Tim and Angela

When Tim and Angela moved to The Spindles in May 2023, they looked forward to having support on hand whenever they need it and to leaving behind the upkeep and maintenance of their house and big garden.

Their newfound freedom to head off on holiday whenever they want to, has been an added bonus:

“We enjoy having the beautiful gardens here without having to maintain them ourselves. We went away to Croatia for a week with our daughter this summer. It was so nice just to pack up our things and shut the door without having to think about mowing the lawn or deadheading the roses before going. It was a lovely holiday,” said Angela.

The early years

The couple met in 1964 when they were both studying to become music teachers. They married in 1966 and lived in Luton, Hitchin, Leeds and Harrogate before moving to The Spindles.

Tim: “I spent three years at Durham University and then went to Reading to study for a diploma of education. I met Angela on the same course.

“My main instrument is the organ. I’ve been a church organist in different places for 50 years or so and retired from that when I was 75. Most recently I was the organist and choirmaster at St Wilfrid’s in Harrogate.”

Angela: “Before Reading, I studied at the Royal College of Music in London for three years. I played the violin a bit but really, I’m a pianist and I’ve sung all my life in choirs and choral societies.”

They moved to Leeds in 1975 when Tim became a lecturer and organ tutor at the Leeds College of Music, now the Leeds Conservatoire. Angela had a career break for 11 years to bring up their two children and then returned to teaching music in Leeds.

Angela: “I used to sing a lot. I was in Leeds Festival Chorus for 40 years and then I joined a chamber choir when we moved to Harrogate in 2014.

“The garden in Harrogate was really what sold us the house. It was lovely. It was quite big, too big in the end, and it had a lovely greenhouse. That’s what I’d wanted all my life. I grew my plants and flowers, and we had a pond with a waterfall. We were there for eight and a half years.”

Deciding to move

There were a number of practical reasons that influenced Tim and Angela’s decision to move to The Spindles in 2023.

Angela: “We said when we moved to Harrogate, that we’d stay there probably between five and 10 years. We thought for every year that we went on in Harrogate, it was going to get more difficult for us to move.

Tim: “When we got to the stage where we were going be 80, we thought we really ought to move before it became overwhelming and we ought to do something while we could because if you leave it too late then you’re absolutely stuck.”

No more maintenance worries

The upkeep of the house and garden was starting to become too much to cope with.

Angela: “After we’d been there for five years, we had to start employing a gardener, for various health reasons. So, we did have some help in the garden once a week, but even with that we still couldn’t keep up with it in the end.

Tim felt that the expenses of employing a gardener, a cleaner and carrying out various maintenance jobs made the move more appealing too.

“With a gardener for three or four hours a week and a cleaner as well, it was getting very expensive to run. There’s the ongoing maintenance of everything too. We had electric gates, so they had to be serviced. that was quite expensive.

“We totted up, and the expenses we were paying at home in Harrogate for those things were pretty-well equal to the maintenance we pay here at The Spindles, so we thought we might just as well move. All the outside work and ongoing maintenance here is covered.”

Gaining a support network

With their two children living abroad, Angela and Tim were also keen to make sure they have support available if they ever need it.

Angela: “We were planning ahead and thinking, if we need some help, we need people that we can rely on. We were aware of retirement living as a concept. My mother lived in a retirement community when she first came to Leeds. She had her own apartment and lived independently but there was only somebody on site in the daytime. Here it is much better because there’s somebody here all through the night as well.

“The other main motivation for moving here was the distance of our children. Our daughter lives in Germany now with her husband and two boys. And our son is in Canada, with his wife and two children. They were getting worried that we’re getting old and had no support around us.”

Tim: “I think that was a big reason for Angela. She was worried that if anything happened to me, she didn’t want to be on her own. Either in an emergency or long term.”

Tim: “I remember once I stumbled and fell in the drive. I was shouting. I couldn’t get up and people who were walking past came and helped me up.”

Angela: “The same thing happened to me one day. We’d had a delivery of logs and I trod on a log, slipped and ended up flat on my back on the stone drive. Fortunately, our next-door neighbour had his windows open and heard me shouting, and a lady who’d been walking past came running up the drive. She happened to be a nurse and our neighbour was a physiotherapist, so they got me up.”

Tim: “Now if anything were to happen, we can just press a button and the duty manager would rush to help. That sort of facility at our age is ideal. Especially when you haven’t got any family nearby.”

Choosing The Spindles

Tim and Angela were keen to have an apartment with three bedrooms.

Tim: “The third bedroom is our study. It’s got the piano in and a desk. We’ve got a second bedroom with two beds in it, which is also used for other things such as my wife’s sewing and ironing.”

Angela: “One of the reasons that we decided to come here was because it had the size of rooms and number of rooms in an apartment that we thought we could be happy in.”

Tim: “We went to one or two other communities, but you couldn’t get a three-bedroom property without stairs anywhere else. We chose this apartment because of the aspect too. We have the sun all day. We also have a view over the hills which is very nice.”

