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In most jobs there is a cut off point where the career comes to an end and the person has to face the possibility of an entirely new order of existence. The transition for such people can be extremely difficult. More and more organisations are attempting to prepare those about to retire for the change. But for those in the kind of service to which I have been committed, retirement has a completely different meaning. In my own case there was a retiring date. It had been delayed for a year in order to assist the installation of a new principal. But at the end of the academic year in 1982 I was to lay down my responsibilities, although I was to continue lecturing on a part time basis for a few years longer.
It was customary at our College for the students to organise a farewell evening and this took various forms, somewhat determined by the resourcefulness of the student committee then in control. In my case they decided on a ‘This is your Life’ programme, but this was kept a strict secret from me, although my wife, Mary, was an agent in the plans. The students had managed to collect quite a number of people with whom I had had dealings over a considerable period of time. Since all of my children together with all of the grandchildren were present I learned later that it was no small task to keep the latter from running riot. It was an occasion I greatly enjoyed. The students’ special gift to me was presented to me by the student chairman, who for the first and only time in the College’s history was a woman.
But this was not all. Unknown to me my colleagues had organised the writing of a festschrift to mark the occasion of my departure. Although this had taken some considerable time to plan and execute and although it involved numerous contributors on the present staff, or formerly on the staff, or friends of mine in the academic world, I suspected nothing of the undertaking. It was a complete surprise to me when a faculty evening was arranged in the last week of term, and I learned only an hour or two before that I was to be presented with the volume that evening. It had been secretly prepared for publication by the Inter Varsity Press and had been rushed down to Northwood by David Preston who had helped it through the press. I cannot easily put into words my appreciation of this tribute, but that leather bound copy with gilt edges will remain a special treasure to me. Somehow my colleague Harold Rowdon, who edited the volume, had managed to persuade the contributors to produce essays on a common theme, i.e. Christology. The volume was simply called Christ the Lord. I was greatly impressed by the standard of the contributions. I had read many festscrifts to New Testament scholars but most of them fell short in the lack of homogeneity and in the general excellence of treatment. It so happens I have in my possession another festschrift presented to a member of my family, for I was given the presentation volume given to my brother Malcolm when he retired from the School of Oriental and African Studies, a volume which contained many essays on his own subject of African linguistics.
Since I have continued as a visiting lecturer at the College, my retirement has not involved a clean break. Moreover my writing commitments have continued and are likely to do so for a while to come. Perhaps for me retirement has meant a general easing off rather than a transition. It is good to have rather more time to devote to literary pursuits and more time to spend with the ever increasing family circle.
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