Originally published January 2022.
It’s been five years since Neil Turner stepped down from a senior real estate position in the City. He’s been spending time writing fiction, enjoying the Suffolk countryside and the occasional visit back to Central London. The ex-fund manager writes below about how a recent trip to celebrate the retirement of an ex-colleague made him stop and think about how times have changed…
It’s a cold and beautifully clear morning in Suffolk. The platform is quiet. Apart from me there is, literally, one man and a dog waiting. Abellio Greater Anglia’s new rolling stock – the sleek, bright-red and grey bullet-nose of a train – is an incongruity against the backdrop of Woodbridge’s Victorian train station.
As we depart, the view is of the boating harbour and the famous Tide Mill. A crooked stovepipe chimney on a houseboat catches my eye. From it, rises a thin and sinuous thread of grey-blue smoke. The water is out and the wading birds are in; availing themselves of the mud’s endless supply of food. I am hungry, but I’m happy to wait for London and my staple coffee and croissant – my treat when I return to the City these days.
The journey is uneventful and just over an hour after leaving Ipswich, I’m walking along a much busier platform. Even though commuters are only partially back in their offices, the buzz and excitement, the mixture of languages and accents is uplifting at Liverpool Street. The city where I lived and worked for so many years still has the ability to draw me in.
“This is beginning to feel like the good old days. Among friends and colleagues with a glass of wine”
The day rushes past – the collection of meetings that I have packed into it all seem to merge into one. At the end of the afternoon, I’m invited upstairs along with the other guests. We arrive at the top floor of the building and file in to what is called the Long Room for the retirement send-off for an ex-colleague. This is beginning to feel like the good old days. Among friends and colleagues with a glass of wine.
The danger with such evenings, of course, are the speeches. But thankfully tonight they’re short, to the point and, on the whole, mildly amusing. The secretary who is finally standing down, after – wait for it – 30 years also says a few words. And actually, they’re her words and the reactions to them that make me stop and think, and write this piece.
She joined the firm in 1991. Margaret Thatcher had only left office a few months before and Banarama, Whitney Houston and Robert Palmer frequented the UK charts. With the man who recruited her stood by her side (he also worked with her for more than a quarter of a century), she confesses – much to his disappointment – why she joined the firm.
Alas, it wasn’t him, but the subsidised mortgage and pension that swung it!
The room laughs, but not as one and I glance across at the two young ladies I happened to be talking to when the speeches started; Generation Z I’m assuming. For those of you not au fait with the nomenclature of the generations, they are probably aged between 25-35, but I wasn’t about to ask for confirmation.
They look baffled and swap furtive glances. Afterwards, as we sip wine and consume ever-more exotic finger food presented by liveried waiters, I ask them what it was about the speech that seemed to confuse them.
They glance at one another, a little sheepishly; I detect their awkwardness, reluctance even.
“We were laughing at the concept of a subsidised mortgage,” replies one of them. There is a definite edge to her voice. The other offers a firm nod of the head.
“Ah,” I say. “Well, it’s very much a thing of the past. But certain employers in the financial sector way back when would offer you a mortgage at a reduced interest rate as an incentive. It was what was known at the time as a fringe benefit.”
I take a sip of wine, delighted with myself for being able to recall at least some of the ancient terminology. I sense my fellow guests aren’t impressed.
“Is this on top of defined benefit pensions, company cars and free university education that you lot had thrown at you?”
She smiles at me, but the edge in her voice is back.
Instinctively, I counter. The level of interest rates seems a good place to start. “It wasn’t all a bed of roses back then, you know. Even if you could get a mortgage, interest rates were 12% and they went to 15% briefly in 1992. Many people lost their homes.”
We chat through for half an hour or so their view of all this and I find it thoroughly depressing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read The Pinch by David Willetts and am more familiar than most, I suspect, with the arguments. But talking first hand to some of those most affected by financial injustices between the generations is disconcerting. It isn’t ‘all bad’ now and it certainly wasn’t ‘all good’ way back when, but I can’t help thinking these two are less fortunate than I was.
Both women are smart and articulate. They are both degree educated – one was at Cambridge, no less – both work in the financial sector. The other things they have in common are less attractive: tens of thousands of pounds of student loans; homes that are are shared, rental apartments and, finally, both struggling to amass the deposit necessary for the first rung of the property ladder. Yes, they both have pensions, but the DC variety, not the outrageously generous DB type that attracted their colleague all those years ago.
As I travel back to Woodbridge, it depresses me to acknowledge just how important your decade of birth can be. It is also humbling; my assets and pension – at least in part – a function of my birthday, not just my talents. So far at least, my generation and me seemed to have had a lot more good fortune than those who came after us.
Neil will be writing a series of short articles for us reflecting on how the industry has changed and whether he sees the world differently now that he’s stepped back from working full time.
He’s also written the financial thriller Pass the Parcel, out now. To order a copy visit neilturnerauthor.co.uk
