Can I find out when I first started paying NI contributions?

If you concern is purely whether you've made enough contributions for a full state pension, the simplest thing would be to get a quote. Take a look here...

Oh, I know I have the requisite 30 years, but I would just love to know when I started work! It's all so vague now, after 49 years. I've just written to City & Guilds to see if they have any record of when I was enrolled in their examination scheme (passed in 1966 and second stage in 1968).

MM

In message , MM writes

Try uk.health.memoryloss ;-)

I started work aged 16 years 10 months in September 1950, and three weeks later I fell off my bike and broke a collarbone, was off work for a week or two. Will Hughes did even better than that, he was supposed to start in the same apprentice training school on the same day, but skidded on ice and fell off his bike on the way to work, and also broke his collar bone. He rode from Chester every day, 60 miles round trip. We both raced for a while, he seemed very fit, but the last time I saw him was when he was in a sanatorium with a serious chest complaint.

To get back on topic: My first wage packet was 1 pound, 9 shillings and 5 pence after NI deductions.

It was 60 years ago, seems like yesterday...

That's actually characteristic of dementia. Recent memories go first.

I can remember quite a bit from the 1960s, but specific dates, no. And as a teenager I wasn't the slightest bit interested in retaining "bumf" from any quarter. I expect what happened was that my employer who hired me as an apprentice sorted the whole thing out with my dad and at some point I was asked to "sign here", then turn up for work on the day. (I was a very *naive* 15-year-old, 'tis true.)

MM

"Recent memories" are not yet memories, some of them are best discarded, like your rather naive comment. ;-) Significant events remain for ever, and everyone has different ability in terms of memory throughout their lives.

The only deterioration I have noticed is in the retrieval time of names from memory, notably the names of "celebrities".

In message , MM writes

I don't remember specific dates, except birthdays of family and close friends. I had a life-long mate who had almost total recall, recent and past events, and he acted as our gang's "diary". He still had the ability until his death at the age of 67.

I think the state pension quote gives you your total qualifying years so that should give you the info you're after.

Yes, some people can do that, but that's not me! I have a simply terrible memory for names, always have. And yet I play piano by ear and can remember tunes for years and years. Weird, isn't it!

MM

Have you got any tips for remembering more? While I was writing my memoirs, going back to 1946, I kept remembering new things. I would be thinking about a particular event and then suddenly something related to it would pop into my head. But I've exhausted that well (as in spring) now. The only way, I reckon, to dig deeper would be through a hypnotist and that seems a bit extreme just to determine the start of one's apprenticeship!

MM

Er, ... why?

He can't remember.

It doesn't seem reasonable to expect people to keep life-long records, even NHS records are hopeless, try expecting your GP to know if you've ever had measles!

What with free labour movement in the EU and other social changes, relying on lifetime records to validate pension entitlement seems stupid. There must be a better way.

In message , MM writes

In common with many of my age group (and some younger!) I have experienced going upstairs for something, then forgetting what it was. I used to retrace my steps and "wait for it to come back to me", but that seems to be copping out, and I now stop and force myself to remember it, and it has become easier.

Distraction, or lack of concentration on the task in hand causes the mental lapse, and concentration becomes more important as you get older. At 15, I suppose events lack significance to some people, and we tend to remember what we are interested in.

I have heard a number of "memory men" on TV describe their association methods to memorise bewildering lists of "stuff", but I never found any such system to work for me.

Remember what?

Maybe give each person a card every year and have the employer issue a stamp each payday which the employee has to attach to the card. Then when come retirement in order to qualify for a pension the person has to present sufficient fully stamped cards to the pensions office.

:-) Isn't that how it once worked, and then the 'stamps' became hypothetical?

Some things work as triggers. Whenever I smell fresh coffee brewing I am immediately transported to Amersfoort in Holland anno 1978 where I knew people and visited regularly.

Can't think of any smells I could re-create to remind me of 1961, though! Maybe a greasy spoon (cafe) where we (me as junior apprentice and my mentors, the men) would usually go to have luncheon (or dinner, as we called it). Egg and chips, beans and chips, sausage and chips - old Rene was nothing if not inventive.

MM

It will come. Now the whole EU pension legislation is MUCH more clued up and integrated than when I first enquired back in 1993. Back then it was still considered a curiosity for people to work abroad. Now, on the other hand, it's totally accepted and even expected that tens ofn thousands have done or will do so in the course of their working life.

As long as one has paid into one scheme or another (within the EU), or indeed several, then one is entitled to a pension or pensions. Since I paid proportionately more into the German scheme I'll probably get more in total than the standard UK pension, but I expect I'll have to fight the bureacracy tooth and nail to get it!

What I find amazing is the change to the qualifying years (in the UK) to 30 for men and women who reach pension age after 5th April 2010. It used to be much more. Normally one expects governments to reduce entitlements, but in this case they've become extremely magnanimous.

MM