"You are going to live a long time so when you retire you have to make a new life in a different community to your work community and your family community. You have to attack it like all things in your life - it's an adventure!"
"I come home at 1.00am with the headlights doused having been to the football with my son - nobody gives a hoot, when you arrive home."
David: "I'm 87 years old. I retired as a GP in Crows Nest in 1988 and we came here [to Lindfield Gardens] in 1999. It was time. It was a decision that we made, not a decision that life made for us. And that is one of the secrets."
"I can't tell you the number of times I hear ‘I will wait until something happens...' and then they have a stroke and they can't do anything. Then there are the kids. ‘We want to be able to see the kids...' and when they say ‘we are moving into a village' and you see the relief on their [the kids] faces - because they have only been seeing the kids when they come around to fix the pool, clean the gutters and generally try and stop the family home from falling apart. Then people say it is a ‘downgrading' decision. It's not."
"It must be regarded as the next fascinating chapter in your life. It is a completely new skill. Then there are the people who say ‘you don't know what it was like; we had a big house. You have no idea of the possessions we had.' I can tell you at 80 you don't need tennis clothes! There are three types of possessions. There is the obvious: bed, TV, couch. Then there are the ‘passageway' things, the things people leave as they were passing through - bicycles, tricycles and so on. Have a garage sale. Then there is the ‘maybes.' Bring them with you and in two weeks you will know [if you should keep them]. Don't go into this looking backwards because you will only trip over."
"Australians have this idea that you retire and start playing golf, tennis, travel. After 12 months, you are sick to death of it. You do have to keep busy because we are the ‘pioneers,' and in a village community you can. The reasons we are the pioneers is because at no time in the history of the man race have we got to this age. We still drive - mostly locally - and we still know what is going on in the community. Remember, I was born when males lived to 48!"
"You are going to live a long time so when you retire you have to make a new life in a different community to your work community and your family community. You have to attack it like all things in your life - it's an adventure!"
"Some people say ‘I'll lose my independence.' What independence do they lose? Nobody organises them. You can be as private as you like; you don't have to have contact - just be friendly. We do keep an eye on each other; if I didn't put out the rubbish someone would notice. They most probably wouldn't do anything until the lights didn't go on that night. They would then go to the office. We pride ourselves that we belong to a close community. We talk about it all the time."
"Living in a close community is not new to me, of course. I graduated from medicine in 1942 and, just before I was shipped off to Borneo with the 2nd / 4th Field Ambulance, I got married. My new wife and I were then separated for two and a half years. When I got back, we went up to Macksville where I became the local GP for 14 years. Early on my wife said to me, let's go and find a country lane and try a session in the car, as we had never done this. I said, are you crazy, everyone knows my car. The GP can't move in a country town without everyone knowing! My wife passed away here, in our home. We met when she was nine and I was twelve, on Central Railway Station. She was the wind beneath my wings."
"But I have a full life. I am on the Forum [the Residents' Committee] and I have a chat with someone passing by every time I go outside the door."
"I'm not looking backwards because if you do, the trip is over."
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