text: Sir Mervyn King: The age of retiring (dis)gracefully - Telegraph
  Sir Mervyn King: The age of retiring (dis)gracefully
  As Sir Mervyn King foxtrots off, we chart the rise of the 'grey gap year'
  Sir Mervyn King is part of a wider trend of baby-boomers opting for an adventurous middle age Photo: Rex Features
  8:18PM BST 03 Jun 2013
  Following what he describes as "probably the worst financial crisis the world has ever known", Sir Mervyn King could be forgiven for looking forward to nothing more than a daily mug of Horlicks and a seafront flat in Eastbourne during his retirement, which is due to start later this month.
  But the 65-year-old Governor of the Bank of England, a man who makes the timid, bespectacled Penfold in Danger Mouse look dynamic, revealed a hitherto hidden romantic side and rich hinterland when he was a guest on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs last weekend.
  No slippers and cocoa for him. Rather, he intends to take a "grey gap year", during which he will learn new skills, explore the National Gallery and generally kick back.
  He told Kirsty Young: "I have promised my wife that when I leave the Bank I shall take dancing lessons," admitting that his foxtrot skills have been neglected while he's been trying to manage the macroeconomic impact of reciprocal exchange networks.
  He is not the only one to take advantage of some midlife time off.
  Women spend longer getting ready to go out with female friends
  Just last month Johann Rupert, 62, the billionaire chairman of the Cartier watches and Montblanc fountain pens group Richemont, said he was quitting to read books and perhaps travel to Antarctica. Meanwhile, Peter Voser announced his retirement as chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell in pursuit of a "lifestyle change" at the sprightly age of 54.
  Professor Dominic Swords, of Henley Business School, who studies the economics of retirement, says: "Good for them, though I do think these breaks are the luxury of high-rollers." Sir Mervyn won't have to worry about his winter fuel allowance being cut – he is due an annual pension of £200,000.
  But other retirement experts insist that, despite the recession, life has never been better for those hitting their sixties, and urge them to follow Sir Mervyn's example.
  Ros Altmann, a pensions expert (who knew Sir Mervyn in his pre-Bank days), says: "So often in the past, retirement has been presented as the start of a downhill slope. That's just no longer the case; it's the start of a new beginning. People in their sixties are not old."
  Of course, retirement is a fairly recent idea. When the old-age pension was first introduced a little over a century ago, payments were made to those over the age of 70 – at a time when the average life expectancy was roughly 50 years for men and 54 for women. Today, pensioners will spend a third of their life in retirement.
  David Sinclair, at the International Longevity Centre, says: "Retirement is the creation of a pension system. But no one has worked out what retirement is for. It shouldn't be about spending 20 years in front of the television."
  Various studies (and the declining viewing figures for Countdown) suggest that pensioners are hardly just sitting on the sofa. The baby-boomers, who redefined relationships, child-rearing and employment, are now redefining what it means to be middle-aged.
  A quarter of over-55s intend to take a "gap year", according to a Post Office Travel Insurance survey. This is a far greater proportion than that of students, who, faced with crippling university fees and a difficult job market, can no longer go trekking in Kathmandu. Last year, according to official figures, a record 1.7 million people, the majority of whom were over 50, went on a cruise, with more than half taking at least two.
  Emma Soames, editor-at-large of Saga magazine, says: "This generation were born with a passport in their back pocket. They have always travelled, whereas the generation before were taking their holidays in Margate. For this lot, passport queues and luggage carousels hold no terrors."
  While it is true that money is tight for pensioners, many are in the enviable position of having paid off their mortgage and are in receipt of a generous final-salary pension. Others are taking advantage of the property they own to fund their later years. In the first three months of this year, £230 million was taken out of retirees' homes through equity release, an increase of 15 per cent on the year before.
  Prof Swords says: "The crisis has made people less well off but there is still a significant number of wealthy pensioners who have the desire and capability to enjoy their retirement."