It’s funny, you work your whole life for this one moment, and when it finally comes, it feels… strange. The retirement party was over. The gold watch—a nice, heavy thing—was on my wrist. The speeches had been made. And now, on a Monday morning at 10 AM, I was sitting in my perfectly quiet kitchen with absolutely nothing to do. For forty-three years, my life had been defined by the clock, by deadlines, by the rhythm of the factory floor. Now the silence was deafening. My wife, Margaret, saw the look on my face. She patted my hand and said, “You’ll find a hobby, Arthur. Give it time.”
A hobby. What was I supposed to do? Take up gardening? I’d kill anything that wasn’t made of metal. It was my son, Kevin, who put the idea in my head, though he didn’t mean to. He was over for dinner, fiddling with his phone as usual. “Look at this, Dad,” he said, showing me some football match. “I put a fiver on this last week using the
sky247 login app on my phone, just for a laugh, and it came in. Paid for my takeaway.”
An app. On a phone. I’ve never been much for technology beyond the telly and my old radio. But that night, after Margaret had gone to bed, I found myself looking at my tablet. I typed it in. Found the sky247 login app and downloaded it. It felt… modern. A little dangerous. Something Arthur Higgins, retired foreman, would never do. And maybe that’s why I did it.
I put in fifty pounds. My “hobby” fund. The factory had given me a good bonus, so it didn’t feel like a risk. It felt like an experiment. The app was confusing at first. All these bright buttons and games with names that made no sense. I felt like I’d walked into a noisy pub full of young people. I almost closed it. But then I found the roulette.
Now, roulette I understand. It’s a wheel. It’s numbers. It’s simple. No complicated rules about cards or bonuses. I found a live table. A real wheel, a real dealer. Her name was Isabelle, and she had a lovely, calm voice. She was in a studio somewhere, and I was in my armchair in Coventry. The wonder of that alone kept me interested. I felt like I was on a trip without leaving the house.
I didn’t have a strategy. I just bet on the numbers that meant something to me. I put a pound on 17, the year Margaret and I got married. I put a pound on 23, Kevin’s birth date. I put a few pounds on red, because Margaret’s favourite colour was red. The wheel spun. That little white ball dancing around was mesmerising. It was like watching a tiny ballet. It landed on 32. Nothing. I lost my few pounds. But I didn’t care. It was… entertaining.
I did this for a few nights. It became my little secret ritual. After the ten o’clock news, I’d make a cup of tea, get my tablet, and spend an hour at Isabelle’s table. I was probably her most boring customer. A pound here, a pound there. I was down about thirty pounds overall, but I didn’t mind. The time passed. The silence in the house felt comfortable, not empty.
Then, one Tuesday, it happened. I’d placed my usual sentimental bets. 17, 23, and a couple of others. I’d also, for a reason I still can’t explain, put a five-pound chip on number 8. The date of my retirement. The wheel spun. I sipped my tea. The ball bounced, clattered, and settled.
It landed on 8.
I stared. The chat on the side of the screen exploded with “GG!” and “Wow!” Isabelle smiled. “Congratulations to the bet on number eight!” The number next to my balance, which had been slowly dwindling, shot up. A lot. My five-pound bet had just won me £175.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. It wasn’t life-changing, but it was… thrilling. A genuine, old-fashioned thrill. I immediately cashed out one hundred and fifty pounds, leaving my original “hobby fund” and a bit of profit to play with. The next day, I didn’t tell Margaret about the win. Instead, I went into town and I bought her the beautiful, ridiculously expensive cashmere scarf she’d pointed out in a window months ago but would never buy for herself.
When I gave it to her, her face lit up. “Arthur! What’s this for?”
I just smiled. “For putting up with me for all these years. And for the ones to come.”
She still doesn’t know how I paid for it. She thinks I used a bit of the bonus. I still use the app sometimes, maybe once a week. I still only bet a pound or two. It’s not about the money. It’s my little corner of the modern world. It’s my puzzle. It’s the thing that keeps my mind ticking now that the factory machines are silent. That little win bought me more than a scarf. It bought me the confidence that there’s still fun to be had, and new things to learn, even for an old dog like me.