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Graham Mumby-Croft


Paul Laxton
REFLECTIONS ON RETIREMENT

By Paul Laxton

Many colleagues, particularly those like me who were pre-Fresh Start prison officers, will remember the day they approached their boss, letter in hand, conveying that final significant memorandum, the one that announced the intention to retire. Now of course with no fixed retirement age, the vast majority will be able to go at the time of their choosing, family circumstances always permitting. My turn
arrived in July 2010. I had been shifted to the Siberian power station of HQ and knew I would never be operational again. I hated the commuting and was putting on weight. It was the right decision to go but it was irrevocable, there was no way back. I can’t speak for others but in some ways it’s actually more emotional than your farewell party. It’s a strange mixture of relief, elation and emptiness. You have given notice of getting off the treadmill; you are opting out of the rat race and abandoning the familiar, the comfortable, and the comforting.

In my case I was actually able to fix my final day of service as the final day of PGA Conference 2010. It allowed me to depart the service on as close as it gets to my own terms and in the forum where I felt genuinely valued and appreciated. The PGA would have the last word, not one of cadre of Senior Civil Servants who had done so much to block my career. I had joined the Prison Service on 8 May 1984, the anniversary of VE Day (and also Gary Glitter’s birthday) and departed on the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. I can safely say that there were many battles in between, usually with authority. It felt like my career had gone in a flash. One moment you are sitting on a chair strategically placed in what was originally the execution shed at HMP Stafford being photographed at the start of your service, and the next moment you plunge through the trap door into a void called retirement. Well, what is retirement?
It’s that part of your life that follows work and precedes impotence, senility and death. The fortunate ones amongst us will miss out the first two stages. As I’ve said on many occasions to impending retirees the
trick is to draw more years pension that were spent working in HM Prison Service. I therefore need to survive and prosper until the spring of 2037, hopefully not expiring before the Grand National is run. Fortunately for me a potentially significant health problem, a B12 deficiency was picked up a routine blood test shortly after I retired. It explained a few physical issues, not least the dog tiredness that plagued me in my last twelve months which I simply put down to the busy professional life I led. One can only speculate how soon it would have been picked up had I carried on working.

At first retirement feels like being on leave. We relocated from Newhaven on the South Coast to Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. There was a major move to manage, not to mention a major refurbishment. For many years Mrs Laxton had been thwarted in her desires for new kitchens, new carpets and top to bottom redecorations. I had always argued and the point was accepted with good grace that there was no point spending serious money on a home we would not live in for much more than a couple of years. This time there was no holding back. My lump sum shrank on a daily basis. It seemed like our new home was invaded by tradesmen. When that was done it was time for a holiday in Lanzarote, and when we got back it was winter. Then there was the run up to Christmas followed by the festive fortnight itself and the sheer unalloyed pleasure of not having to bargain for a sequence of days off from Boxing Day by working Christmas Day and being on call New Years Eve. Never having made it substantively to in-charge Governor, I was never able to go to New Zealand for three weeks in December and January, leaving my Deputy in Charge. Not that I am complaining really. The pensionable nature of substitution pay turned out to be worth £1400 per year on my pension, inflation proofed for life. His leave card was very good for my pocket. In terms of boosting your pension being a Deputy Governor for a good chunk of your final three years was hard to beat. Sadly for future generations cover pay will be far less valuable than the old system of substitution pay.

I think it finally dawned on me on 3 January, after the New Year Bank Holiday weekend was over, that I was actually retired. This is the point where you have to start finding a new purpose in life. You cannot do that until you recognise that old life is gone and if you do encounter your old life again, for example at PGA Conference which I the privilege of attending for life, it will be as a spectator. If you are to be a mover and shaker again, it will be outside of the service. Gradually I have fashioned a new life with new routines. Belatedly I joined the Campaign for Real Ale, (CAMRA) and within a year I have found myself as Branch Chairman. In one sense its mixing pleasure with pleasure and it’s as busy you make it, but handling volunteers is very different to handling subordinate employees. Indeed it can be like herding cats. I have been elected to the Committee of the RPGA and am part of the new editorial board of this newsletter. Regular readers of The Key when it was under my editorship may be alarmed, but the Newsletter serves a very different readership and a very different purpose, and this I readily recognise. The PGA asked me to chair Standing Orders Committee at the 2011 Conference, and have asked me again for 2012. The main work is in September, putting the order paper together. On the leisure front I visit the gym/pool four times a week and this keeps me in good physical order, just as well with my fondness of good beer and a good curry, often together. I’ve got more time to enjoy cricket, go to the races and indulge a more recent sporting passion acquired some 17-18 years ago when I first lived in Yorkshire, Rugby League. Mrs Laxton and I are season ticket holders at Super League club, Huddersfield Giants. In 2012 I intend to become a member of Lancashire County Cricket Club. People like me are allowed in the members’ enclosure these days.

So how does all this add up to a purpose in life? Well it probably doesn’t. However, about eight years ago I rediscovered my passion for writing when I first wrote an angry article for The Key. On becoming its editor I dipped my pen in acid on a regular basis. I made a half hearted attempt to start a book some twenty years ago, but home, family and career were making other demands. I flatter myself that the ability to write is my one significant talent. Others may disagree violently. For some years I have had a bold project in mind, for what is life without ambition, rather than simply writing the memoirs of an obscure Deputy Governor, which would have zero appeal to any publisher on the basis that it would have even less to potential readers. The working title is “My Generation: How We Trashed Our Inheritance.” As you might guess the theme is the baby boomers in power and how that power has been both wasted and abused. It would be an extreme vanity to describe it has a history, although obviously I have had to do some research. Primarily it is an exercise in flagellation, a polemic, a rant, the kind of book I hope Paul Johnson would read and review. Will it see the light of day? Is it a vainglorious folly? I don’t know, but since fleshing out the chapter structure in January 2011, I have one-finger typed over 140,000 words and reckon it is about 90% finished. Usually I only write intensively only one day a week. I need time to read and time to remember that I am retired, need to relax and enjoy home and family time. The time is fast
approaching to find a publisher, and almost as terrifyingly, an editor. As you will have observed I suffer from verbosity. My purpose in life now is to become a published author, not least because I have other ideas that I wish to see adorned in print. So if any retired governor reading this has any idea where you get an editor and how you get published, please let me know. My public is waiting for me...

Issue 66 Spring 2012