Clerics can be accused of failing to practise what they preach, but as patron of the Abbeyfield Society, a charity dedicated to making the lives of older people easier, Rowan Williams has a clear conscience. The society encourages us to make plans for our retirement well in advance, and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, though still only 64, has been doing precisely that.
“I’ve made all the assumptions that people of my generation do,” explains the softly spoken Lord Williams of Oystermouth (to give him his proper title), sitting in his office at the Master’s Lodge at Magdalene College, Cambridge, to which he decamped in 2013 after 10 turbulent years leading the worldwide Anglican Communion. “So I have assumed that I can look forward to 10 more years of active life, but I have tried to think beyond that, so as to plan for the point at which it will be realistic to slim down, accept a greater degree of dependency and manage that pro-actively.”
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