I could tell you but I may wind up in prison 
Let’s say Technical Data Pack Team Leader, a posh phrase for Draughtsman 
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Apprentice bricklayer, Site manager for a house builder, Construction manager for a house builder, Worked for the leading Warranty Provider for new homes, got bored with all of the industry bullshit and retired at 55 to travel. Just as Covid hit….So have been off around the UK and now have a few more things planned and will commence planning more once the world settles down a bit….I do hope.
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Accountant after getting fed up with being in customs and excise and inland revenue. I’m now fed up with being an accountant too - I’ve been working for 45 years now, and the legal retirement age is still 5 years away…
Must see if I can do something about that!
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Switched sides eh! - from working for the tax authorities to working against them. Having insider knowledge must have been useful though.
I jacked it all in aged 56 in February 2020 after about 38 years in industry as an accountant and haven’t looked back. I still dabble, but pick and choose when and where I work now.
Of course February 2020 was just when the pandemic was first kicking off, and the world still seems completely f——d up, so I’m yet to really start enjoying my new found freedom!
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I retired 10 years ago when I was 56. Prior to that I sold Infrastructure Asset Management Systems. Nobody will have a clue what that is, but the system I sold could cost up to £1m to implement.
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You’re right. I have absolutely no idea what that is!
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Apprentice cabinet maker, police constable, returned to cabinet making, ground worker, foul/surface drain layer, bricklayer/plasterer, residential property maintenance, currently residential landlord with 25% shares in 6 properties, (wife also owns 25% shares in same properties) Retired at 66 on 1st January this year. Doing some road trips this year!
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Congratulations on retirement.
It does seem that quite a lot of us are retirees. I wonder if that’s a fairly typical profile of Triumph owners or bikers generally?
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Both, I think.
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Yet another semi-retired accountant I’m afraid.
Worked at PwC in corporate recovery, then as a “troubleshooter” of sorts for Capita, parachuted-in (fortunately not literally) to newly-acquired businesses to sort them out and get them operating and reporting as per the group standards. First one was a recruitment business (lots of luvvies), next as MD for three bailiff companies. A bit of a contrast you could say 
.
Then worked as a CFO in three private-equity-owned businesses and made enough to semi-retire. Currently back doing all of the finances - credit control, supplier payments, bank recs, management accounts, business plans - for a dental laboratory (that’s a maker of crowns, dentures and false teeth). Not the sexiest business but it’s part-time so plenty of golf and relaxation.
Oh what a life!
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Sounds good to me! That’s the beauty of Accountancy - the skills are transferable across all industry types.
I focus on temporary, part time roles these days so I can pick and choose if I want to work. I find there’s no shortage of offers when I’m looking. I think most people want permanent roles so people who actually prefer temporary ones are in demand to act as cover for someone who is absent for some reason, or to just go in as a short term fix to a problem.
To paraphrase the old Honda advert, “You meet the nicest accountants on a Triumph”…
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Excellent! 
As @Octoberon said, both I think. I felt positively youthful on my Bikesafe course in my early forties and often do when out at the weekends and we stop. When I was talking to a colleague I didn’t know well recently though and another colleague asked if I’d be riding my bike in she did say “As long as it’s not an old man’s slow bike like a Triumph”. Lots to unpack there but I did set the record straight 
.
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I started riding in 1967, when I was 18. As a student I didn’t have much money, and motorbikes were cheap transport. In those days, bikes were still commonly used as transport by the less well off, and not just for weekend fun. Of course, once riding, I got the bug and haven’t been without a bike since. I think that this is pretty typical for my generation and for a few years after, and that this is why there are still plenty of older bikers around.
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That’s not too far off a parallel to my ‘history’. This’ll probably sound a bit like Monty Python’s Yorkshiremen sketch …
Eeee, when ar wer a ladd …
I’d been obsessed with motorcycles from early childhood - I mean at 9 or 10 years of age. At that time I was growing up in a working class household - my father was a coal miner (the root cause of his early death) and family transport was a BSA 500 single with a Busmar double adult sidecar.
Traditionally mum and dad were on the bike, three boys in the sidecar … but I was always the one pleading to go on the back of the bike and mum was often (weather permitting) happy to make the exchange!
I bought my first bike in 1965 at the age of 15 having saved money from paper rounds and summer holiday jobs. The bike was a 250 AJS single - a 57, I think, that fired up once or twice then sulkily and flatly refused to ever run again. I did manage one highly illegal ride before I got my provisional at 16 and thought I could sneak quietly around the block on it. I got pulled by the local bobby who recognised me, stopped me and pretty much frogmarched me home to confront my parents with the catalogue of my misdemeanours!
Fortunateley for me, he was a friend of my father’s but the riot act was well and truly read out, word by word, in a long catalogue of the offences that I’d just committed whilst I stood in abject contrition in front of my parents, trembling at the prospect of not ever getting a licence or a motorcycle.
The incident taught me a hell of a lot about KARMA, but it also sealed my devotion to Triumphs as the bobby involved owned an immaculate '47 Speed Twin (Amaranth red and chrome tank with instrument panel!!) which he promised I could ride if/when I stayed off bikes until I could lawfully ride.
I passed my test within 6 weeks of my 16th. birthday and promptly went out and bought a 1958 T110 with slickshift gearbox! I’d arrived. Well, in my tiny head, I’d arrived- and in the very best of style!
I rode the wheels off the T110 and loved it and, for the most part, it loved me. Since that day in 1966, I have ridden a motorcyle at some point in EVERY year, mostly on Triumphs but with a brief flirtation with Norton Commandos, and, inevitably, with some nameless, usually anodyne Jap. machinery. In fact, I didn’t own a car until I was 25, by which time I realised that rain, cold, snow and ice weren’t conducive to my health or the likely longevity of my beloved bikes!
I now own more bikes than I care to admit and at least 10 of them are Triumphs (Meriden and Hinckley)!
Tell that ter yungsters o’ t’day ‘n’ thee wunt beleev ya! 
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I may be getting a bit geriatric, but there’s nothing geriatric about my Speed Triple 1200RS.
Seriously, it’s like being sat on a missile!
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I can imagine. I once had a Kawasaki ZZR 1100, and, if you whacked the throttle open above 5,000 rpm, you had to hold on very tightly indeed…
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Trained in engineering, worked on CNC programming for a bunch of years, trained as nurse and worked as a glorified arse-wipe through to theatre unit manger and damn near most general nursing roles since… currently a specialist nurse in a very small team with a large amount of patients.
Ridden motorbikes all my life (but for a spell where 2 cars in our family was the “sensible” option 
)
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Retired 7 years ago after 30 years as a fireman. Im now an instructor at a local rural college. Teaching First Aid, Fire Marshal, ATV (quad bike) and Chainsaw courses. I’m busier than I’ve ever been now. It does pay for new toys and tours though so can’t complain.
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