WHEN, with some apprehension, I retired in the spring, I was assured by those in the know that I would soon get used to not having to get up and go to work.

“You’ll wonder how you ever found time to go to the office,” I was told by a succession of friends and acquaintances who had already left the world of work behind.

But after half a century of spending every working day toiling behind a typewriter, I am still finding it extremely difficult to occupy my time in a constructive manner.

I was lucky enough never to have been out of work, and healthy enough never to have more than the odd day off with illness since first entering a newspaper office in July 1967. My only prolonged absences were two three week spells when I injured in road accidents - once on a motor bike and then in a rally car when I was a guest navigator.

There was also a spell when I was called out on strike, but the inactivity drove me spare. I was bemoaning my fate to Hexham’s legendary night club godfather Donalde d’Adamo when he shook his bouffant quiff pityingly, and invited to work behind the bar in his club Dontino’s until the strike was resolved.

It was an experience I will never forget, as the blood frequently flowed as freely as the keg bitter. The place was empty until after the pubs turned out and it was then sheer bedlam until 2am. The Don sat in his armchair, which afforded a panoramic view of the premises, and he didn’t miss a thing.

Woe betide any member of the bar staff who put more than the tiniest sliver of lemon in a Martini and lemonade, as he would remonstrate: “Oi! Cut it thinner - I’m not made of ***** money!”

It was quite an inexperience serving clients who I had previously only seen in the dock of Hexham Magistrates’ Court with the potent drinks that would surely bring them back there again, but they didn’t seem to recognise me behind my dicky bow tie.

You also got to see the many live acts that graced the stage in those days, although it took some time to recover from the shock of seeing the long haired Top of the Pops regular Wayne Fontana, of Mindbenders fame, take off his white flat cap to reveal he was as bald as an egg.

I was also bought a drink by a chap I knew as Malcolm, as a thank you for keeping a fatherly eye on his girlfriend, who was a Courant colleague. He went on to do rather well for himself as cross dressing brickie Tim Healy.

I eventually went back to work, but a day too soon according to the union, who summarily threw me out of its ranks, and named and shamed me in the union newsletter - albeit they somewhat unprofessionally mixed my name up with that of another Courant man.

Many months later, the strike was declared illegal in court, and the union wrote somewhat grudgingly to say that my expulsion had been cancelled - and I therefore owed an astronomical amount in unpaid subs. I did not rejoin.

Since then, I have always been able to keep myself occupied with the odd hours a journalist is required to work, with late night council meetings a speciality.

But now it has come to an end, and I find myself twiddling my thumbs far too often. I have taken up fishing again, but am yet to catch my first fish; and have tidied and re-tidied the garage. I have gone through my entire collection of LP records, some of which date back to the 1950s, and discovered that some of them are quite valuable.

They never get played any more, as accessing the record player means removing the 30 or so family photographs which stand on top of it, but I haven’t got the heart to get rid of them especially those by the chubby cheeked crooner Cliff Richard and his backing group the Drifters.

I have even considered reviving my interest in stamp collecting, a pastime which absorbed most boys in the 1950s. My brother and I both had bulging albums, where those colourful scraps of paper from exotic corners of the world were lovingly glued in using a mixture of flour and water, as we could not get the hang of proper stamp hinges.

What I really need though is a job...