When the University of Cambridge decided to change its compulsory retirement age from 67 to 69, I felt relief. I was approaching 66 at the time and was not in the mood for retiring. Less than a year later, I have by my own volition made the decision to leave my post as dean of King’s College, Cambridge, at the end of January 2026 – a mere six months after the former compulsory retirement age would have seen me off.
My inner journey of the past few months has not, however, been from resistance to embrace of the notion of retirement. On the contrary, what has enabled me to take this step is something more cognitive, even radical. At the end of last year, I read a book review in the Atlantic on longevity and old age. What caught my eye particularly was the final part of the review, in which the writer, Jonathan Rauch, argued that we needed a new category of life to slip between middle age and old age: “late adulthood”.
Integral to the notion of late adulthood, Rauch writes, is that ageing “is not a process of uniform decline”. Psychologists and sociologists have found that people of, well, my age, are more equilibrious, have more emotional resilience and have “a heightened appreciation of life’s basic blessings”. And guess what? These qualities lie behind greater happiness. Of course, my ears pricked up. Grumpy old man is not the only option.
Mentally logging the category of late adulthood caused me to look differently on my diary and think more broadly about what my contribution to life might be over the coming years. It threw into question my belief that because I am doing a job to which I feel vocationally suited, which I believe to be worthwhile, and from which I draw limitless inspiration, I should do it for as long as possible. The notion of late adulthood compelled me to ask: what is the best possible use of this particular phase of my life? And then: what is my meaning, what is my value? Adolescent questions perhaps, but hey, maybe early and late adulthood have things in common.
Maybe, but there are certainly differences – and not only in physical strength, flexibility and stamina. Our capacities to learn and create, and indeed for emotional development and maturation, continue or even increase as we age. But most encouragingly, it is as we age that we become more able to “rise above self-centred viewpoints”.
As it happens, all these qualities would be useful in my job, and that perhaps is an argument for continuing in it until regulations force me to stop. And yet as I reflect on my daily experience, I realise that I want to use these emerging qualities by stepping out of the security of a recognised role into a more exciting, perhaps more complicated, liminal space.
Despite having served as an ordained minister in the Church of England for the best part of four decades – in parish, cathedral and educational environments – I haven’t grown weary of spiritual exploration. In fact, I become ever more enthusiastic. But it’s sometimes hard to do this openly and wholeheartedly in a representative and ministerial role. So, while I hope to remain productive as a writer and engaging as a speaker, I want my primary mode to be a deep, deep listener – not the preacher or advocate.
That is perhaps a fancy way of saying that I want to have more time for creativity and conversations, for self-chosen writing and travel – just the sorts of things, of course, that some people would identify precisely as “retirement” activities. But that doesn’t quite do justice to the possibilities that “late adulthood” offers. Or to the potentialities and joys of intentional inbetweenness.
As I have moved from the cognitive click of “late adulthood” to the feeling of wanting to lay down administrative and representative burdens, to giving my notice, to making my decision known to colleagues, the question of whether it’s a matter of “retiring” or “resigning” has often been raised. Neither word is satisfactory. Retirement has too much of a feel of moving away from service, contribution and creativity, and resigning is tarnished by the impression that there must be more push than pull in the decision. That things have come to a sticky end.
New words are needed to write this new chapter. I cringe when I hear myself think that I’m “reinventing”, “relaunching” or “reimagining” myself. The cringe turns into a smile when I notice that so many of the words that adorn the threshold of late adulthood begin with “re”. Perhaps the truth is that all these words are relevant and that another one is needed too: that late adulthood can be the time to “recover” the self that is more intrinsic to who we are than any of the positions or roles we have held – or the fantasies of what we might yet do or be.
Stephen Cherry’s latest book is “Unforgivable? Exploring the Limits of Forgiveness” (Bloomsbury)
[See also: Welcome to the era of Daily Mail socialism]
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This article appears in the 10 Apr 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Spring Special 2025