I’M solidly with the French on this – their fight to prevent their retirement age rising. We might soon regret our meek acceptance of the rise in our own retirement age, which is already five years higher than the French.

OK, on the face of it, the case for a later pensionable age is cast-iron. We’re living longer and the proportion of working people to fund the state pension and other benefits is diminishing. But what is not sufficiently recognised is the social and economic value of an active retired population.

Retirement that means just sitting around is death. But many pensioners today vigorously pursue interests – sometimes to the extent of second careers. They travel. They provide care for grandchildren. They keep charities and other community bodies going.

The National Trust could face collapse without its pensioner visitors and its pensioner volunteers.

Working longer will propel more people into premature ill-health. And how much longer are we talking about? Behind the wellflagged announcement on bringing forward retirement at 66 by two years is an established plan to raise the pensionable age to 68 between 2036 and 2046. Little noticed in the Chancellor’s spending review is that the government may advance this period and/or raise the pension age – matters on which it intends to publish proposals soon.

A working life of 40 years or more seems a long enough stint to me, especially given the relentless pressure under which most people work today. Does anybody break for lunch?

Businesses need new talent anyway which will be impeded by oldsters hanging around, risking becoming too exhausted to enjoy their retirement when it comes.

Get everyone to work who can – and should – work, and we might surprise ourselves by the wealth generated, including enough to allow people to retire in good time to enjoy their pensionable years.

AN aircraft carrier with no aircraft – the most eye-catching consequence of the Government’s cuts. I am surprised we haven’t heard from former Prime Minister Jim Hacker, who, when he headed the Department of Administrative Affairs, encountered a very similar situation.

In his memoirs he recalls how his driver told him of an “empty” new hospital in North London. His private secretary, Bernard Woolley, established that it wasn’t empty. It housed “342 administrators and 170 porters, cleaners, laundry workers, gardeners, cooks and so forth.”

Hacker’s memoirs continue: “This seemed perfectly reasonable, so I asked how many medical staff. ‘Oh, none of them’, replied Bernard casually…’It was completed eight months ago and fully staffed, but unfortunately there were government cutbacks and there was no money left for the medical services.’”

ACORRESPONDENT to Hear All Sides wonders where all his garden blackbirds have gone. Possibly they are feasting on this autumn’s exceptional crop of hawthorn berries. Last weekend, my son observed a virtual flock of blackbirds gorging on haws near Hornby, in the North York Moors. Only the occasional blackbird is currently appearing in my garden, but I’ll panic only if none turns up for my daily mid-winter offering of apples.

I’ve had as many as 40 at one time, and I’ve even seen a bluetit and a woodpecker eating the apples.