An excellent precis

by Bernard Kelly
(Geelong, Australia)

Hello Wendy

You've done an excellent precis on the history of retirement - and just in time I might add because "retirement" is now rapidly evaporating.

My story may give you some further paragraphs:

I'm now 78 and my wife of 53 years died two years ago. Before that we did everything together and then I was her carer for her last four years (she had a slow cancer).

Since then I've tried to maintain my zest for living with volunteer work, but that's not really satisfying. I've always been an entrepreneur and low-level community work is not appealing to me.

However 10 years ago - when we gave retirement some serious thought - we moved to Geelong (which was not too distant from family and friends).

At the time I wrote a book "Exciting, Dynamic Geelong" and recently, I've been using that for background research for my startup business Geelong History Tours, which I market to retirement villages.

And in my reading of bereavement, I've found that it frequently takes two years from the death of a partner for the brain to re-wire itself for the changed circumstances.

So that's where I am now.

Keep up the good work - and may my story be of use to you.

kind regards

Bernard Kelly

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