Calling all 1950's women affected by the new pension changes

I am a woman was born in May 1954 I would like to let you know of my interest in the WASPI campaign. I have been following this for a few years now, bullying friends and family to sign petitions and sharing latest information on facebook etc. I have been continually in work since I was 15 years old, first with a Saturday and holiday jobs, then in various employments until in my 30s. I achieved my lifetimes' ambition and studied to be a nurse. I am married and have had 4 children and continued to juggle their upbringing with working (mainly shift-work). We helped our daughters through university and they now have amazing careers which we are proud of .

In 2009 I unfortunately had, reluctantly, to take early retirement due to a long-term health condition and arthritic back, it was a hard decision to make as I had a post as a senior staff nurse at a local hospice, which I felt was the best job in the world..

When I took the decision to retire I was 55. My husband and I expected to get my pension when I was 60 as I had received nothing to inform me otherwise! I had paid full contributions all my working life so there appeared nothing to stop me. How wrong were we? First I heard I would get it at 62, that was through researching it and then not receiving nothing to tell me otherwise, I sent for a pension forecast which came back to tell me I would be over 66 years of age, although I may get a few pence more weekly because I had paid more than 30 years contributions.

We are struggling badly personally and financially. I am depressed at what our life has become in the past few years, we have had to sell our house and take rented property and currently have debts which we are finding difficult to pay. My husband needs a knee operation but will have to wait until he retires next year for this. We can't afford for him to take time off work as he only gets 6 weeks sick pay and the recovery period is 12 weeks. We never expected to be in this position, both of us having worked hard all our life. We used our savings to subsidize wages because unfortunately my husbands was made redundant and had to had to take a drop in salary. Our current state is depressing, I'm fed up of this life as we did everything in our power to provide for our retirement and don't know what else we could have done in our position. I hope with all my heart that this campaign works and we can all receive a satisfactory outcome. We paid throughout our life into the national insurance scheme and just want what is owed to us.

I am also one of the unlucky women born in 1953 and unable to collect my pension until I am 64yrs 4mths and 22 days old, I worked all my life since I was 15 and through a bad fall I had to give up work just After my 60th birthday. I had been on the sick for a while and then after having a Health assessment with DWP I was told I was fit for work by the assessment team and pushed into going to the Job Centre to sign on every fortnight, I have applied for hundreds of jobs that I think I am capable of doing but have had no luck, I had to go down to the JC every week to see my Co-Worker, one week to sign on then the next to check up on me to make sure I was applying for jobs and if I didn't apply then I would be sanctioned by taking the pittance of money I received away from me , which they did as when I first started going down I really never knew what I was doing and told them I could not find any suitable jobs that week, they took 2 weeks money off me £143, I had to live on fresh air till I got some money.I have been on so many courses that are no help to me whatsoever just to make the numbers look good and one week in particular I had attended two courses in a week and had a phone call from them saying I had failed to come in for an interview I told them I had no knowledge of any interview but I was coming in the morning for a meeting, they would not let me come to that meeting and told me they would make an appointment to see some one that afternoon,they were going to sanction me again and I got really upset and started to cry,the lady who was attending to me said in a abrupt manner "no good sitting there crying about it ,that won't help"I was devastated I rang my MP who was appalled at the way I had been treated and said he would have a word, it came out that there had never been an appointment and I would not be sanctioned, I got no apology from the JC who have been constantly bullying me all this time making me feel inadequate, a failure and useless to society, all these things have contributed to me becoming servearly depressed and suffering from anxiety and panic attacks, I have therefore had to go back to my doctors who has put me back on sickness , it has been 3mths now since I went back on sickness and I feel no better in fact the longer I am not working the worse I feel and yesterday I was pulled in again for another medical assessment which I know will turn out that they think I am fit to work as it is mostly tick boxes and not real life, I even received a letter from the JC a few days after I received the medical assessment appointment inviting me to a back to work interview, how do they know before I have the medical that I am fit to work, I rang my MP about that too, he called me back and told me it was voluntary, no where on the letter could I find the word voluntary, hang on oh here it is at the very bottom of the page in the smallest letter's you can find, it's all just a farce, I am so bitterly disappointed in this Government for putting me and so many other people through this stress, it is so very unfair,we were promised that we could retire when we reached the age of 60 back when we started work at the age of 15, they have cheated me and so many people out of our pensions ,I hope something is done and soon, all of this is enough to drive me over the edge and I'm sure it has already taken it's toll on a few people already, I do hope it changes before some one else has had enough .

Hi DotMH1901
I am another WASPI member and local campaigner. Great to see how the campaign against this injustice has taken off and been supported.
We have Scottish and local elections coming up, and have managed to get the issue into election literature, on Facebook, and supported by our local MP.
Given this weekends 'debacle' with the resigning Minister of DWP.....who knows....we may even hope for more positive developments 🙂