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There are many workers in Britain who choose to work beyond retirement age, although few will ever match the feat of Britain's oldest worker who, despite having reached his century, is still going strong.
My own great grandmother came pretty close; she worked until she was 92. It was at this age that a work accident ended what had been a remarkable 75-year-long career. Although she could have probably, had she wanted to, claimed work injury compensation, she chose not to. I still remember how she explained this, saying, "If it wasn't for the stimulation of my job, I would be long dead by now anyway. So why should I claim work injury compensation?"
Despite the reservations of many in my family about whether this really was the right decision, few of us were willing to argue with her, she was a formidable woman. In fact, I very much doubt whether she ever lost an argument throughout the whole of her long life, so we were not about to press the matter of work injury compensation.
Although she had some pretty exciting jobs throughout her life, including being a wren in WW2, working as a secretary in the Houses of Parliament and managing a five-star hotel, it was in her last job, providing meals for the homeless, that she suffered the slip and trip work accident which would finally end her working days.
And she must have been right about work "keeping her alive" because after enjoying perfect health for most her life, she died only nine months after being forced to give up work.
Her opinion that continuing to work is the secret to a long life is not an isolated one. The current holder of the title "Britain's oldest worker" is 100-year-old worker Buster Martin from London, a man so committed to work that he refused to take a day off on reaching his own personal centenary.
But it is not only working he claims helps keep him going. "A pint of bitter" and "regular press-ups" are also, according to Buster, secrets of his long life.
The previous holder of the title "Britain's oldest worker" shares a similar philosophy, although at the ripe old age of 104 he has finally laid stop to full-time gardening work. One year before his retirement Jim Webber told the Daily Mail, "I tried stopping work when I retired but I was so bored. Bored and miserable. I'd just sit in my chair doing nothing and looking out the window.
"I have to keep going because some of these youngsters about are a bit slack and need looking after. I've worked all my life and don't want to stop. I'll keep going until I don't feel fit any more. If I do feel tired I take a drop of whiskey. It soon puts me right in half an hour."
Funnily enough, my great grandmother was fond of a tipple too. She was a firm believer in sherry, even referring to it as "the elixir of life". I remember when one Christmas she came to cook for us all and refused to even go into the kitchen until someone went out and bought her a bottle, telling us, "I've never cooked a meal in my life without a couple of sherries and I have no intention of starting to do so at 90."
Needless to say, my dad was soon out the door and returned half-an-hour later looking rather chastened with not one but three bottles of sherry under his arm.
It must be easy to see why, when she could instil such fear, nobody was about to argue with her over any prospective work injury compensation claim. Only, I do sometimes think that if she had made a no win, no fee claim, she just might have been able to afford slightly better medical care.
Just like Maureen, I hope to be a staple of the workforce well into my latter years, though I know that if ever (touch wood) I suffer an accident in the workplace, I won't let any old-fashioned values get in the way of a work injury compensation claim.
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