Backwards or forwards?

I receive a depressing monthly periodical produced on a home computer in black and white from the pensioners amateur organisation of my previous employers. It contains articles from erstwhile colleagues from which I deduce they spend their precious retirement time reminiscing about daily trivia thirty years or so ago within the insular family atmosphere of an old fashioned bank branch. These writings seem to indicate the authors long to be back there in what I suppose was a safe environment There is even a regular feature titled “Looking Back”.

The most exciting anecdote I can remember from this wallowing nostalgia was about the Branch Inspection Team arriving from Head Office and going, by mistake, to a rival bank branch nearby, being admitted, and actually starting with their unpopular task, which by tradition starts with the manager handing over all his keys to the chief inspector. But that belies the more mundane nature of these recollections of temps perdu. Normally they only aspire to the drama of somebody with a name like Roger Murgatroyd arriving for duty on a Saturday morning wearing a sports jacket! What have these people been doing since they retired twenty years ago?

My career was with a more dynamic and competitive sales orientated subsidiary of the bank, most of the time being spent out and about canvassing and negotiating with business people in the big wide world.

I do often find myself “looking back”, but only on the things I have done since retirement over eighteen years ago which have been satisfyingly challenging, and given me enormous pleasure. 

Most of the time I am looking forward to the next adventure, and as I sit here my rucksack is packed and ready to depart a week on Monday for my next backpacking trip.