The Holiday Of A Lifetime

A whole range of exciting possibilities can open up after retirement – as Dennis and Joyce are about to discover…

- Jeffrey Archer

Stop nagging, woman,” said Dennis, but not loud enough for his wife to hear. Dennis Pascoe would have got divorced years ago, but couldn’t afford to. He’d been married to Joyce for thirty-four years, and assumed it must now, unfortunately, be until death do us part.

She hadn’t been his first choice, but then he suspected he hadn’t been hers. Dennis used to tell himself they’d stayed together because of the children, but that was no longer convincing, as both Joanna and Ken now lived abroad. So the truth was they remained together because of inertia.

Dennis had recently retired as the deputy station master at Audley End, a branch line for Saffron Walden. It hadn’t exactly been an earth-shattering career. He’d left school at fourteen, with no qualifications, and failed several interviews for other jobs before he signed on as an apprentice with British Rail.

He told his mother Audley End was no more than a stepping stone for something bigger. The problem was, Dennis had no idea what that something bigger might be, and never found out.

He progressed from apprentice to ticket collector to booking clerk, finally ending up as deputy station master in charge of a team of five, only three of them on duty at any one time. In reality, “deputy” meant he couldn’t afford to join the local golf club, and was unlikely to be invited to become a Rotarian.

However, the real problem came when Southern Rail took over BR and Dennis opted for early retirement on a full pension at the age of fifty-five, convinced he was still young enough to find another job to supplement his meagre income.