https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/successful-businessman-singapore-had-queue-110000758.html
Wed, October 8, 2025 at 7:00 PM GMT+8
6 min read
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David Mayo returned from Singapore and found ‘a different Britain’ to what he’d expected - Geoff Pugh
Coming home has been something of a trial. I am keen and able to work but – despite a strong CV, a solid network and an energetic, hands-on, can-do approach – I am finding that I can’t even finance a car, let alone find a job.
I moved to Singapore in 1994 and stayed for 28 years. I built a career, raised a family and created a life. I joined a big advertising firm in 1997 and worked my way up to become the president of its largest division. I lived in a colonial plantation house and my children went to an international school.
Work was good, life was good and I was by now earning enough to start preparing for the future.
During this time, it all seemed to be going on in the UK. I remember watching Britain with shades of envy and pride from 7,000 miles away. Akin to Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, which we had grown up in, we watched Tony Blair’s “Cool Britannia” booming. William and Kate got married, the housing market exploded. Britain was on top of its game.
In late 2022, after nearly 30 years in Asia, my wife and I returned to Europe in order to grow my business while being closer to family. We didn’t want to end up being a frog in a saucepan so we left while we still had time to own the process.
Returning from Singapore –with its cooperative utility companies, strong government, empowered judiciary, functioning infrastructure and its low-tax and hard-work environment – I found a different Britain to the one I had seen in the brochure.
Mayo lived in Singapore for 28 years where he enjoyed its low-tax, hard-work environment - E+
The irony of a marketing man discovering that the product didn’t quite match the promise of the brand shouldn’t be overlooked.
Britain felt like a John Osborne play: angry and exasperated people in a blame culture, a petty media obsessed with mischievousness, toothless politicians crippled by Brexit, a judiciary which negotiates with criminals and funds challenges to its own authority – and a general societal feeling that everything is someone else’s fault.
While the actual return was the right thing for me and my family, I very quickly learned that everything is hard when you move back to the UK from abroad. I decided to buy a car but I was surprised to be told by the dealer that I didn’t meet the credit criteria to purchase the one I wanted. I paid cash and drove it away.
Organising utilities was complicated and awkward, and we were offered deals that were conditional and predatory with plenty of hidden surprises and small print. One customer service discussion with an internet provider lasted more than 10 hours.
I now wanted to start work in this new Britain that I had rediscovered. I came back from abroad armed with multiple skills and a global view of the world thanks to my career – but Little Britain with its compartmentalised working ways just seemed to want to stick to its knitting.
While I was surprised at the widespread entitlement in the job market, I found early success applying for senior roles where I was regularly shortlisted but not selected.
That didn’t work out. By the end of 2024, I had applied for 32 roles – and by January 2025, I wasn’t getting anywhere.
I wanted to work as much for my brain as my bank account. I applied methodically for four jobs daily for 85 days, totalling 334 applications, before realising that strategy wasn’t working either.
As a freshly minted, youthful and energetic 60-year-old, I was starting to feel that my age and experience might be a barrier.
The feedback I received centred on having “too much experience”, “not being hands-on enough” and being “too expensive” – all of which demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of the value and experience of older workers.
So I took on a broader brief. My new mantra was: Do anything for anyone, anywhere, for anything.
I applied to be a bus driver (too old), a community policeman (I hadn’t been in the UK for three consecutive years), a funeral director and a lock keeper.
I applied for a role as a laundry assistant from a notice stuck to the front door of a local care home. I got home 30 minutes later to an email letting me know that I had not been selected.
I applied to a government agency as a project manager but was rejected by AI at the sift stage with no feedback.
After contacting their chief executive and his boss, they agreed to provide feedback – but why did I have to fight for feedback given the amount of time I invested in the submission?
I then contacted Liz Kendall, who was the minister at the Department for Work and Pensions at the time. She had been on the radio the previous week saying there were one million job vacancies in the UK. She torpidly recommended the job centre.
Having by this time swallowed almost all my pride, I queued and signed up to see whether they could help me find a job, any job.
My work coach at the job centre was great and we got on well, but he told me on my second call with him that he was no longer able to help me find work as I was dialling in from France (where I was looking after my mother for a week).
I’ve spoken with many fellow repatriates whose stories echoed mine.
Some are financially secure, some are struggling – but most, like me, are somewhere in the middle: able to keep the lights on for an indeterminate period of time but keen and able to keep working.
At a certain age, they say “even the policemen are getting younger”.
The developers writing AI recruitment codes, recruiters and hiring managers are probably all younger than me. The bosses of the positions I applied for might also be at their career peak in their 40s and 50s, as I was.
The UK is wedged in its collective old world mind, frozen in a time when Britain mattered. To the British, 60 is still the age at which people retire. I cannot change any of that but I am certainly not going to retire any time soon.
There are a great many sexagenerians who have the deep knowledge, the experience and – critically – the energy to work and compete with people half their age for exactly the same price.
There is nothing that a 60-year-old cannot do that a 30-year-old can do – and yet it seems that the age of 60 remains stigmatised in a 1970s image of indolent and languid retirement.
So what’s my solution? The age of 60 needs a complete re-brand.
The International Monetary Fund recently found that someone aged 70 in 2022 had the same cognitive function as the average 53-year-old in 2000, so let’s assume that 60 is the new 40 and level the playing field.
That would unlock a lot of added value and productivity for many British companies and make better use of this valuable untapped resource which is sitting ready and waiting.
