Dear Richard Madeley: I'm feeling guilty about spending my son's inheritance
I am a divorced man in my early 80s. I had two children, one of whom sadly died childless a few years ago. My surviving son and his wife have no children, and live in a small mortgaged flat in east London. Both of them are university educated with good, if not particularly well-paid, jobs.
I am lucky to have a good occupational pension which keeps me going through my normal day-to-day life. However, I dip into my savings for travel – I take two or three nice holidays a year – and things for the house as and when I need them. I currently have around £200,000 but I had a lot more when I retired 15 years ago
I find my thoughts turning towards my eventual demise and what I want to leave my son and daughter-in-law. They are reasonably friendly to me but don't really 'do' anything for me – nor I for them, other than birthdays and Christmas. I suppose if there were grandchildren, everything would be different.
My parents left me nothing, though I do realise things have changed in the past half century. If I have to reside in a care home for any length of time, of course, there will be nothing left, but if I carry on as I am for a few more years – and, touch wood, I am in good health – there won't be much either.
The reason I have savings is that my wife bought me out after our divorce: I currently live in a cottage belonging to my former employer at a heavily subsidised rent.
I am minded to carry on as I have done for as long as I'm able, knowing this won't be much longer, but friends have made tart comments about 'spending the kids' inheritance '. Am I being selfish?
–T, via Telegraph.co.uk
Dear T
No, you're not being selfish. Your 'friends', however, are being insufferable. How dare they stick their proselytising, moralising, judgmental noses into your private affairs? I feel extremely angry on your behalf.
Life is for living, T. You are fortunate enough to have entered old age in robust good health. You can travel. You can explore. You can still enjoy much of what the world has to offer. Why shouldn't you?
We're a long time dead, T. Why should you foreshorten your expectations and desires in the unknown years you have left so that your descendants can… well, what, exactly? Pay off a bit of their mortgage when you die? Buy a better car? Er… go on some nice holidays themselves?
Or simply so that your 'friends' can nod their sanctimonious approval? Bah, humbug. You enjoy your 80s, T. And your 90s, if God grants you another decade or more of good health and activity. And yes, if paid-for care enters the frame towards the end, you are fully entitled to keep back enough cash to ensure your comfort.
Oh, and tell your friends to mind their own business. Or simply to get stuffed. Up to you. I'd do both.
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Born: Bath, 1978Trained BA in art and moving image at Maidstone, Kent (2000); MA in photography at Falmouth (2023)Influences 'Rineke Dijkstra, Miranda July, Lynne Ramsay, Tracey Emin, Abigail Heyman, Cindy Sherman, Samantha Morton, Catherine McCormack, the film Short Cuts by Robert Altman, and Lisa Taddeo's book Three Women.'High point 'Being selected last year for the Taylor Wessing portrait prize and exhibiting at the National Portrait Gallery. Receiving funding from Arts Council England to develop my practice – it's given me the confidence to develop my visual language. And winning LensCulture's Emerging Talent award.'Low point 'In 2020 I was publicly criticised for including a trans women in my very first personal project, 100 Women of Oxford, and protesters threatened to sabotage the exhibition. I learned a lot from that experience about responsibility, representation, and the emotional weight of photographing real people.'Top tip 'Keep making work, reflect on what you made, then make more work. Photography can look easy, but it's hard – and consistency really matters.'
