and while she found the extra form-filling irritating, she got exactly the cover she needed. To save money, try looking at multi-trip policies, which will cover you for a number of holidays in one year.

Talking about travelling with others reminds me of one of my favourite stories. I’ve always travelled with a group of friends whom I met as part of Skål, a professional organisation for people in the tourist business. When we started travelling together, there were about 20 of us, and we all had a great time together. As a group, we really gelled, and everyone was very relaxed. We never made a fuss out of paying for things, just took turns, and because I was a non-drinker, the group would buy me dinner at the end of the holiday. Perfect!

I like to do the organising because it suits me to be in charge! The only problem is that sometimes the others think that I’m in charge of everything. I have to remind myself always to expect the unexpected. People can get sick on holiday, or have a fall or get lost – all of which has happened in our little group, so I’ve learned to be alert for every eventuality. Once, we were in Venice and I’d organised a private tour of the crypt that lies under St Mark’s Basilica. It’s a part of Venice that visitors rarely see, but it once held the relics of St Mark himself and, while it might not be on the scale of the catacombs in Rome, it’s very atmospheric. It’s dark, winding and as sinister as you’d imagine, and it’s very easy to get lost in one of its many gloomy corridors.

So, I was on extra-high alert to keep my flock together as we followed the tour guide down from the magnificent church into the crypt, listening to her tell us all about the history of the place and how many times it had been flooded over the years. As it happened, one of us had newly been diagnosed with diabetes, but was forever forgetting to bring some sugar to revive himself if he got ‘low’. He wasn’t used to the regime yet, so sometimes he’d give us an awful fright by fainting and needing to be revived with a sugary drink.

I’m sure you can imagine what happened next. We were in the depths of the crypt, having wandered down endless passageways, when our friend began to look a bit peaky. ‘Have you any orange juice or a fizzy drink?’ I asked him. He shook his head and I had a sudden vision of him needing to be stretchered out of the crypt. How on earth would paramedics even get a stretcher down here, I thought, beginning to panic.

None of us had anything suitable, wouldn’t you know. ‘I know,’ I said, ‘I’ll run upstairs to the shop and get something.’ I had no idea where I was or how long it would take, but I headed off, running up and down corridors like a headless chicken until I finally managed to locate the steps back up to the basilica. I hared through the church, hoping that God would forgive me, until I got to the tourist shop on the corner and ran inside. I prayed that they’d have some orange juice among the basilica key rings and models of St Mark’s! Of course, there was a queue and I had to use my three words of Italian to jump to the front, miming the act of my friend fainting and explaining that I needed something sugary – and quick. I can only imagine what the lady behind the counter thought of my pronunciation of ‘succo d’arancia’! I only had a 50 note, which didn’t help my case, but after much grumbling the woman produced a bottle of orange juice and my change. Thanking her profusely, I ran off back down the stairs and into the crypt, racing through winding corridors and heading into dead ends and having to reverse. By the time I found the group, I had broken out in a sweat and my heart was racing. I was in a complete panic.

And there was my friend, sitting up, chatting away as if nothing had happened! Someone else had spotted him and, recognising that he was having a low-blood-sugar episode, had given him a sugary drink. There wasn’t a bother on him! I drank the juice myself and swore that I’d leave them to organise themselves the next time …

– The Nuts and Bolts –

Whether you are waiting for the moment you turn 65 or dreading it, you will still need to think about how it’s going to work in practical terms. That begins with your retirement age. In Ireland, believe it or not, there is no mandatory retirement age. You’ll qualify for the state pension at 66, if you have made enough PRSI contributions, but your contract of employment might state your retirement at 65 or, as in the case of a friend of mine, 60! Heaven forfend! This, in itself, raises another possibility – that we might not get to choose our retirement date. I don’t want to be a harbinger of doom, but it’s wise, in today’s changing world, to be as prepared as you can be: for redundancy, for example, or for a situation in which you might need to avail of early retirement through illness.

The subject of pensions is enough to make my head melt, and I’ll go into it in more detail – you’ll be glad to know! – in Chapter 7, but the situation in Ireland is now changing. Long gone are the days when we could rely on a large pension pot in our retirement, and nowadays, with more and more people moving from job to job, many of us don’t have any pension provision in place. So, as a society, we’ve had to think about how we help people to manage their retirement finances.