“When a person retires, and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance, their colleagues generally present them with a watch”. So said the English novelist and playwright R C Sherriff.

Watches, and their larger cousin the carriage clock, may no longer be the standard retirement gift, but the matter of how to spends one’s time in retirement has been a frequent topic of conversation for me over the past few weeks. You see, I shall be retiring at the end of July and leaving Wakefield, my home for the last seven years. My time as Dean of our wonderful Cathedral has been richly blessed even though time has often seemed in short supply!

I don’t yet fully know how I shall spend my time from August onwards. One thing I shall certainly be doing, though, is looking back on my time in Wakefield with a great deal of happiness. I love the people here, I admire our stately civic buildings, I relish the abundant creativity that is so evident, and I cherish the extraordinary resilience of our city. I have seen at first hand how hard our councillors and council officers work to make our city a great place to live, to work and to be at leisure. We have much to be thankful for.

The Old Testament Book of Proverbs tells us that “The glory of youths is their strength but the beauty of the aged is their grey hair.” Well, I make no claims in the beauty stakes, nor do I have any hair, grey or otherwise. But if I have read the writer correctly, grey hair is a metaphor here for wisdom, and if I have any of that it owes much to what I have learned from the people of Wakefield. Thank you.

Simon Cowling

Wakefield Cathedral

Column: Pilgrim's Progress: Simon Cowling: Goodbye to all that