08-05-2025
‘I'm 94 and work seven days a week. I'm addicted to it'
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Your 70s are the new 50s, according to the International Monetary Fund. It argued that someone aged 70 in 2022 had the same cognitive function as the average 53-year-old in 2000 – so they should keep working later in life.
And if you follow the IMF's thinking, then working into your 90s must also be the new 70s.
That's the case for Derek Price. He is 94, but doesn't feel it – and refuses to put his feet up. He loves working so much that he says he couldn't think of anything worse than packing it in – even taking off the weekends is a no-no.
'You've got to have a reason to get up and about each day, and what's better than knowing I can help the business in the future when I am no longer around.'
He is chairman of Price of Bath, the UK's only manufacturer of tennis, racket and squash balls, and works seven days a week because he wants to. He drives the mile commute to the factory in Box, just outside Bath, or on a sunny day he walks.
Price joined the business in 1947 growing operations in both rubber balls and rubber components, and now he oversees everything from the machine manufacturing to all operations.
'I'm currently taking readings of our ball compression machine,' he says. He no longer collects a salary, but does it because giving up would be settling for a far less thrilling life.
'I enjoy the challenges of solving problems,' he adds. 'Some people do crosswords – I like the chemistry of making all kinds of rubber balls and the engineering challenges that brings.'
Inventions are part of the pull and what sparks his curiosity. In the 1980s, he helped develop the manufacture of rubber cladding for the Ministry of Defence to interrupt sonar signals underwater, ensuring that British submarines wouldn't be detected. It's something he is very proud of.
Price didn't even stop working during Covid. When staff were furloughed, he spent lockdown developing a machine to produce tennis balls from recycled ones. He has just had a UK patent granted with his daughter Louise for his invention.
'I'm on a lifetime's pursuit of the perfect ball,' he says.
His wife, he adds, is very understanding and now that he also works with Louise, Sunday lunches with the family are a case of strategy planning over roast potatoes.
'I live, eat and sleep the business,' he says. 'I'm addicted to it.'
'90pc of my customers are younger than me'
Many older workers can't give up work. For them it's not the money – they're addicted to their jobs. It gives them purpose and social connection.
In 2019, Peter Duncombe had a heart operation leaving him with heart stents, but despite the severity of such a procedure, he hasn't questioned going back to work.
' I'll never give it up – it's my life's pleasure, ' he says. Family and friends did ask him to take it easy following the surgery, but he ignored their advice: 'I just carried on as I had before the operation.'
He left school when he was 19, and after a brief spell working elsewhere, he has spent the last 50 years dedicated to a family-run timber merchant, W Hanson Group.
'I have a two-and-a-half hour round trip to the office three days a week from my home in Surrey to Southall, west London, but I love it,' he says. 'I work in sales and now 90pc of my customers are younger than me.'
Now aged 79, it means he currently works for two brothers, Rob and Simon Gorringe, who are around 28 years his junior, and he also worked for their father and grandfather.
This age gap, however, makes no difference to him: 'I've watched them grow up – the age difference doesn't even cross my mind.'
His job doesn't feel like a chore to him, and the thrill of the sale gives him joy. 'I feel disappointed if I don't do a deal,' he says.
A large part of what keeps him there is talking to clients he has known for years and meeting new ones. Even on holiday, he finds himself checking emails. Work, in his mind, is not something that he switches off from, because he doesn't want to.
'Work is a big part of my life,' he says. 'My family comes first but I would say I keep doing it because of the buzz, it's like an addiction that I can't give up.'
'I simply feel more alive when I am doing something'
For Laurelie Walter, 'retirement' is akin to a swear word in her house. Aged 78, she says that giving up work for her is a terrifying thought, and not one that she is prepared to entertain.
Walter was forced to retire at 70 from her role on the First-tier Tribunal Property Chamber, which deals with disputes, due to stipulations around age. This is a point of resentment because she feels it loses people at the peak of their experience and knowledge.
So she took her talent elsewhere: 'I applied to other tribunals which did not have that cut-off date and became a panel member of several others on large infrastructure projects in the UK which I still work for.'
In addition, she runs an interior design business and has a holiday let on the Suffolk coast. Walter spent her early life working as a journalist both in the UK and in Dubai.
She has what she describes as a portfolio career, and does a lot of multi-tasking. While the money is welcome, it's not the entire purpose – she doesn't relish the thought of giving up work to sit and twiddle her thumbs.
'I simply feel more alive when I am doing something, and I love working with young people too,' she says. 'I don't try to be their age, but I would rather die in a ditch then go on a cruise to be surrounded by lots of retired folk which is what a lot of people my age do most of the time!'
Walter says that work keeps her sharp. 'I'm moving between drawing up a lighting plan for a six-bedroom house in Wiltshire to running my Airbnb, while keeping up with technology – CAD drawing skills are a learning curve.'
She steers away from conversations with her peers about their various ailments. 'A lot of our age group spend their time talking about their health and I don't want to do that – work gives me a different topic to discuss.'
She adds: 'It's the 'organ recital' I want to steer away from. Having too much time to think is not good for you but working and reading to learn more keeps the doctor at bay and enforces living in the present.'
