The retirement letter

‘Dear Mr James’, a civil service department chief wrote to a recently retired tax inspector, ‘Thank you for your 46 years’ service for the Department. In this time, you have had 12 days’ sick leave. As you retire, please make sure you return your leather case and pens. Yours sincerely…’

I am not making this up! This was indeed the retirement letter the father of a close family member received (admittedly a few years ago now). He had had a good farewell party but now his life time employer wanted back his monogrammed leather case (he’d had two in his working life) together with the biros that remained. He was not permitted back inside the office and was thus, effectively, cut off from his former colleagues and workplace.

I am sure that some who retire will be happy being as far away as possible from where they had previously worked and may even appreciate no longer seeing some, if not all, of their former work mates. I can’t answer for Mr James above (not his real name), but after 46 years in one place I am sure that the type of severance he experienced was not only sudden and severe but also distressing, disturbing and needlessly harsh.

The importance of community

I retired as a Headmaster at the end of August this year. I still live within ten minutes’ walk of my former school and continue to bump into colleagues, governors, pupils and parents as I shop locally, play sport and attend church. Like Mr James I had a super ‘send-off’ (several, in fact, from a wonderful spread of people within my school family) but, thankfully unlike Mr James, I did not receive a letter requesting the return of my school leather case (aka mobile ‘phone and laptop – already handed back). I did experience, however, the pain of being separated from a community I had been part of for nine years – and I still feel the separation keenly. (My ‘leather case’ moment was having my request for the birth dates of colleagues, so that I could continue to send cards to each annually, turned down owing to GDPR regulations!)

Don’t misunderstand me: my former school has been very tolerant of me continuing to maintain some contact via the weekly parent and staff hockey team (I’m the ‘Aged Al’ who trots up and down the wing receiving the occasional friendly pass) and they have been very kind with invitations to key events. My successor and other senior staff have also been more than approachable and friendly. The ‘problem’ is partly me (and my sensitivities) and partly the inevitable process involved in leaving an institution after many years at the helm and my determination to steer clear and thus not ‘queer the pitch’ for the new Head and management that have replaced my regime.

Schools can be families, too

An organisation such as a school is indeed a family – and where I worked we regularly referred to it as such. I genuinely miss the pupils and having an insight into their progress (hence the delight last weekend when I met a senior pupil on a train. I had to restrain myself from being too intrusive). I wonder, with a professional interest, how certain appointments are faring – former colleagues in new positions of responsibility and pupils who are now leading the school as prefects. I also miss taking a caring and prayerful interest in the lives of the teachers and other staff, many of whom I appointed and some who allowed me to play a small part in their lives – and not only at school.

There is no easy answer to this loss of a collegiate community, except to encourage other employers to ensure that the occasionally painful part of transition from work to retirement (no matter the position held) is remembered and thought through sensitively. As I have said, I have been fortunate in my former employer and community. No doubt time and distance will bring some more balm: I’m moving to another part of the country once the solicitors in the property chain get their act together – no doubt the substance of another blog! I continue to feel a part of the school communities in which I have served, and especially the two where I have been Head, and so I hope each will also continue to indulge me with occasional news and invitations – and remember other staff who have ‘moved on’ and still feel a part of the wider school family.