Retire? No way! Working your socks off keeps you YOUNG

WoRK? I’m addicted to it. there’s nothing I enjoy more and I’m quite happy to clock up a five- day, 50hour working week, most weeks. My 70th birthday is later this year and the idea of retiring hasn’t crossed my mind. So, am I damaging my health? A group of scientists claim I could be and that working too hard over the age of 40 is very bad for you.

Well, I’m not bothered. Deep down, I worry more about giving up work than working too much. I fear it will leave me on the scrapheap, condemned to cruise the internet and watch QVC in search of excitement, rather than rising to the challenges of an unpredictable working week and elastic hours as a freelance.

two years ago, I decided to cut down from six to five working days a week. I looked tired and people would stop me in the supermarket and tell me I needed to get some rest.

Now scientists tell me I’m still overdoing it and a three-day week should be the norm for people my age, if we don’t want our bodies and our brains to wear out from over-use.

Rubbish! My brain is as sharp as ever. In fact, I am better at organising my time and quicker at performing all sorts of tasks than I was in my 30s. After all, doesn’t practice make perfect?

Sadly, people who like working are referred to as workaholics, as if we’re in the grip of a damaging addiction, when the reverse is true.

I come from a working-class background, where my parents worked full-time until they reached their 60s. I was brainwashed with their philosophy that earning a wage was important.

It validates us and makes us feel part of a community. My parents left school at 14. Dad started out as an apprentice, attending night school after a decade to qualify as an engineer, while Mum took a job as a nanny and later lied about her qualifications to get a clerical job in the Civil Service.

I followed in their footsteps. I left college at 21 and have held down several jobs at once ever since: running publications, writing columns, radio and tV work, performing and public speaking.

People say I look younger than my age — but that’s down to work, not cucumber slices on my baggy eyes, botox jabs or drunken nights out with toy boys.

I believe, just like Mum and Dad, that work is the key to youth, not retirement and succumbing to nostalgia and inertia. the moment my parents were forced to give up work because of silly official rules, they seemed to shrivel up, becoming smaller, mentally and physically — ageing in front of me.

Golf and hours of gin rummy with other wrinklies replaced holding their own in the office or having a laugh with workmates. their horizons shrank to coach trips around rainy bits of britain, cheap booze, winter sun in the Canary Islands and afternoon naps.

they had nothing to talk about and no new pals. In short, they became dreary.

over the past decade, attitudes to retirement have changed. An increasing number of high-earning men — those with incomes over £40,000 and families — have cut their working week to three or four days while a larger number of older people are working more than ever.

Abouta third of those over 70 have jobs. Some have no choice, because their pension has plummeted in value, but mostly older people work because it broadens our social circles, keeps us agile and stops us sitting in a chair watching tV while our backsides atrophy.

For the younger generation, retirement isn’t going to be an option any time soon.

Facing an ageing population and a budget deficit, the Government has raised the pension age to 66 for men and women by 2019, and 67 by 2026. the qualifying date will be reviewed every couple of years, so it could end up at 70.

While I may have chosen to ignore the warnings all this work could have on health, the study is disturbing.

Researchers in Japan talked to more than 6,000 men and women aged over 40, making them perform all sorts of mental tests — reading words aloud, combining letters and numbers in a limited time, and reading sequences of numbers backwards.

the findings seemed to indicate that those working more than 60 hours a week suffered from a decline in their cognitive functioning — or brain power to be blunt.

those who worked up to 25 hours — the equivalent to a three- day week — achieved the best scores, while those who did no work at all scored less. these scientists reckon working up to a certain level stimulates your brain, but work too hard and you’ll suffer fatigue and stress.

these results echo a study in the Eighties, which tracked 10,000 middle- aged civil servants in Whitehall. once again, those who worked no more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis seemed to perform better than those who worked up to 55 hours.

Yet not everyone is convinced. one expert claimed that only people working well over 40 hours a week will be making a noticeable difference to their health, and the study did not take into account the different speeds at which everyone works.

In other words, the jury is still out on whether hard work is bad for you.

baroness (Ros) Altmann, minister for pensions, used to be the boss of Saga and thinks that work is beneficial for older people.

‘ too many people write themselves off when they are still young, fit and healthy just because there is a social norm that retirement should mean stopping work completely somewhere around the age of 60 or 65,’ she says.

‘this means they waste their talents and experience and they also miss out on the benefits of working longer. those who have already retired often miss work, not just because they have such reduced incomes, but also because they miss the social interaction and positive feelings that derive from work.’

While I agree that working too hard might have a negative impact on your health (one of the chaps I started out with in tV now spends all of his days bird watching), the notion of a three-day week is a pipe dream.

SoWhERE are the wonderful jobs offering 25 hours a week? Workers of all ages would form a stampede to get a job with a nice day off in the middle of the week. It’s just not going to happen.

the grim reality is that, increasingly, part-time workers are on zero-hours contracts and there’s a move to open shops for longer on Sundays, meaning many could be forced to work antisocial hours. bosses, not scientists, decide what hours we work.

More importantly, we should stop demonising hard work.

Doing several different jobs for all sorts of demanding bosses keeps my mind flexible and prevents me seeing only the same group of friends I’ve had for years.

I’m forced to mix with people of another generation — and that’s the key to holding back the ageing process.

Many retailers recognise that older workers have excellent people skills (maybe not me) and are the best at offering customers personal service and passing on their experience by acting as mentors for new recruits.

they still have plenty to offer in the workplace.

I’m aware I’m lucky because I earn my money without doing physical work.

Maybe my stance would be different if I was digging holes in roads 40 or 50 hours a week in my 60s.

I do think the Government should adopt a more flexible approach to the pensionable age — especially for those whose bodies run the risk of wearing out.

Yet I stand by my belief that most work is very good for you, no matter what the scientists may claim. So get out there and keep doing it.