{"id":112227,"date":"2025-05-18T17:21:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T17:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/112227\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T17:21:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T17:21:12","slug":"87-year-old-stockport-man-finally-retires-after-30-years-at-garden-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/112227\/","title":{"rendered":"87-year-old Stockport man finally retires after 30 YEARS at garden centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Albert Akid &#8216;loved&#8217; his job and would even go in on his days off<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0_0-1.jpg\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>Albert Akid and boss Steve Malaney(Image: Submitted )<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">A Stockport octogenarian has finally hung up his trowel and retired from his job at a local garden centre after working there almost into his 90s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">87-year-old Albert Akid has worked at Brookside Garden Centre in Poynton since 1995 and has only this week decided to finally retire, his daughter Adele told the Manchester Evening News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;He used to be a joiner, he started working when he was 18,&#8221; said Adele. &#8220;He worked for a long time at <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/all-about\/stockport\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Stockport<\/a> Power Station until that shut down and he got made redundant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;I think he got to his late 50s and just thought, what am I going to do now? I don&#8217;t want to give up yet. What can I do that will keep me going?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;For somebody his age to put that effort in and still keep on going &#8211; I think it&#8217;s nice, for people to see you can keep working at that age. He just wasn&#8217;t ready to do nothing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Albert had quite an active, physical role at Brookside, acting as a general handyman, dropping off deliveries, watering plants and carrying out repairs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;He&#8217;s enjoyed it, it&#8217;s varied. All through Covid he worked there &#8211; I think he&#8217;s pretty fit for an 88-year-old. He would even sometimes walk to work.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;He is a widow, so maybe if he hadn&#8217;t been, his life would have looked different, travelling, things like that. But it has kept him going. He even used to go in on his days off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Adele says her father&#8217;s independence at age 88 is down to his job. &#8220;I think working keeps you young. You&#8217;re mixing with different age groups, learning new skills, I think it keeps you mentally sharp.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;I think the minute you sit down, give up, decide you&#8217;re going to do nothing, it goes downhill and you get isolated. Even just an easy job like pottering around a garden centre can keep you going.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Adele added that she &#8216;never worried&#8217; about her father continuing to work due to how well he was looked after by staff at the centre and his boss, Steve Malaney.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;There were times I thought they might get rid of him but they never did. Over the years they&#8217;ve reduced his hours and been very flexible with him. It&#8217;s great that they are still looking after the older generation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">But she said she knew he wouldn&#8217;t work there forever. &#8220;He said he just woke up and thought, I don&#8217;t want to carry on, I&#8217;m ready. That&#8217;s me, I&#8217;m finished.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;He doesn&#8217;t have many big plans for his retirement: just potter around in his garden, go shopping in Stockport, go to cafes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;He hasn&#8217;t inspired me to do the same though &#8211; I&#8217;m in my 60s and can&#8217;t wait to finish work!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Albert Akid &#8216;loved&#8217; his job and would even go in on his days offAlbert Akid and boss Steve&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,22137,2465,50897,1288,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-112227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-happy-news","12":"tag-manchester","13":"tag-poynton","14":"tag-stockport","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114529991820806841","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}