Dear LPG, 

I recently read an article on your pages about the importance of trying to maintain some of your oldest friendships as you go through life (►►►) and, with post-retirement hindsight I really agree with JW’s point of view.

While there are ups and downs through every stage of every life, I have to say that I found the transition from full time worker to retired lady of leisure to be a particularly difficult one.  I found myself with few friends apart from the ones I have left at work, after being used to what seemed to me to have been a life time of not having time to worry about any of the fundamentals of life.

Having to find new friends is not easy, it can be truly hard to regain that feeling of fitting in and belonging, especially if you have spent the last chunk of your working life living alone, completely immersed in your work and seeing your work colleagues as your closest confidantes. 

Life after retirement can be very uplifting for some, while, for others it can be a very lonely, empty path to tread, but when you feel down, the only way is up as they say.  

A year on I have rediscovered a couple of friends that are also neighbours. We were once very close during that period when we would meet at the beginning and end of each school day while waiting for our children to either disappear into or emerge from the primary school gates.

We are now a lot older, as are our children, but I count myself lucky to be one of three friends who take meeting up really seriously.  We all live alone now and meet up once a week for a catch up, but while the time of our meetings never changes the venue alternates between our respective kitchen tables.  

Whatever else we do together, we meet up weekly over a cup of something for a chat and it is surprising where those chats can take us.   Most of the time we start with an update of the latest happenings that our now grown up children and their families are experiencing, followed by what has happened during the past week in each of our own lives, but after that the conversation seems to have a life of its own and can lead anywhere.  

I often think that we are Lewisham’s answer to ITV’s Loose Women when we get going, and a lot of the other things that we get up to, both together and separately, are often born out of things discussed around that table.  It is also really good to be able to verbally recount some of what you have been up to with interested friends, and knowing that there are a few people that you can share your opinions with in the knowledge that they will be taken seriously, is also to be recommended.

One other thing I would mention is that, as more dads can be found outside the school gates these days, perhaps future groups will have more male members which could be a good thing when it comes to widening the topics of conversation and minimising an issue that even more of today’s retired men find themselves with according to some internet statistics.   

Having listened I think that JWs advice to make sure that the younger generations of your family are reminded about the importance of those school friends, who are always more likely to be at the same stage of their lives when we all need each other most, should be followed with a reminder for those with few friends left, that those mums who you met at the school gates can be another set of people who can make valuable retirement friends.  

CK, Penge