Retirement (or Last of the Summer Wine)

Sadly, keeping a diary and a work logbook is something I failed to do. I kept meticulous notebooks while a post-graduate researcher but got out of the habit once the day-to-day happenings became mundane. Fortunately I have never needed such evidence in my defence but now as memories fade questions appear that can never be answered. As a pensioner well into in my eight decade I find our superannuated and state pensions give my wife and me more disposable income that we have had at any time, except perhaps for the first few years of employment until we had no other responsibilities. The Boomer generation is flush with having bought their houses when inflation whittled away their debts and many have final salary, index linked pensions in addition to the state one. (Choirboy finds himself one of the fortunate Boomers.) I cringe at the adverts telling me "smart meters will put me in control". I have smart control of all my individual lighting and heating from wherever I am with an internet connection. What a smart meter does is put "them" in control by being able to charge me variable amounts according to when and how much energy I am using. Goebbels would be proud of the those creating the advertising. Why not explain truthfully that this has to be done to manage intermittent renewable energy. Perhaps people would respect politicians if they told the truth for once! On protest, I will wait until the bailiffs start smashing my doors down before I agree to smart meters.

When I completed my apprenticeship in 1971, I went straight onto individual piecework, and we only got paid for what we got passed by inspection. As the whole shop was on piecework, there was always comments when the new boy got one of the best timed jobs. At that time, I made notes on every job that I did, including sketches of the set up. Wrote down feeds and speeds, and made form tools that got locked away for the next time I got that component to machine. Not needed anything like that since.

I totally agree, Choirboy. I've only ever written down important events, occurrences, date etc. in a relevant folder, either for employees or aspects of the job, and this has always stood me in good stead. On a business studies course some years ago, we were supposed to do "learning logs" in addition to our notes. One or two of us soon stopped, regarding it a pointless exercise and waste of time. Smart meters - a recent newspaper report of their failings branded them dumb meters. As someone who has worked in electrics/electronics all my life, I could never see the point. To be told that a 2.5kW fire is costing me more to run than a 40W light bulb is an insult to my intelligence. As for reliability, I've only ever had one "smart" meter, in a shop. It wasn't long before Npower was asking me for meter readings! (Remember when the utility companies [who are now merely energy-billing outfits] regularly read their own meters?) Eventually, a bloke turned up and replaced both the "smart" gas and electricity meters. I think the gas one is still working, but the replacement electricity one has never worked since it was put in three years ago. Like all digital technology, it cannot be relied on. I shudder to think what will happen when driverless cars hit the roads. Time to give up motoring maybe. meanwhile, I regularly get pestered by companies exhorting me to have smart meters installed in various premises. Which of course I ignore.

Only related to work in a general aspect -I was sorting through a box of books a couple of weeks ago and came upon a stash of diaries I had kept from 1963! starting with little tiny ones and then moving on to those 'locking' ones from Woolworths. They went on through the years, varying in size and amount of information. I don't remember consciously thinking 'I'll keep these" but I'm really glad I did. Who were these boys I was mad about? Where are these old friends? What a great party that was. Oh the memories. When I had a bookstore I had information on day to day activities, both business and personal and then as a school librarian I had my daily duties and classes detailed. By then I'd moved on to one of those diaries that spanned 2 good sized pages in a refillable ring binder cover. Here it all is, almost 60 years of my life. I still keep a diary for day to day stuff and I have the last 10 years worth in my bedside cupboard so that I can refer to fairly recent events. I'm so glad I didn't throw them all out in my many moves over the years.

Hi all, Last week, the media was telling us about a glitch involving Tesco grocery deliveries. An isolated event. Then Sainsbury's, an isolated event. Today, Greggs have an issue. An isolated event? Rules of thumb. Once, isolated. Twice a remarkable coincidence. Three times, I'm not being fooled. A common thread might be an identical software glitch, so woe-betied my groceries on Friday!

Morrisons seemed to be having a problem yesterday as well. They could not come up with the information on my Morrisons More account.

Hi Anne, I'm sorry that I've only just seen your reply. Please forgive me. Yes, their online website was in tatters, but now fully restored. I have enrolled with Ocado as a backup. Might use it next week.

Hello, I'm so sad that so many of our once loved institutions are no longer here, like Woolworths, BHS & so on. What they were selling wasn't bad! A term that's used in business, "Value Added". That term is meaningless unless we add people. Unless there is a product windfall, a business can usually only grow with people. If there is no value added, the business stagnates & dies. The current Post Office Scandal inquiry, is exposing the lack of qualification as well as understand of its management & employees rolls. Businesses top heavy as was BHS & Woolworths. Walk into a high street bank today, you are fortunate if you find a qualified banker. So the disciplines down the chain are not understood. I watched in horror where I witnessed a bank official in Coventry, entering a bank account onto a paying in page, but entering the digits in the wrong order. The supervisor didn't understand either. The funds would have either gone into someone else's account, or into a suspense account. They had to fetch one of the investment managers to explain what they were doing wrong. I appreciate that finance & business was my career, so I would be ill founded if I wasn't aware of what was going on. Aware I usually am, but I still get things wrong. I try to be sensitive in sharing these thoughts, so grateful for our forum platform. Please don't be afraid to share concerns, without giving private details away. We are a friendly forum, where so often just sharing can ease our own minds & folks see where we are coming from.

I'm adding something to that last post, just for thought. Over the decades, particularly since business has sometimes sadly been more important than folk, just consider food for thought. Why has UK politics for over sixty years, invited folk to come & live here from far off lands? Now, they are arriving by the small boat loads. There is little practical difference. Value added? It affects us here in Coventry. Nearly a third of the recent recruits, who are driving Coventry buses are recent arrivals. That's just one industry in Coventry, that was crying out for recruits.

I visit home once a year and usually have to visit our bank and it's usually very fraught. With no desks, only lecterns, it's hard to do business standing up for however long it takes to sort something out. Mostly it's fairly simple stuff that should take a short while but to have to explain things more than once to more than one person is very annoying and it's sad to see the long line building up behind you, often with nary a chair available. We had a wonderful experience in a tiny branch in Lymington, where the staff were of a certain age. They were incredibly helpful AND cheerful. We visit friends there every year so we'll conduct our business at that branch - that is. until they retire. Fings ain't wot they used to be!

There are not many banks left in Lymington now.

Hi Philip, I understand what you say about "crying out for recruits", but with todays culture of receiving handouts it is not generally worth while taking a low or medium paid job. Why work when you can get the money for not bothering? As a kid, my dad was nights supervisor for Suttons bakeries, and most of his recruits were Asian / Indian due to the low pay offered for the job, and this was back in the 50's / 60's. Not a lot has changed in 60 years ??

Also why half the fruit crops don't get picked.

Hi Linda, don't forget to go to "MINES A PASTY" # 9 the High Street

You mentioned these last year so we popped in and were glad we did! Thankyou.