Gardener retires after 49 years

Harold Hancock started work at the council aged 16

A council gardener who only took off five days sick in 49 years has retired from his job.

Harold Hancock, 65, started work for his local council in Stoke-on-Trent as a 16-year-old apprentice in 1958.

A spokesperson for Stoke-on-Trent City Council said it believed he was the UK's longest-serving council worker.

Mr Hancock started work at Tunstall Park, moved on to the Greenhouse 2000 project at Festival Park and then was made Central Nurseries' Manager.

It was a great innovation when we finally got a tractor Harold Hancock

Mr Hancock, of Gillow Heath, said his five sick days had been down to two sprained ankles caused by slipping on ice.

He said: "I remember my first day - 18 September, 1958. I was 16 and straight out of school.

"It was a Monday morning and I was given a lift from my mum's house in Gillow Heath, in Biddulph, to Tunstall in a friend's pick-up.

"We would be known as the Wild Bunch and things were not very mechanical in those days - it was very hard work. It was a great innovation when we finally got a tractor in 1970."