![\"Billy](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_Billy-Cooper-celebrated-his-80th-birthday-with-colleagues-at-Asda-Bangor.jpg\")
<\/p>\n“I\u2019m lucky because I work more for the fun than the money at this point.”<\/p>\n
Billy Cooper marked his 80th birthday with his colleagues at Asda Bangor<\/p>\n
When you think about what you’d like to do to mark your 80th birthday, heading off to work a shift at a supermarket may not be at the top of your list.<\/p>\n
But for Billy Cooper, there was no better way to mark his milestone birthday, with the Belfast man taking his seat behind the checkout at Asda Bangor<\/a>, where he’s worked for two decades.<\/p>\n The grandad-of-six, who still considers himself a “blow-in” to the seaside city 50 years after moving there from Belfast<\/a> with his wife, hoped his birthday would pass off without notice – but it didn’t pan out that way.<\/p>\n READ MORE: East Belfast woman shares secret to a long happy life as she marks 100th birthday<\/a>READ MORE: GP’s 60th birthday challenge to help other doctors facing hardship<\/a><\/p>\n “When my wife Pat dropped me off, I said to her, \u2018Don\u2019t be letting on to anyone that it\u2019s my birthday\u2019,” said Billy. “But somebody somewhere must have known because they had a lovely birthday party ready for me here in the morning when I got here.<\/p>\n “There was cake, balloons, a badge and a card. They even had me in a pink feather boa with something silly on my head.”<\/p>\n Billy\u2019s retail career began when he was already in his 60s \u2013 the same time most of his peers were stepping back from the world of work. It came after a career as a youth officer, working with young people across Northern Ireland.<\/a><\/p>\n It was a career that gave him a number of extraordinary opportunities, from travelling to India where he worked with the network of Mother Teresa to help disadvantaged children and the homeless, to a trip to the United States, where he brought 10 young people from Northern Ireland to meet then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and Senator Ted Kennedy in Washington.<\/p>\n “It was a very rewarding career,” says Billy. “But when I eventually stepped back at the age of 58, I wasn\u2019t quite ready for my pipe and slippers yet. At first, I started some work with the Samaritans, and eventually came for a wee job here at Asda in 2007. I don\u2019t suppose at the time I thought I\u2019d still be here at 80, but it\u2019s been brilliant.”<\/p>\n Billy works at the store two mornings a week – and has no plans to hang up his boots any time soon.<\/p>\n He said: “As long as I\u2019m in good health, I\u2019ll keep coming in. My colleagues are lovely to work with and after nearly 19 years, I know a lot of the customers. It\u2019s nice with the older ones that we get to spend a bit of time reminiscing, because things have changed a lot since we were young.”<\/p>\n In lieu of birthday gifts this year, Billy asked friends and family to make a charity donation, raising more than \u00a3850 for Northern Ireland Heart Chest and Stroke.<\/p>\n He said: “At my age, there\u2019s not much I need, so I was delighted so many people chipped in and raised such a good figure. I had a pacemaker fitted more than 10 years ago, and there\u2019s a fantastic young woman who comes into the store and fundraises for them, so they seemed like the perfect choice.”<\/p>\n With no signs of slowing down on the work front, Billy says keeping up with the “young ones” is a must.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI’ve certainly seen some changes, including get used to new technology, but it\u2019s not beyond us.<\/p>\n “I\u2019m lucky because I work more for the fun than the money at this point. I\u2019m a people person, so getting out to work isn\u2019t a chore for me, it\u2019s something I love to do.”<\/p>\n Lynsey McAlonan, Customer Services Manager at Asda Bangor<\/a>, added: “Billy is such a fantastic member of the team, we were delighted to share in the celebrations for his big day \u2013 a special birthday for a very special colleague.”<\/p>\n For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage <\/strong>here<\/a><\/strong> and <\/strong>sign up to our daily newsletter<\/a><\/strong> here.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I\u2019m lucky because I work more for the fun than the money at this point.” Billy Cooper marked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[486,55584,88580,1144,16,15],"class_list":["post-895251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-asda","tag-bangor","tag-co-down","tag-northern-ireland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116407689645701370","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895251","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=895251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}