Why You Won't Get Rich by Robert Verkaik

Why You Won't Get Rich by Robert Verkaik

Author:Robert Verkaik
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oneworld Publications


13

SAVERS

THE SAILOR AND THE DINNER LADY WHO RAN OUT OF MONEY BEFORE THEY DIED

The deal between the state and the pensioner has always been transparently fair and straightforward: if you pay your taxes until you reach sixty-five the government will financially provide for your retirement.

That was the basis upon which Jack and Cynthia Queen conducted and managed most of their lives. So when Jack turned sixty and started to look forward to a new chapter in his life, it was reassuring to know that he had taken care of his future by playing by the rules and doing the right thing. Jack was part of the generation who were too young to go to war but old enough to be required to give up 2 years of their life in the national service of their country. He had family members who had made terrible sacrifices in the war and so Jack was proud to be able to play his part in the national call of duty in 1949.

After initial training Jack became a qualified ‘batsman’ on board the aircraft carrier HMS Implacable using his ‘paddles’ to guide Seafire fighter planes on and off the ship. He stayed in service for an extra year so that there was no doubt he had done his bit.

In 1952 he left the Navy and joined Chelmsford local authority as a town planner, rising to deputy head of planning. It was a secure job that allowed him to map out a good career:

My older brother was killed in the war flying bombers over Germany. All I really wanted was a steady, rewarding career, a professional one if possible, that gave me a sense of purpose. I wanted to work hard but I also wanted to have time to appreciate the years of my life that my brother didn’t have.

Jack married Cynthia in 1961 and they had two children. Cynthia was a full-time mum and housewife and Jack looked after all the financial matters. It was an arrangement that worked very well for them until the children left home. Then Cynthia wanted a bit of independence and got a job as a dinner lady at their children’s old school. She became a union activist and fought for equal pay for the dinner ladies so that they were on a par with the caretakers and teaching assistants.

After decades of hard word, Jack and Cynthia retired in the same year, 1995, when they were sixty-five and sixty, respectively, then the national retirement ages for men and women.

‘We were looking forward to a long and peaceful retirement. I had lots of plans for designing a new garden and doing some part-time planning work from the garage’, remembers Jack. ‘I wanted to travel the world’, says Cynthia. Their retirement has indeed been long – they are both in their nineties – but it has hardly been peaceful.

Jack had saved a few thousand pounds, which he had invested in a low-risk portfolio of FTSE 100 shares. In years gone by he would have left it in the bank but the banks were ‘offering’ zero interest rates.



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