God’s own country, not God’s waiting room

I spent about forty years in IT and cyber security, finishing as a chief information security officer, and I chaired a cyber security committee for the financial industry. I have spoken on the history of code-breaking, including at Bletchley Park where that story belongs, and on staying safe online to audiences at home and abroad. For most of that time the shape of the day was decided by somebody else: the incident, the board paper, the flight, the deadline that had already moved twice.

Retirement is the first point in four decades where the day is mine to aim. That is an unusual thing to be handed, and treating it as a waiting room seems to me a poor answer to it. The waiting room assumes the interesting part is over and the remaining job is patience. I do not accept the premise. The work stopping is not the same as the life stopping.

Captain Sir Tom Moore, a Yorkshireman, reached for the same pairing in Captain Tom’s Life Lessons, writing of a lad born into God’s own country who found himself biding his time in God’s own waiting room. I claim no connection to the man. It is simply a small comfort that the two phrases have knocked against each other in another Yorkshire head.

I live near Thornton-le-Dale, on the southern edge of the North York Moors. Five old cars live here with me: a Jaguar E-Type Series 1, a Jaguar Mk2 restomod, an MG TF1500, an AC Aceca-Bristol and a Triumph Stag. They are driven rather than shown. Moor roads in most weathers will find every weakness a car has, which is the honest way to own one.

The moors and the villages take up much of the rest. There are tracks worth walking, roads worth the detour, and a village history that repays slow attention. What I learn about the cars and about the area goes into a set of reference guides that I write and give away. Nothing on them is for sale, there is no advertising, and I check the figures where I can and say plainly when a figure cannot be verified.

I still give talks, mostly to clubs, societies and community groups nearby, and locally I do not charge for them. A talk, a car in pieces on the drive, a walk, and an article getting written a paragraph at a time. That is the week.

My father was a second-hand car dealer, and car mad. The Triumph behind him was his. He died at 38, when I was five.

None of this is effortless, and it is not a boast. Some of the writing is slow going, and some of it is dull to do. The cars are expensive in time and in temper, and a job that should take an afternoon can take a fortnight and a second opinion. There are days with the weather in and nothing much achieved. Having chosen the day yourself is no guarantee that you have chosen well.

What I would say is only this: the choosing is the part worth defending. Yorkshire happens to be a fine place in which to do it, which is where the first half of the line comes from. The second half is the bit I intend to keep refusing for as long as I am able.