We'll Never Retire!

Now that we can choose when to retire, more of us than ever are opting to keep on working

- Wendy Glass

Long gone are the days when our screen heroines were all under thirty. These days, it’s the older generation who are stealing the scenes in box-office breaking movies and television’s most popular shows – take a bow Mary Berry, Judi Dench, Joan Collins and, of course, 92-year-old Angela Lansbury.

At the age of 17, Angela Lansbury’s first film was the 1944 Oscar-winner Gaslight – and she’s worked almost non-stop ever since. Broadway musicals, Walt Disney films, Hollywood classics, Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote, West End plays and, last year, a starring role in the fabulous BBC1 adaptation of Little Women.

“Retirement is not an option for me,” said Dame Angela, whose latest role is the Balloon Lady in Disney’s hotly-anticipated sequel, Mary Poppins Returns. “I want to play intelligent, smart ladies who happen to be 80 or 90.”

And it’s not only stars of film and television who are refusing to retire. In the last ten years, the number of people in the UK who have continued to work after State Pension age (currently 65 for men and just over 64 for women) has more than doubled.