After a busy, varied career, Mac McKechnie was keen to prepare for retirement. Following a spell in the army, he had worked for a charity and in offender management, and enjoyed “seven very happy years as a magician and children’s entertainer”. At 66, he was contemplating life after finishing his “high-pressure” job managing mental health services in Wakefield. “I know a lot of people who become almost reclusive when they retire, because they’ve got nothing to do,” he says. “It’s easy to sit around watching daytime TV and before you know it you start getting up at 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock … I didn’t want that kind of lifestyle.”
So McKechnie and his wife planned ahead. “I got an allotment, I got a little dog, we had a touring caravan, we thought we’d do a lot of travelling …” He also joined U3A – the national network of learning groups for older people – and started both a magic group and a German language group, sharing skills he had acquired over his lifetime.
