Retirement Rebel: One woman, one motorhome, one great big adventure

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Camarados puts people in charge of their own solutions through Mutual Aid – helping people who are not necessarily friends to self-organise to support each other through tough times. The main focus right now for the movement is to see communities set up Public Living rooms – a place to go on a tough day or when you’re lonely to help others and get connection and purpose. Definitely not retired. I stepped down from my job as an actuary this year after 30 years. I loved that role, but life is short and I wanted to take on some other challenges before the opportunity to do that slipped away.

But from her late 40s onwards, challenges – both personal and professional – began to emerge and Siobhan grew disillusioned. “As I was approaching 50, my daughter went off to university,” says Siobhan. “I’d been a single mum for years, and I started bragging to everyone that it was going to be ‘party time’! But it wasn’t that at all – I was quite miserable.”Approaching retirement and frustrated with her job, Siobhan Daniels made a BIG decision: to start living life on her own terms. Rather than hiding from life’s challenges, she bought a motorhome and drove off to find them.

Lots of women I’ve spoken to have said that they’d love to do what I’m doing, but that they’re too scared,” says Siobhan. “But I was scared too! Don’t be afraid to ask for help – there will be a tribe of people out there who are feeling the same way.” Comedian Jenny Eclair’s standup show Sixty Plus! (FFS!) XXL Show! tours across the UK from 2 September. It explores what being 60 means for today’s 1960s-born “babes”. “Being part of the punk generation affected how I think and it’s probably why I still have a problem with being told what to do – and it’s why I swear so much,” Eclair, 63, says. “In some respects, punk was a licence for the middle classes to rebel, and that sense of rebellion continues in our later years.” By believing and manifesting that we have already received what it is that we want, our mind cannot reject that reality. There’s never been a more important stage in your life to use this power. The future you want is yours for the taking! In this blog, George Jerjian – mindset mentor, coach and author – shares his journey to becoming a ‘Retirement Rebel’ and tells us why his passion and purpose is to inspire people entering retirement to do the same. Camerados is a new social movement of people going through tough times who through mutual aid want people to get the two essentials: Connection and Purpose.We can rewire our minds by envisioning. This uses our visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic senses, so as to create a new software program in our minds to replace the old one, and thereby impressing on our minds our new future, our new purpose, our new life. Expand your horizons by manifesting your future now Today, she has nine children and stepkids, aged between from 18 and 31, she also has two grandchildren, aged seven and two, and a younger female partner. She is, for her part, very happy to be a punk grandma. But Cutter dislikes it when people tell her they “used to be” a punk. “It’s not about the hair colour and the piercings you once had, it’s about an attitude: thinking for yourself and not accepting authority.” It’s an inward rebellion, Cutter says, that surely applies at any age. By assimilating this new understanding of how our mind works, we can change our present by creating new thoughts. And as we are emotional addicts, we can replace our past memories by imagining a new future, a new purpose, a new life. Rewire your beliefs by learning how to use your subconscious mind I do some voluntary work with the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK, supporting their social media campaign for 15 minutes a day. I also hope to work with the students in Southampton University. I have just been appointed a Professor of Practice there and I hope to be able to use my experience to inspire the next generation. I followed these steps and now, in my mid-sixties, I can honestly say that I live with more purpose and passion than I thought possible. So, whether you are close to retirement age, or a while off, take time to think about how you plan to live in later life, because, as Cicero said, “Old age is the crown of life, our play’s last act.”

Her motorhome travels might be a solo journey, but Siobhan hopes that it will inspire more people to follow their own dreams. She regularly shares updates of her latest trips on her blog, and has recently written a book – Retirement Rebel – to encourage others to pursue adventure in later life. The second myth is that in retirement, you’ll have enough money. This is also untrue. When you retire at 65, you could go on to live another 30 years. How will you fund retirement? And finally, probably the most important myth to bust is that retirement will make you happy and healthy. The statistics actually reveal a significant increase in depression, illness, loneliness and social disengagement in retirement. Maff’s best story though is setting up a homeless shelter in the World’s biggest building for Christmas, the millennium dome, for charity Crisis. Maff has also worked front line and ran the largest homeless services in the country for The Salvation Army as well as being CEO of award winning organization “People Can” which used asset based methods across homelessness, criminal justice, domestic violence and addiction services. The granny shift is a tender point for the over-60s with a yearning to self-actualise through travel, says Anne Hardy, a sociologist who studies later-life “snowbirds” (sun-seeking van and motorhome nomads). “Women who choose this lifestyle are often judged harshly by their own children and by society,” she says. “They are construed as being somehow selfish for leaving their grandchildren.”

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Using my own experiences, and my research, I created the D.A.R.E. Method, which is the basis of my 8-module online program Dare to Discover Your Purpose . The method was my way of helping people to do what I had done: find out that there is a new path you can take, however close you are to retirement age – and even if you’ve reached it already. For Cutter, punk was all about “peace and anarchy and doing what you want as long as it isn’t about harming people”. It was also about sexual freedom. Cutter is bisexual, and the scene was a sanctuary in the 80s. It wasn’t all sitting in doorways drinking lager with a dog on a string’: Mark Jordan. Photograph: Perou/The Observer I don’t think the punk generation thought we would live to 30, let alone 60,” he says. “But those who made it are doing interesting things, working as filmmakers and photographers and musicians and artists. It’s bloody brilliant to see.”

In 2019, Siobhan Daniels found herself in the driving seat of a motorhome, about to rev into retirement and a brand new adventure.

Moving forwards

If you’re looking for a deep intensive read with overly detailed instructions on what to do to make your retirement life work this book probably isn’t for you. But if you need a light read that can nudge you in the right direction to finding YOUR path, the one that you design around what lights your fire than grab a copy and enjoy a what feels more like a chat with a good friend. My work meant that I spent quite a bit of time with very senior people who were still actively working in their 70s. They were still ambitious to succeed in what they were doing, but they had found things that they loved to do. Success was about working with people and getting stuff done. They inspired me to keep active and to aim never to retire.