“Good luck with everything” – those were the last words my “work coach” said to me as we parted at the end of my final session seeking employment after six months of job hunting.

That was back in mid-March.

The words took on a wider meaning only days later as the country went into lockdown and fear, uncertainty, anxiety, worry and concern took over in the face of the global pandemic.

The occasional paid work which I had lined up for March, April and May – and which had given me renewed confidence that my skills and experience were still in demand and had a monetary value – disappeared overnight. Now you see it … now you don’t.

And now, four months later, the chances of my obtaining employment have been reduced from next to nothing to zero with companies shedding full-time jobs and restructuring to survive.

There’s not much hope for younger workers let alone older workers like me. So I don’t think I will ever work full-time again. I think that’s being realistic rather than pessimistic.

In a way, accepting that point – a year after redundancy – allows me to continue to move on and to regard this as a new phase in my life.

Voluntary work has filled the void. I have kept busy using my communications skills for the benefit of a heritage railway: launching a fortnightly lockdown publication, commissioning content, editing articles, proofreading pages, organising distribution, writing press releases, giving interviews to local radio stations, arranging national press coverage. It certainly hasn’t been a lazy lockdown and my garden hasn’t been given as much attention as the railway has in the last few months.

I still keep checking the job sites and looking for paid work in case something turns up but I think it’s more likely that the pattern of voluntary work and very occasional paid employment will continue.

It’s a case of accepting that the rewards in life go beyond the monetary. Many others too are now having to accept that life can be fulfilling beyond the slog of the corporate world.

In that sense, I was ahead of the curve.