a home in the sun
For years television has sold us the prospect of enjoying the retirement dream, and living-out our later years, basking under some foreign sun, mojito in hand and the national newspapers delivered only a day late. Being a pale ginga northerner it was never for me as I knew I’d end up a hermit, hiding away in darkened rooms and shady corners, but for many, a cosy life on the costa was the ultimate goal of today’s material existence. Now, thanks to Brexit, the Mediterranean lifestyle appears to have lost its shine and raises the question – was it all a luxurious daydream?
Retirement is both an ancient idea and a modern invention. Hinduism refers to retirement as vanaprastha, the third stage of life, when the individual begins to withdraw from the burdens of the world. However, in the west, retirement came about only at the turn out the 19th century when the then German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, enforced a retirement age of 65 and established a state pension to allow for this. We followed suit in 1908, though in our own inimitable stingy style, at the age of 70 and only for men. This when the average life expectancy was a mere 47!
Needless to say, it would have been nigh on impossible to have predicted the changes this initiative would lead to much further down the line. For many years, those who lived long enough to retire didn’t do much differently. Perhaps they took-up gardening and acquired an allotment, watched a bit more telly, read a few more books, nipped-down the club for a lunchtime-half, enjoyed a lie-in now & again, but very seldom did they move away from their home, from where they’d lived and worked all their lives. This changed in the late 70s & 80s with the advent of house-price inflation, index-linked, final salary & transferrable pensions, freedom of movement within the EU, EasyJet and bucket-lists! Consequently, 310,000 UK citizens have taken the plunge in Spain’s wonderful waters, 185,000 are enjoying more than a year in Provence and 255,000 are having the craic in Ireland.
The potential terms of our exit from the EU now threatens the once-idyllic future of those abroad. The fall in Sterling means pensions are not what they used to be (10% down since June alone) and the likely ending of index-linking will hit their value even more. Factor in the understandable concern these expats will have wrt their future healthcare and it’s bound to be a troubling time. The right-wing media love to report on EU health-tourism but this completely ignores the facts: in Spain 70,000 retired UK citizens make active use of free at the point of delivery health facilities, whilst in the UK only 81 Spanish pensioners are registered for NHS treatment. Unless this provision is negotiated into our exit it will stop, immediately.
Only the most heartless amongst us will delight in their obvious misfortune but thank your lucky-stars if you’ve resisted the temptation and lure of lovely winter sun as I suspect it’s not going to be just the weather that suffers from a major depression.
