The original state pension was in effect compensation for living to long while the post war decision to allow women to retire at 60 was in response to pressure from womens groups, most women who were single at that age were usually also carers for aged relatives, usually parents so the ability to draw their pension at 60 was important.
If it hadnt been for WW2 my mother would have been expected to remain ‘at home’ helping her mother with the house and my Grandfather was a Rep for Reckitts so while comfortable they were not high earners. A very different world.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and in short you are for ever floored.
Wilkins Micawber, Ch12 David Copperfield
