Postgraduate news and views: OAPs with PHDs

In today's job-oriented world it can be easy to forget the more intrinsic rewards of postgraduate study. Doing a PhD in your seventies might strike many as a waste of time, but it offers its own unique satisfactions, explains John Baker, 73, who is writing a thesis on relationships and lonely hearts advertisements in newspapers.

"I've not thought of it as a qualification, more of an interest. You have a different motivation at this age – you're doing it for its intrinsic worth and personal satisfaction. It's a form of self-indulgence."

After gaining a degree in English from Oxford in the early Fifties, Baker went to theological college and spent his career in the church and teaching before retiring in 1994. He also has a BSc in sociology from Goldsmiths, undertaken in the Sixties, and an MSc in the sociology of education from the former South Bank Polytechnic. "I am a lifelong learner," he says. "I'm a curious person who has enjoyed great benefit in being able to reflect on books and relating them to my own practical experience."

He hopes to complete his thesis at Royal Holloway this summer, after five years of research. "It has been slow, painfully slow at times, but retirement is in many ways a lovely time to do this – you're simply not under the same time or financial pressures as before."

For Josie Barratt, 76, the impetus for her PhD at Royal Holloway on the social impact of the First World War on local communities came from the urge to discover. "I like finding out things. I did a BA in history and politics with the Open University in the Seventies, and an MA in women's history at Royal Holloway after that, but I still wanted to find out more about things. The PhD is an interest and a hobby."

Since starting in 1994, it has been a challenge. "It's been quite hard finding primary source materials at times, but gradually all the pieces of the jigsaw have come together. My friends can't believe I'm up in the middle of the night working on it, but I'm happy to do it."

Sheila Hopkinson graduated from the University of Essex with a degree in French when she was 60, and decided to follow up her new-found passion for politics with a PhD at the University of Birmingham on women's membership of trade unions.

"It was nine years of hard work, but I am absolutely delighted I stuck at it. It's been very rewarding. Going to university gave me great personal satisfaction, and I met a lot of new people and made a lot of new friends."

After nine years of study and an 80,000-word thesis, does she recommend it for other retirees? "Go for it," she says. "Don't think you can't do it, because you can."

e.haughton@dial.pipex.com