[2016] TO RETIREMENT
In 1988 we moved to Milton Keynes, following my job move to the Open University. It was the time of the great house price boom. Having lost our first choice, when our solicitor (who we successfully sued) didn’t roll over our deposit, we bought – at a cost of £125,000 - a three story town house on the marina close to the OU. It is best described in the details we provided to potential buyers when – 8 years later – we moved to a bungalow with a ‘granny annex’ and my parents joined us there:
9170 House Sale Woodley Headland [9170T*]
Regrettably we had to sell after the house price crash, and only received £85,000 for it.
On the other hand, we got a bargain in terms of the bungalow we eventually bought.
This bungalow proved to be the near ideal match to our needs, not least because its ‘granny flat’ enabled us to bring my parents to live with us – whilst still allowing them their independence.
The wider context for this is shown by the series of pages I developed for MK Heritage about Marshworth:
[please note that these mainly contain photographs and may not be suitable for dial-up downloading]
Although my work went well at the beginning of the 1990s, my private life was something of a disaster; probably because of the stresses of working – almost as a ‘double-agent’ - in post-war Ethiopia. With the marriage on the rocks, we went to Relate. As the (one-sided) note I wrote at the time will indicate, this was not a great success. However, we are still married, and I have come to terms with the situation!
9137 Me & Pat - Divorce or (Perhaps) Not?
In terms of work, I had assumed that I would work on, continuing my research into the ‘new economics’, well beyond normal retirement age. Regrettably, events and a malicious Dean, conspired to finish my (working) life less agreeably. But, I would still claim that - despite all the angst - it had been a full and productive life:
9138 Personal P & L [9138T*]
9117 Dilettante or Generalist
9302 Illness & Fate
Even in those later years I was able to enjoy some leisure, indeed rather more than in earlier years, indulging like most of my contemporaries in retail therapy:
0205 Local Shopping [0205T*]
0262 Town Shopping [0262T*]
But, unlike them, focusing all my spare time on my one ‘hobby’ or – more accurately – addiction:
9104 Author 1 – Publishing
9165 Author 2 - Writing
But the final event was the destruction of my working life (2020 Destroyed in Court) and, in effect, the end of my life as relevant to this journal of record.
0331 OUBS 3 - Breakdown & Depression/Anxiety
9048 U3A Creative - Farewell to… (a story, written later, describing part of the personal loss at leaving the OU)
In fact that was not the end of my physical life, since I have spent several years bringing together this record. Even so, I have been unable to avoid my insatiable desire to organize the world; I am now chair of the local U3A. But the parting from the OU was the end of the mainstream of my life.
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