Britain’s oldest worker, 98, says his job “keeps me young”

Ivor Ward discusses the happiness he finds in his work and socialising with colleagues.

Transcript

00:00My name is Ivor Ward, I'm 98 years old and I work at East Midlands Pharma in Rothesley.

00:07The only other alternative is being alone, sitting all day in the house because all my friends

00:14and everything, our younger people in their 50s and 60s, everyone's working and I would tend to

00:22me up the wall just sitting there and doing nothing. I had one day of retirement and then

00:29I came back to here and I've been here 18 years now so it's not like work, it's like coming home.

00:37Keeps me active and that's all you need and company keeps your brain active. I'm all right

00:45at night, I have lots of friends so I'm out most nights playing poker or quizzing or drinking or

00:54whatever. Anyone who's a retirement agent and lonely, I recommend for retirement people to come back

01:05and I'm certain that quite a lot will come back because it's all right, it's nice to start off

01:13with having this free time but if you can't do anything a lot about it and a lot are just on

01:19their pension, they can't go dashing here and there so it's a big thing but I think that

01:27there is a workforce out there that would come back if they had the opportunity.