Hamish Champ: Retiring at 65 assumes I can afford to stop working

I remember when people talked about buying a pub when they retired. It was coppers mainly. And ex-military types.

Things have changed rather. And meanwhile the age at which people can look forward to a life of retired bliss has itself been the subject of much debate lately.

Recently the government took the view that the retirement age for men would remain 65, rather than come down to 60, the age at which women can finally kiss the Daily Grind goodbye.

Then the Conservatives cheered us all up last week by telling us blokes we could retire at 66, one year further down the road than is currently the case, thus creating an extra pot into which one could shovel a chunk of one's hard-earned salary in the form of income tax.

This proposal went down like a lead balloon. The news that Cameron and his bunch would force such people to carry on beavering away in the workplace for another 12 months didn't sound like a vote winner.

But what our politicians say about such policy areas matters little, it seems. A mate of mine who covers personal finance issues for a national newspaper reckons all this talk of pensionable age is redundant; the EU is likely to issue an edict in the next five or 10 years saying that people will have the right - the right​, mark you - to work for longer than is currently the case.

This may not be a bad thing. After all, there are those who don't want​ to retire at 65. And many employers have woken up to the fact that Old 'Uns are often more reliable as workers than many Young 'Uns.

And there are those, like me, who can't bleedin' well afford​ to retire at 65.

For me, 65 is only 17 years away. 17 years ago I was working in the City. That was no time ago at all.

And then there's the first time I got served a drink in a pub. I can remember as if it were yesterday. About 8pm on Tuesday, October 21st, 1975. The Duke of Cambridge (an old Bass pub, now demolished), opposite Lewisham Odeon, just before going in to see Black Sabbath.

That was almost exactly 34 years ago. Flip that over and 34 years hence I'll 82. Jesus. 82 years old. That's ancient. Will I be making a living? More to the point, will I still be alive?

If I am the latter, as I hope to be, I'd like to think I'll be doing something with regard to the former. I'll need to be, since I have bugger-all pension to look forward to.

An alternative option - and one I'd contemplate only as an absolutely last resort - would be to blow my brains out. I imagine old age being bad enough without having to get through it in a penniless state.

Of course I'd much rather live to a ripe old age, with all my faculties and my ability to enjoy what life had to offer intact. Besides, 50 is supposedly the new 30, so with any luck and a bit of help from the vitamin cabinet I should - or could - have yonks left.

And when the time finally does come to hang up the keyboard? Well, I could always run a pub. That's if there are any left in 30 years, of course.