I was in the chemist, putting in my repeat prescription for the cocktail of drugs that keeps the Beta Male show on he road: statins, blood pressure, antidepressants. It’s worth my while to do a prepayment, currently £114.50 a year, and the time had come to renew it. Jeff the pharmacist came through from his room out the back to talk me through the admin. Or so I thought.
“You’re in the clear,” Jeff announced, with a jubilation I did not understand. “How do you mean, Jeff?” I asked. “I just checked your birthday,” he said. “You turn 60 next month.” “No need to rub it in, mate,” I muttered. “No, it’s good,” Jeff said, clutching my arm for emphasis. “After 60, you don’t have to pay any more.” “Eh?” “Sixty, Rob! Prescriptions are free! You’re done paying for them!”
The penny dropped. Wordlessly, I raised both arms in celebration. Other customers smiled. A scrawny, gap-toothed chap waiting for his daily methadone dose offered his congratulations. It was a nice little community moment, the great British welfare state wrapping another citizen in its warm embrace. If it had been a film, strangers would have cheered and slapped me on the back, like I’d just got engaged, or learnt I was to be a dad.
I went home and googled “free stuff you get at 60”.
Quite a lot, it turns out. I calculate that, next month, simply by becoming a day older and filling in some forms, I will save, given my patterns of travel, shopping and leisure activity, about £2,500 a year, most of it on transport. I’m not sure I really deserve this largesse, merely by dint of the ticking of a clock, the flipping of a calendar. I work full-time, I’m well paid, I’m in decent health (blood pressure notwithstanding), but hey, I’d be a mug not to cash in.
Advertisement
• NHS ordered to cut costs by cracking down on free prescriptions
Obviously, I knew about the main benefit, it being a tradition (one I intend to honour fully) if you live in London, to drone on and on about your free travel pass for several months beyond your 60th birthday. This comically generous perk, awarded for no more than still being alive, will save me about £2,000 a year. Result! Any spare moment, you’ll find me riding the rails, collecting far-flung Tube stations like some people do football grounds. As it is, I like to count how many stations begin with certain letters on the Jubilee and Central lines, the ones I use most. Stand by for blanket alphabet-based coverage of all the others.
Iceland, the already keenly priced supermarket chain, offers a 10 per cent discount on a Tuesday. I already shop for some bulk items (Diet Coke, loo roll, bin bags) at Iceland and soon it’ll make sense to get everything else there as well. On Tuesdays, at any rate.
I’m going to investigate the Hungry Horse pub chain too, quite possibly every evening, to exploit its £4.70 two-course meal option for the over-sixties. I suppose the thrill will wear off after a while, like once you’ve made your first few visits to an all-you-can-eat buffet. But maybe it won’t. Maybe it’ll be pub grub every night for me from here on in.
The Odeon, Empire and Picturehouse chains have good deals for “silver screeners”, including special schedules of films likely to appeal to codgers. I’m going to be seeing a lot more of Dames Judi Dench and Penelope Wilton, which is no hardship. Sometimes, those nice young hipsters at the cinema give us old bastards a free cup of tea and slice of cake too. I see also that Asda’s cafés do a deal on a Wednesday… I’m starting to feel spoilt.
Advertisement
• Should the NHS charge for care? The Sunday Times Debate
Eye tests? I’m going to be having a lot of them. Monthly, at a minimum. They’re free on the NHS at Boots and Specsavers. Also, my swimming sessions at the lido will more than halve in price if I go off-peak, and at three other local pools in Hackney I’ll be able to swim free, at any time of day. The National Trust, some theatres and a car servicing firm have offers for 60-plus customers. They are likely to remain theoretical savings for me but hey, good to know they’re there.
Most football club senior concessions start at 65, except Sheffield United’s, which kicks in at 60. So from this coming Championship season, which kicks off on my actual birthday, it’s farewell, Hull City, hello, the mighty Blades.
Only joking.
But if I weren’t, I could train it to Bramall Lane at a decent price, thanks to my forthcoming Senior Railcard, which will, as things stand, save me a few hundred quid annually and my employer rather more, on rail journeys outside the capital. My children, meanwhile, have just lost, also by virtue of getting older, their entitlement to a 16-25 Railcard. This does not seem entirely fair. I begin to see why younger generations are increasingly resentful of my own.
