OPINION
Sir Bob Jones
Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier having reached the compulsory retirement age of 72 and formally retired as he’s obliged to do, has now been asked by the government to carry on in the interim, which he’s delighted to do.
Being an Ombudsman can be a contentious role, as we’ve seen from time to time with the banking and insurance Ombudsmen’s verdicts. But to the best of my knowledge, not a single Boshier verdict has ever been contentious, despite his wide-spanning brief.
Furthermore, he’s a fitness fanatic, working out daily in the gym and I’d venture he’s in far better shape than the average 50 year old, indeed probably most 40 year olds.
I’m almost 85 and feel like I’m just warming up. I’ve not got enough time in the day to do all the things I want to do, including a pile-up of books to be read, a political book and three novellas, their plots in my head, I want to write, places to visit for diverse reasons, tennis, golf and other sports I like playing and so on.
Plus (I nearly forgot) I also head a large 30 plus management staffed multi-billion dollar international commercial property-owning business. I’m shortly nipping over to Scotland to personally correct the architect’s invariable design blunders in our latest acquired office building we’ve just added to the portfolio there.
In short, while compulsory retirement ages are important with public positions, particularly the judiciary, they should allow for flexibility as Peter Boshier proves, he being still as good as ever.
And so too in the private sector. Some people are mentally and physically “old” at 40; others are jumping out of their skin still at 80.
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