This later life - 26

• Most over 50s (74%) still working consider that their capability to contribute to the company they work for is higher now than it was in their 30s and 40s.

• The majority of over 50s (52%) believe working life has changed for the worse in the last 5-10 years of their working life.

• 76% would value reducing work time as retirement approaches and the majority see this as a good trade off against retirement age being raised to 70.

• A surprisingly high proportion (51%) are keen to use their knowledge and skills to start their own business or participate in a start-up in later life.

Television company needs you

Are you about to up sticks, pack in your job, and do what you’ve always wanted to do with your life?  If so, the makers of a new TV series for Channel 4 would like to hear from you.

Twofour Productions, responsible for hit series including The City Gardener, are looking for people planning to use their retirement, early retirement or semi-retirement as an opportunity to live out their dreams.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re a 65-year-old who dreams of opening a seaside café, or a 50-something with a high-pressure city job who’d rather go and keep bees in a sleepy village,” says Executive Producer Jill Lourie.

“We’re looking for people who are clearing the decks, blowing away the cobwebs, and preparing to live the life they’ve always wanted.

“We are looking for people who are staying in the UK, not selling up to live abroad, and we’ll be focussing on your new business venture, be it a cottage industry or something that will make the world sit up and take notice.

“Life Begins is not a show about making money - it’s a series about finding happiness - and our cameras will spend 12 months following your journey every step of the way from the farewell handshake at work, through the selling of your old home and the buying of your new one, to your first tentative steps into the new life you’ve always dreamed of.

“We’ll be watching you leaving your old friends, making new ones, meeting your new neighbours, and finding your feet in whichever arena you’ve chosen for your new life.”

If you’d like to take part in Life Begins or would like to know more, please contact Jon Massey on 01752 333900 or e-mail lifebegins@twofour.co.uk <mailto:lifebegins@twofour.co.uk>

HELP THE AGED home insurance is best buy!

Help the Aged Home Insurance has been named a ‘best buy’ for the fourth consecutive year, according to the June 2004 edition of  Which? magazine.

The magazine reviewed thousands of premiums for a range of scenarios to compile their ‘Best Buy Update’.

It found that Help the Aged offered ‘Best Buy’ policies for contents insurance across all age groups surveyed.

In addition to recognising that older people are often more security conscious, Help the Aged’s home and contents policies also offer discounts for good security systems, smoke detectors and burglar alarms.

For further information call: 0800 41 31 80.

Decorating and the fifty-plus:  a survey of our ways and means 

How much time on average do we spend annually decorating/ maintaining our property?                  

• 23% spend no time maintaining/decorating their property

• 29.5% spend more than 3 weeks per annum, including 41% of women as opposed to 19% of men

• People in the South and Midlands are most house-proud with 40% of spending three weeks or more per year maintaining/decorating their property compared to 4% in the SE and 5% in Scotland.

Which colour schemes do we prefer?  

• White wins: 74% for the lounge, 61% for the dining room, 56% for the kitchen, 68% for halls, 33% for the bedroom and 42% for bathrooms.

• Even so, more men than women like green for the living room. In the Midlands there’s a tendency to purple.

John Updike on later life

• ‘You get tired of news. When you get older you have the right to have no opinions’ 

• ‘Do we have a fear of meaningless - the void, the terrible human smallness? To accept this is to die a bit.’

• ‘We are of necessity hard-hearted under the urgency of our own needs.’

• ‘When you are young you are pretty fearless.   Is that a basic thought all people have, about a paradise lost, blessings withdrawn?  This is not, perhaps, realistic, though it increases with age.’

• ‘Experience is corrupting – and good for you.’

• ‘Dying is a lot like living – until you do it, you don’t know what it feels like’

• “Enough of living”, are the last words Rabbit says. Death is the opportunity to make room for others…  there is a sense of rightness in this.’

Quotes taken from an interview with the author at this year’s  Hay Literary Festival

John Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ novels are available through Amazon

To view previous articles  - see the laterlife-interest index page