I'M OVER 55 AND JUST GETTING STARTED...APPARENTLY

By Simon Dodd

Recently I passed 55 fearing a gentle slide into slippers and daytime quiz shows. Then I read the numbers, and frankly, I need to up my game.

Take the centenarians. There are now 16,600 people aged 100 or over in the UK, double the number in 2004, according to the ONS. Another 625,000 are over 90. By that measure, I'm barely middle-aged. A woman turning 65 today can expect another 22.5 years, a man another 19.8.

That's a lot of crosswords.

Retirement? People keep postponing it. Britons now leave work at 65.8 (men) and 64.7 (women) on average, the latest on record. More than four in ten 65-year-olds are still clocking in, up from just over a quarter a decade ago.

And almost a million over-60s are self-employed, which makes my "one day I'll start a business" feel less like a dream and more like overdue admin.

Then there's the exercise. Just under a million more over-55s in England hit the recommended activity levels than five years ago, says Sport England. At this year's London Marathon, the oldest finisher was 88-year-old Harry Newton from Macclesfield, completing his 22nd race. He ran his first at 57.

I ran for a bus last week and needed a sit-down.

We're also, it turns out, the nation's volunteers. A quarter of 65 to 74-year-olds volunteer formally every month, double the rate of 25 to 34-year-olds.

And before anyone makes a joke about us and technology: three in four internet users over 65 are on social media. Yes, mostly Facebook. And yes, after recently watching Aaron Sorkin's "Social Reckoning" (his follow up to Social Network), it might be time to review our platform of choice.

So what have I learned? That 55 isn't the start of the wind-down. It's half-time. The oranges have been eaten, the team talk's done, and the second half looks a lot more interesting than the first.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a marathon to not enter. Yet.

The figures in this piece come from the original article, Britain's Over-55s Are Rewriting the Rules of Ageing, which lists every source in full.

Simon is MD at A3A