Al ~~ Happily I had no need to hide in any stockroom: I had managed to get early retirement from teaching [best day's work I ever did] a few years before she surfaced.

David Lodge, novelist & Professor of English, has a character leaving education for industry in his novel Nice Work [1988] write in a letter explaining his decision: "The people who work in state institutions are depressed, demoralised, fatalistic. Witness the extraordinary meekness with which the academic establishments has accepted the cuts (has there been a single high-level resignation as distinct from early retirement?). It's no use blaming Thatcher, as if she was some kind of witch who has enchanted the nation. She is riding the zeitgeist. {MGM's emphasis When trade unions offer their members discount subscriptions to BUPA, the writing is on the wall for old-style socialism."

Precisely.

~M~