Sir Cliff Richard would never announce his own retirement.
The 84-year-old singer wouldn’t want people to think he had “run out of money” if he decided to make a comeback after calling it a day, so instead plans to quietly take small breaks and see if he wants to continue performing after some time has passed by.
He told My Weekly magazine: “Artists have finished and then they make four comebacks.
“And every time I hear of a comeback, I think, ‘They’ve run out of money.’
“And I don’t want people to say that about me. I would rather stop.
“I don’t have to announce, ‘Oh I’ve stopped’.
“I can just wait a couple of years, maybe… retire for two years but don’t tell anybody and book the Albert Hall two years beforehand.
“And then come back and do a week or two at the Albert Hall and it would be easier and it would still be fun and I’d still be able to contact and be with the fans.
“That’s my idea, but whether it works that way, I don’t know.”
The ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ hitmaker has no regrets about his lengthy career.
He said: “For me, if I change anything in the past, the chances are that thing will come back and then change something else.
“And I’m really happy with who I am, what I am, where I am, what I do.
“So I wouldn’t change anything.”
Cliff scored his first hit single, ‘Move It’, when he was just 17 years old but he has no idea why he has stayed so popular over the years.
He said: “People say, ‘How is it that the success has continued?’ and I say, ‘Honestly, how can I tell you how I did it? I must have done it right, but I don’t know what it is.’
“It’s like people say, ‘You’ve got the X Factor’ and I’m thinking, ‘Maybe I have, but I couldn’t tell you what it is.’ “
