The highway code for retirement

David Winter
CWR, 2012, £6.99, Pbk., 101p., ISBN 978-1853456688

When I came to examine this book I found it very positive and David Winter seems to cover everything that a person who has just retired, or is about to retire, would want to know.

When I started in the Gideons in South Wales, an old hand at Gideon work told us, “If you get retired people in the movement, they spell it with a ‘y’ in the middle, because they go faster that anyone else”. In fact, in one of the branches, the school placements were managed by a few retired folk, because the ordinary Gideons would not be able to get time off work to do the job. So I think David Winter would probably agree with me that “retire” should be spelt “re-tyre”.

I think the chapter on “Planning for Retirement” is very helpful. When my immediate boss and I were going to retire we went on a pre-retirement course that was organised by Bolton Corporation and it was a lady speaking to us about the University of the Third Age that prompted me to join it.

I like the summaries at the end of each chapter, “Ten Commandments for Planning”, etc. Right at the end David has the “Ten Commandments (Final Version)”. This comes at the close of the chapter headed “What’s good about being retired?”

The only deficiency is that the book does not have an index and there is no list of addresses of organisations, e.g. U3A, but then the contents give a good guide to the various aspects of retirement and anyone with any sense would either use the Internet or go to their local library to find out whether there are U3A or other organisations in their area.

The case studies are very good. I think I can say that retirement for me has been very rewarding. In fact my late wife admired the way I adjusted to my new way of life. I think that she would say that I was “RE-TYRED”.

I would definitely commend this book to anyone who is about to retire.

Contributed by: Philip Hayworth, who is a CLIS Life Vice-President  who worked until his retirement as the Chief Cataloguer for the public library service in Bolton.