Just over 7 hours sleep is not enough – for me. I am generally asleep for 8 to 9 hours and that is entirely natural; I do not use alarms of any kind – I wake up when I wake up. This morning I feel tired with slightly sore eyes and a heavy head, much as I did on mornings when I had to be up for work, whether that was to cycle from Leytonstone to Oxford Street before my Our Price Records shop opened, catch a Northern Line underground train from Kennington to eventually arrive at Seven Sisters, or latterly to be at the station to catch the first least-packed commuter train from Newton Abbot to Plymouth. Boy am I glad my commuting days are over.

As a geographer I thought of commuting as a sign of madness; of a dysfunctional society where vast amounts of time and vast sums of money were squandered on simply getting to and from work. I still remember a geography lesson at school where we discussed data recently published by a research body. We were presented with a simple fact: the number of people who commute from Torquay to Newton Abbot is almost the same as the number of people who commute from Newton Abbot to Torquay. Discuss.

Back in the early 70’s my initial thought was that this was madness. Why don’t we simply swap things around so that no-one has to commute! Of course, life is more complicated than that. Except that later in life I thought – is it; really? In a sense the Newton Abbot/Torquay question could be explained by the dramatically different geography of the two towns, facilitated largely by the internal combustion engine. Newton Abbot is an engineering town with a large agricultural hinterland and Torquay is a holiday destination with an abundance of hospitality-related jobs, many of which are also seasonal. But when you think about it that is not really an explanation at all. Or at least, not an entirely satisfactory one.

For me, one of the most beneficial outcomes of what is today derided as a ‘job for life’ is that you can live and work in the same town; there is no need to commute. It is, of course, not quite as simple as that as the company you work for may go bust, at which point you would have to find another vaguely similar job to make ends meet. And that may turn out to be in another town.

Anyway, my train of thought this morning is running away from me and could go on for another hour or so before I reach a conclusion. The essential fact I started with is that I commuted for most of my life and I disliked it intensely. Now that I am retired I can avoid the rush-hour, leave home when I please, and save money and stress. Travel becomes a pleasure rather than a necessity. And I am glad of it.