‘I was a successful businessman in Singapore – and had to queue at the job centre in Britain’
David MayoWed, October 8, 2025 at 7:00 PM GMT+8
6 min read
Add Yahoo on Google
David Mayo returned from Singapore and found ‘a different Britain’ to what he’d expected - Geoff Pugh
I moved back to Britain after decades in Asia to continue building my career. With many more people seeming to be leaving the UK, it felt like I was moving against the tide.
Coming home has been something of a trial. I am keen and able to work but – despite a strong CV, a solid network and an energetic, hands-on, can-do approach – I am finding that I can’t even finance a car, let alone find a job.
I moved to Singapore in 1994 and stayed for 28 years. I built a career, raised a family and created a life. I joined a big advertising firm in 1997 and worked my way up to become the president of its largest division. I lived in a colonial plantation house and my children went to an international school.
Work was good, life was good and I was by now earning enough to start preparing for the future.
During this time, it all seemed to be going on in the UK. I remember watching Britain with shades of envy and pride from 7,000 miles away. Akin to Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, which we had grown up in, we watched Tony Blair’s “Cool Britannia” booming. William and Kate got married, the housing market exploded. Britain was on top of its game.
In late 2022, after nearly 30 years in Asia, my wife and I returned to Europe in order to grow my business while being closer to family. We didn’t want to end up being a frog in a saucepan so we left while we still had time to own the process.
Returning from Singapore –with its cooperative utility companies, strong government, empowered judiciary, functioning infrastructure and its low-tax and hard-work environment – I found a different Britain to the one I had seen in the brochure.
Mayo lived in Singapore for 28 years where he enjoyed its low-tax, hard-work environment - E+
The irony of a marketing man discovering that the product didn’t quite match the promise of the brand shouldn’t be overlooked.
Britain felt like a John Osborne play: angry and exasperated people in a blame culture, a petty media obsessed with mischievousness, toothless politicians crippled by Brexit, a judiciary which negotiates with criminals and funds challenges to its own authority – and a general societal feeling that everything is someone else’s fault.
While the actual return was the right thing for me and my family, I very quickly learned that everything is hard when you move back to the UK from abroad. I decided to buy a car but I was surprised to be told by the dealer that I didn’t meet the credit criteria to purchase the one I wanted. I paid cash and drove it away.
Organising utilities was complicated and awkward, and we were offered deals that were conditional and predatory with plenty of hidden surprises and small print. One customer service discussion with an internet provider lasted more than 10 hours.
I now wanted to start work in this new Britain that I had rediscovered. I came back from abroad armed with multiple skills and a global view of the world thanks to my career – but Little Britain with its compartmentalised working ways just seemed to want to stick to its knitting.
While I was surprised at the widespread entitlement in the job market, I found early success applying for senior roles where I was regularly shortlisted but not selected.
That didn’t work out. By the end of 2024, I had applied for 32 roles – and by January 2025, I wasn’t getting anywhere.
I wanted to work as much for my brain as my bank account. I applied methodically for four jobs daily for 85 days, totalling 334 applications, before realising that strategy wasn’t working either.
As a freshly minted, youthful and energetic 60-year-old, I was starting to feel that my age and experience might be a barrier.
The feedback I received centred on having “too much experience”, “not being hands-on enough” and being “too expensive” – all of which demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of the value and experience of older workers.
So I took on a broader brief. My new mantra was: Do anything for anyone, anywhere, for anything.
I applied to be a bus driver (too old), a community policeman (I hadn’t been in the UK for three consecutive years), a funeral director and a lock keeper.
I applied for a role as a laundry assistant from a notice stuck to the front door of a local care home. I got home 30 minutes later to an email letting me know that I had not been selected.
I applied to a government agency as a project manager but was rejected by AI at the sift stage with no feedback.
After contacting their chief executive and his boss, they agreed to provide feedback – but why did I have to fight for feedback given the amount of time I invested in the submission?
I then contacted Liz Kendall, who was the minister at the Department for Work and Pensions at the time. She had been on the radio the previous week saying there were one million job vacancies in the UK. She torpidly recommended the job centre.
Having by this time swallowed almost all my pride, I queued and signed up to see whether they could help me find a job, any job.
My work coach at the job centre was great and we got on well, but he told me on my second call with him that he was no longer able to help me find work as I was dialling in from France (where I was looking after my mother for a week).
I’ve spoken with many fellow repatriates whose stories echoed mine.
Some are financially secure, some are struggling – but most, like me, are somewhere in the middle: able to keep the lights on for an indeterminate period of time but keen and able to keep working.
At a certain age, they say “even the policemen are getting younger”.
The developers writing AI recruitment codes, recruiters and hiring managers are probably all younger than me. The bosses of the positions I applied for might also be at their career peak in their 40s and 50s, as I was.
The UK is wedged in its collective old world mind, frozen in a time when Britain mattered. To the British, 60 is still the age at which people retire. I cannot change any of that but I am certainly not going to retire any time soon.
There are a great many sexagenerians who have the deep knowledge, the experience and – critically – the energy to work and compete with people half their age for exactly the same price.
There is nothing that a 60-year-old cannot do that a 30-year-old can do – and yet it seems that the age of 60 remains stigmatised in a 1970s image of indolent and languid retirement.
So what’s my solution? The age of 60 needs a complete re-brand.
The International Monetary Fund recently found that someone aged 70 in 2022 had the same cognitive function as the average 53-year-old in 2000, so let’s assume that 60 is the new 40 and level the playing field.
That would unlock a lot of added value and productivity for many British companies and make better use of this valuable untapped resource which is sitting ready and waiting.
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