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…that’s my pension!

In a previous life, I worked in the UK.

Only for 5 years between 1969 and 1974 (Google “Winter of Discontent”, factor in constant power cuts and inflation pushing 25% and you’ll know why I wanted to skedaddle rapid-like..) and I was earning bugger-all-and threepence.

So my contributions to the company pension fund were minimal and the ensuing years hadn’t grown them significantly.

35 years later, I was looking down the barrel of retirement and thought I should perhaps research the various pittances on which I’ll expected to eke out my days. (“Live” isn’t the appropriate word – “exist” expresses it better.

After a long silence (embarrassment, probably) the pension fund management people come back and say it’s going to be £4.31.

Annually.

Or 8p weekly.

I suggested a lump sum payment due to triviality (now, THERE’S a useful word you learn in business…) and after much “hum, hah, oooh, inhale loudly through the teeth, never done that before” noises, they agreed on £124.20.

Which means I’m likely to kark it at 20 minutes and 30 seconds past 2pm on 25 April 2037, if the insurance actuaries have worked it out correctly.

So I thought I’d buy a pot with my pension.

And who better to buy a pot from than Geoff Fuller, a unique character who runs the The Three Stags’ Heads in Wardlow Mires.

The first time we went there, someone said “I wouldn’t order anything exotic. And a gin and tonic is probably exotic..”

There are frequently more dogs than customers, he sells 8% beer, he used to to be terminally bad-mooded and reportedly had a “Fucked if I know” stamp made in order to respond to people who wrote asking how he made his pots.

But we’ve got to be sort-of mates over the years, he’s mellowed with time and it’s a never-ending joy to see how he interprets traditional designs and slips in his work.

So I discovered to my joy a choice crimped bowl at “Earth and Fire” in Rufford last year.

£135.

I said “Geoff, I’m spending my entire company pension on this. I’ve got exactly £124.20”

“Sod it” he said “If that’s the case, just give me £100….”