Angela: “When we walked into the three-bedroomed show apartment, there was so much space. We liked the fact that it was big and airy and so light, with the windows and the balconies. We’ve got two balconies, one in the living room and one in our bedroom.”

Angela: “The gardens are lovely too. It’s been very pretty this year, but I think next year it will be really lovely when all the new planting comes to fruition in March and April.”

Tim and Angela hope to go on more holidays now that they don’t have to worry about leaving an empty property.

Angela “The security here is very good and the management team are here all the time. For future holidays, we keep saying we must go to Venice.

“We’ve done a few big family holidays over the years. Once in Portugal and once in the Loire Valley, which was also our golden wedding anniversary. Our last big family holiday was in a big house in Quebec in Canada.”

Tim and Angela were also impressed with the homeowners’ lounge, coffee lounge, restaurant, and the hair salon and therapy room at The Spindles.

Angela: “The restaurant was very important. Actually, that was one of the reasons that we ruled out another retirement community – because they didn’t have a proper restaurant.

“It’s important so that when I don’t want to cook anymore, we’ve got somewhere to go. The restaurant was very useful for lunch the day after we came back from our most recent holiday in Croatia. I booked it before we went away because I knew we would have no food in when we came home. The lounges are also good socially. We had coffee down there yesterday. We often have a coffee when we come in from shopping or a walk.”

Tim: “The location is good too. There’s a footpath from here that leads directly to Menston Village. You can walk straight out onto the main street and everything is there – the doctors, the library, the pharmacy. We’ve got a local Sainsbury’s. The train from Menston Station takes you to Ilkley or to Leeds or Bradford, and the bus that passes the building runs between Leeds and Otley.”

Moving made easy

Adlington Retirement Living’s specialist partner, The Senior Move Partnership, offers services to take the stress, hard work and worry out of moving. Tim and Angela were glad to have their support.

Angela: “We had a lovely lady called Kimberley. She was fabulous. We were at the stage where we just didn’t know where to start on the decluttering. She came in and went through things systematically and suggested what we might do with this and that, taking things to the charity shops for us and making helpful suggestions.

Tim: “She was very helpful and was here on the day we moved in. She had made a plan and measured all the furniture before we moved, so we knew just where it was going to go. The team at The Spindles gave us lunch when we got here, so while we were having lunch, Kimberley was up here instructing the furniture removals team where to put everything. So that took a bit of the pressure off.

When it comes to moving in, the team at Adlington Retirement Living provide eight hours of support from a handyman for every new Homeowner.

“A week after we moved in, we had the handyman in for eight hours – putting the pictures up and some hooks on the doors and things like that.”

Settling in

Angela: “I think one of the best things about living here is the feeling of security. The fact that there’s someone here to help any time of the day or night, should we need it. Even just to ask advice from. It’s just nice that there’s always someone to chat to and we’re not on our own all the time.”

Tim: “I often go downstairs to have a cup of tea or go out for a walk and I can always just pop my head round the door and say hello to the duty manager.”

Angela: “We’re getting to know some of the other homeowners now too. They’re all very friendly and happy to pass the time of day and just chat about various things. Some of our neighbours have lunch together every day and there are often groups of people in the coffee lounge.”

Being part of a thriving community

Keeping fit and active is important to Tim and Angela.

Tim: “I played squash until I was 60. When I stopped playing squash, I started playing golf. I was a member of Headingly golf club in Leeds and then when we moved to Harrogate, I joined Oakdale golf club in Harrogate and played until I was 75.

“If the weather’s good, we walk outside. We’ve got the old High Royds Hospital opposite with beautiful grounds. On a day with bad weather, when you don’t want to walk outside, we walk round the whole building, along all the corridors and up and down the stairs. It makes quite a decent walk.

“There are some good exercise classes starting off here too. There’s a tai chi class and there’s a class for chair-based exercises which is quite energetic actually.

“Some of the people who have moved here from Menston Village keep up their local clubs and hobbies too.”

Since moving to The Spindles, they’ve also enjoyed dipping into some of the events and activities on offer.

Angela: “It’s nice to have the option to join in these things when you want to but there’s also no pressure to go to everything. It is just like having your own house.

“We’ve been to the cinema on a Friday night most weeks. It’s just along the corridor from our apartment. It’s got pictures of famous film stars around the walls and there are nine big soft cinema chairs and quite a big screen. There’s a film on every Friday and we’ve been ever since they started at the end of July.

Tim: “We had some Christmas arts and crafts stalls downstairs the other afternoon. We have a quiz once a fortnight that we’re going to this afternoon. The chap next door to us here is the quiz master at the moment.”

“If I was going to give anybody thinking about moving to a retirement community any advice, I’d say don’t leave it too late, and don’t be afraid that you’re going to be losing your independence because you can continue to be as independent as you want to be.”