Never too late to become an apprentice fishmonger

Victorian novelist George Eliot was a woman ahead of her times, kicking over the traces of convention and morality by openly cohabiting with a married man and challenging women’s subordination.

It also turns out she was a bit of a policy wonk. After all, when she declared: “It’s never too late to be who you might have been”, I reckon she was pre-empting our pensions minister’s proposal for OAP apprenticeships.

Or rather apprenticeships instead of old-age pensions. Said minister, Guy Opperman, this week seriously suggested that women over 64, who are due to lose up to £12,000 because of the rise in the state retirement age to 65 by 2018 and 66 by 2020, should take up apprenticeships instead.

Wow. I’ve just had a look online at what’s in my area and frankly I’m torn between becoming an apprentice brewer or an apprentice fishmonger when I grow up.

Or there’s hairdressing, medical care administration or music PR. Imagine a 64-year-old matron in a waterfall cardigan and M&S footgloves touting the latest Stormzy release? Now that really is radical.

But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit my eye has been caught by the motor vehicle technician apprenticeships. Now you’re talking! I’ll be stripping down our Renault estate like an F1 Mclaren and doing hot laps past Londis like it was the Circuit of the Americas.

Assuming anyone would give me the chance. And therein lies the rub; even if we wanted to graft for longer, I predict employers wouldn’t sign up older women.

Here again, Eliot provides a useful primer, with her compelling accounts of fictional trials as a way of examining moral obligation and the national conscience.

So maybe I ought to take one for the team and become an apprentice paralegal. That way I could count the days to my retirement… while gleefully suing apprenticeship providers for age discrimination.