The debate is now raging about whether we Third Agers want to retire at 65 or carry on as the Equality Commission is recommending.

If you’re fortunate and have paid regular pension, and possibly company pension, contributions, you may be relishing that retirement, but many will have to carry on either through financial need or a desire to keep active.

If you are in the majority who want to carry on you could have the best of both worlds by making a hobby your business. Have you thought about that?

Due to time and working constraints most of us never have the time for the hobbies we would like but it just could be your financial and mental saviour until the retirement laws change.

The thought opens up a myriad of possibilities. Perhaps you are a keen gardener. Why not get yourself a smallholding and expand the hobby into a market garden or small garden centre?

Gardening is quintessentially English and we have an appetite for it like no other country. For a modest outlay you could extend existing greenhouse space or add new ones. Have a hot house and a cool house. Grow tomatoes on a commercial basis and maybe mix them with cacti cultivation or any plan that demands hot house conditions.

The cooler house could be used for winter vegetables of the type not normally seen in the shops during the colder months.

Cut flowers are always in demand by local florists, so, if you plan your seasonal rotations well, you could soon have a plentiful supply of goods to earn a tidy income and keep you fit and healthy.

Painting can be another lucrative and pleasurable business. Close to us we have an art gallery which is filled with work from local artists, much of it bringing a handsome price. Imagine enjoying the summer sunshine painting a local scene and then drawing a couple of hundred pounds for it. Beats working doesn’t it?

If you don’t want to sell traditionally and buy or rent premises get your wares on the Internet. Take an hour to look at the number of online businesses and you will be amazed.

Crafts, candles, sewing, card making, gift wrapping, I could go on.

It is thirty years ago since a friend of mine took both a career change and a lifestyle change. Despite recommendations from well meaning colleagues to see a psychiatrist, he went to live on a narrow boat long before it was fashionable.

How would he survive we all thought. Two years later I met him again, still on the boat, making a considerable profit by selling lock keys to tourists who had dropped theirs in the canal, selling them hand made jewellery into the bargain and happily soaking up the sun painting hand made buckets and flower containers for fellow boat dwellers.

I asked if he missed work.

“I don’t have time to miss it,” he said, “My hobbies are now my work and I make far more money and have a better lifestyle.”

Food for thought for all Third Agers!

Graham Smith for Third Age.