Industrious relations
Here’s Britain’s hardest-working family, six siblings, aged 67 to 90, who think retirement is a dirty word and still work up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week.
Joan Ward, 90, is the nation’s oldest greengrocer, Gordon Bird, 84, is a newsagent, Gilbert Bird, 80, has a carpet shop, Patricia Luhrs, 79, runs a cafe, Alwyn Bird, 75, is a hotelier and the baby of the family, Melvyn Bird, 67, is a motorbike riding instructor.
One still chases thieves from his shop, another is planning a motorbike trip across Russia and the eldest won’t let broken bones stop her grafting.
But ask any of these Barnsley-born siblings when they plan to retire and they burst into fits of laughter and tell you to “stop swearing”.
Alwyn says: “Retiring is not a word to us. We can’t stop working until our older sister does.”
All the clan, who between them have 15 children, 18 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, still drive, own their own homes and have never claimed benefits.
They put their work ethic down to a “tough childhood”. Some started work aged three and six on their dad’s horse-drawn greengrocery cart.
They were so poor they couldn’t afford toothbrushes or underwear and used old fag packets to block up the holes in their shoes. It has been a hard life, but their positive mental attitude drives them on, even now.
The chatty gang couldn’t stop laughing as they spoke to us about their “infectious” addiction to work.
Joan, a mum of three, runs her stall single-handedly and has worked six days a week for 67 years. She still drives her Ford van collecting her produce and refuses to take time off. A few weeks ago she fell but was soon back at work despite having 10 stitches in a bad head wound.
She says: “People like coming in here because they get a smile and I like chatting to people. What’s 90? I feel 60.”
Her daughter, Kate, 60, runs a card shop at the same market in Wath upon Dearne, South Yorks, where her mum works.
Kate says: “Nobody can retire until my mum retires because she’d frown on us.
“I once watched her packing apples with a broken arm. I really had to persuade her to let me take her to the hospital.”
Gordon was a miner for almost 20 years, working at the coal face, before starting his newsagent business. He starts work at Mellors News in Cudworth, South
Yorks, at 4.45am,
seven days a week. Gordon says: “I’ve sold the Daily Mirror for 52 years and I’ve never been late with the papers and never not delivered. I’ve two members of staff who are the best in the world. I trust them with my life.” Talking about his upbringing, he says: “My father was brought out of the pit, near dead after an accident. He had a head injury and couldn’t work. You couldn’t get social security then so he took up a horse and cart and started as a greengrocer.
“Our childhood was very tough, basically we had very little to eat because it was wartime.
“I was six when I started going on the horse and cart with him to Barnsley Market for produce. The only thing we knew was work.”
Gordon admits he is the joker of the family, but crooks targeting his business don’t find him that funny.
Just a few weeks ago he chased a youth for 100 yards after he tried to pass him a forged £20 note.
He says: “I told him I was going to confiscate it and he snatched it out of my hand and ran out of the shop with a girl. I chased them through the car park, shouting, ‘He’s a bloody thief ’. There was video of them so the police got their car number.”
On another occasion thieves fleeing his shop were pelted with objects, including a vase, from the flat above. Gordon says: “My wife was worried she was going to be next out the window.”
Dad-of-one Gilbert has run G & E Carpet Shop in Glossop, Derbys, for 48 years after starting out as a slaughterman and then sheepskin salesman.
He says: “I work six days a week, if I’m lucky. Sometimes I only work five if my grandson helps out on a Saturday.” Asked what he loves about his job, he says: “The lifting. It keeps you fit picking up carpet and underlay.”
Big sister Joan still keeps him on his toes. He says: “If I’m out doing a measure and she rings up and speaks to my wife, she says, ‘Why’s he not working?’” Gilbert also started work young. He says: “I was only three when
went on the horse and cart. My job was to keep the tomatoes warm to top them cracking with the frost.” His sister Pat carries on serving in he cafe as we all chat. She worked with children with learning difficulties nd was kept on until she was 70. Gilbert had persuaded her to retire, but weeks later she was back at work. She says: “It was like waiting for God. watched as someone weeded their ny garden and decided it wasn’t for me. After I finished my garden, I hought, ‘What now?’ Then Joan told me someone had walked out of the afe and I said, ‘I’ll take it’.”
She now works six days a week from am to 4pm before starting on her econd job, making wedding cakes. She too started work young. By the time she was 11, her parents had got themselves a fish and chip shop, and Pat was put to work frying spuds.
Dad-of-four, Alwyn, who was in the Navy and served in the Falklands, now runs the Oakleigh Hotel in Blackpool, Lancs, with his wife Muriel, 74.
They work seven days a week, starting with breakfasts, then cleaning and then running the bar, an 18-hour day at times. Alwyn, who started work aged eight, peeling spuds in the chippie like Pat, says: “When we see these kids and the teachers closing schools down because of snow, we wonder why. Because our dad would say, ‘Here’s a shovel’ and we used to have to dig our way to school.”
Melvyn, who spent 24 years in the
Army, owns the Birds Bike Academy in Barnsley, South Yorks, working 12 to 13 hours a day, seven days a week.
But h e will have time off soon as he is planning a 7,000-mile ride across Russia to the Pacific Ocean. He arrives at the cafe carrying his helmet, chuffed after booking a client on his way in.
His brothers tease him, saying he had it easy as he was “the baby”.
But Melvyn was just three when their mum Kitty died of a stroke.
He says: “Everybody is here to support you in this family. They won’t carry you, they’ll give you a kick up the arse and say, ‘Get your act together’.
“But we’re all millionaires because we’re all happy.”
I was six when I started on the cart. All we knew was work GORDON BIRD NEWSAGENT