Notes from February: Writing, Woodland, and Book Progress
February has been a steady and focused month, largely shaped by work on my forthcoming book, ThriveSpan: Walking Gently Into What Matters Now. Early in the month I worked through the copy-edited manuscript, reviewing revisions carefully before returning it on 11 February. Since then, my attention has shifted to cover development and the early stages […]
When a Role Ends, Who Are You Then?
Recent events in UK politics have prompted me to reflect on something we rarely talk about openly: what happens to identity when a role ends suddenly. Not retirement.Not a planned transition.But the abrupt loss of a position that has shaped how someone understands themselves, and how others recognise them. In politics, we’re used to seeing […]
Seven Years in the Making: Introducing ThriveSpan
An introduction to the thinking behind ThriveSpan The question of how we live between 60 and 80 has been with me for around seven years. Long before it had a name, I was already thinking about what I have always called the “young-old” years, not as a neat category, but as a distinct stretch of […]
Working Longer: Choice, Need, and the Reality Behind the Headlines
This morning I was on BBC Bristol talking about the plan to raise the state pension age to 67 and the push to keep more people in work beyond 55 and 65. The official argument is familiar: longer working lives will boost the economy and help individuals build bigger pension pots. The Institute for Fiscal […]
January: Writing, Research, and Speaking into the Moment
January marked a quieter but more concentrated phase of work for me. After a sustained period focused on ThriveSpan, I was able to step back from the book itself and turn my attention to the academic article that underpins it. That work matters to me. My writing on later life is not simply opinion or […]
Hamnet: What Remains, What Reaches Back
I went to see Hamnet at the cinema, with Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as Shakespeare. I had been warned partway through that it would be very sad, that I might want a handkerchief ready. But the tears didn’t come where people expect them to. We all know the child dies. That isn’t […]
How People Step Into Later Life
People step into later life in different ways When paid work ends or loosens its grip, something opens up. Not always freedom. Sometimes uncertainty. Sometimes relief. Sometimes boredom. We often talk about “retirement” as if it’s one experience, but in reality people step into later life in very different ways. Not better or worse, just […]
Why I Found Myself Watching Macclesfield
I’m not a football fan.Or at least, that’s what I’ve always said. And yet, there I was, sitting down properly, not half-reading the paper, not doing something else at the same time, but really watching Macclesfield FC play Crystal Palace. Wanting to feel every minute of it. Part of it goes back a long way. […]
Sentimental Value
I came out of Sentimental Value feeling raw. Not overwhelmed exactly, but stripped back. As if the film had asked me to sit with emotions that are usually softened, explained away, or hurried past. At one level, it is a film about family. A father and his daughters. Sisters who carry the same history differently. […]
A Statement for This Decade
I was born in 1957.In August I will be sixty-nine. Next year, I will turn seventy. I don’t experience this as a distant milestone.I experience it as an entry point. I am already in the period of preparing for my eighth decade.From now until my eightieth birthday, I see this as a deliberate span of […]