Money
Making money
Our retirement start-up
When Richard and Rieta Murray upped sticks in their 50s and moved to a more rural part of Dorset it was nothing to do with downsizing for retirement. They simply needed to be nearer their new investment - a yoghurt dairy, writes Julie Goodhand
After their air conditioning business collapsed in the 1980s the couple found themselves, aged 50, out of work and out of cash. While helping a friend sell on an ailing sheep and goats' yoghurt business, Richard, pictured above, decided to take on the white elephant himself.
"If you’re doing anything, it's about analysing what the problem is and how to sort it out," Richard says of the unlikely leap from air con to dairy products.
Now in their seventies, the Murrays continue to run the now-transformed Woodlands Park Dairy, supplying health food shops and supermarkets across the UK, Ireland and the Gulf states, and have no plans to put their feet up anytime soon.
The Murrays are no go-getting phenomenon. With a trend for early retirement, but with many feeling unprepared, either mentally or financially, to give up work, the business start-up is no longer the preserve of bright, young things.
Alec Stewart (76), who launched his export business when he turned 55, says today's technology was a catalyst. "Thirty years ago I couldn’t have done it because communications were so poor and air travel was not so good. The circumstances enabled me to take the bull by the horns."
After receiving a golden handshake from CIBA-Geigy Pharmaceuticals, Alec used contacts made during 25 years as a Field Force Manager to begin FFPS (Caribbean), exporting the likes of toothbrushes, plant food and breakfast cereal to the Caribbean islands.
"That helps me not to retire," he says of his transatlantic business trips from his office in Bognor Regis to sunnier climes. "If I was working in the Congo, I think I probably would have retired a few years ago!"
Janet Kiddle (54) also created a more attractive working environment for herself, albeit on home shores, when she started her own business later in life
Feeling "neglected" by the marketing industry because of her age, Janet took a leap when she turned 50 and resigned as Managing Director of one of the top ten market research firms.
Leaving behind a work environment she describes as "hugely political", she now works from her home in Oxshott running Steel Magnolia, a market research consultancy that specialises in understanding the 50 market.
"You do miss those water cooler moments," Janet concedes of working alone, so instead she swaps advice on an e-group set up by the Independent Consultants Group. "You often feel there's a community you belong to, so you don’t feel on your own," she says.
Alan Ross (70), pictured right, found his support from government network Business Link to get The Grey Workforce afloat three years ago - a handyman venture that started with a leaflet drop in just three streets in St Albans.
He is now hoping to franchise his business, which aims to bring a sense of reassurance to the hit-and-miss process of hiring a handyman by fielding a team of mature, insured workers that have been checked by the Criminal Records Bureau.
"When you pack up work you've got lots of spare time and the problem is you have more time to spend cash and you've got less money!" Alan says of retiring from a career in IT.
However he does confess he would probably still continue to work, cash-flow concerns aside. "You could decide to watch the television all day or potter around in the garden, but that's not my scene," Alan says. "I want to do more than that. Life is exciting, I think, and you've got to make the most of it."
