Is it just ME?

Or is the new retirement age of 68 good news?

I CAN’T be the only 70-something to smile at last week’s news that the pension age is set to rise to 68.

Before you write in, my joy doesn’t stem from the desire to see today’s whippersnappers (the new law will affect anyone currently aged 46 or under) suffer.

Rather, I’m delighted because I hope that raising the pension bar might mean a change of attitude.

That it will end the practice of — how to put delicately? — dumping us on the scrapheap as soon as we hit 60.

Perhaps it’s selfish of me but, for many of us, things have changed. What my mother couldn’t do at my age (75, since you ask), I hope to be able to do till I’m well over 90.

Plenty of us oldies man the tills in supermarkets or advise on DIY in Homebase. After all, we are the generation that knows how to wire a plug, change a light bulb and never skip the undercoat. Some of us need to work, even enjoy it.

I can’t be the only pensioner who has had enough of the fact we’re portrayed as being one step from senility.

Why can’t we get rid of the bent-over stick-tappers on road signs? And those wildly irritating exercises for the over-50s?

Of course, I am a little slower in some areas. I’m no fan of uneven pavements and stairs without a handrail. The things I could never do, I still can’t — crosswords, sudoku, diving off the high board.

But what I could always do ( cook a meal, write a sentence, solve a problem) I still can, just as well.

Not all of us get the chance to make old bones. Retirement at 68 is a sign of hope. Let’s just get on with the business of enjoying being alive.

I can’t be the only OAP who has had enough of being portrayed as one step from senility