Les has worked at Holbeach Hurn farm for 77 years

There are few people who can claim to have only ever worked for one company during their lifetime – and fewer who have done so for an incredible 77 years.

But Les Jackson (90) is one of them.

He took his first job for Holbeach Hurn farm AH Worth in 1944 just before his 14th birthday and almost eight decades on is proud to still be in its employment.

Les has worked for four generations of the Worth family, toiling the land in every way possible – from ploughing to harvesting, pea vining to combining. He’s also been a gamekeeper while more recently he’s taken on the role of greenkeeper at Hovenden Park Golf Course, also owned by the Worths.

"I’ve always enjoyed my work,’ said Les, who lives with wife Jean (89). "My father worked on the farm and it was natural that’s what I would do too.

"I was 12 when I first worked the six-week harvest holiday, and then had an extension to work another six. I left school three weeks short of my 14th birthday, finishing on the Friday and starting full-time work the following Monday. I’ve worked the land most of my life.

"I especially enjoyed ploughing as my father taught me to do that."

Les has always lived on the same road in Holbeach Hurn where he was born, except for two years when he moved into the village. As well as his own job changing over the years, he’s also witnessed the onset of farm mechanisation first-hand.

"I’ve gone from working with one horsepower up to 620 horsepower," he adds. "When I first started all the work I was doing was with shire horses, I was about 18 before I managed to get a tractor.

"It was just one furrow then. If you followed the horse up and down the furrow you would walk 11 miles ploughing one acre. That’s not considering walking to the yard and getting to the end of the field – it was probably 13 miles a day. Then it was home to eat and bed! It was part of life, a way of life.

"The first job I ever did on the tractor, I remember to this day, was to roll Hovenden Park – with strict instructions not to touch any of the trees!"

Les has been married to Jean for 66 years after the pair met in Holbeach and the couple have one son, Alan (59). Les moved on to drive all the machinery on the farm including tractor pulled pea-viners and self-propelled models, potato planters and one of the first Grimme Jumbo self-propelled potato harvesters.

"From January to March I’d be in the workshop," he recalls. "I couldn’t get out there and onto the land quick enough when the spring work started.

"I used to work the land a lot, planting, then there was pea-vining and from there harvesting potatoes and sugar beet, right until Christmas when it was back to the workshop again."

Rather than retire Les changed jobs at 52, becoming a gamekeeper, before switching to overseeing the golf course in 1984. A keen golfer himself, he has six hole in ones to his name and now works three mornings a week, which enables him to play on the days in between.

AH Worth chief executive Duncan Worth said: "It’s amazing that Les has been with us so long – something like that will never happen again. The way he has been able to pick up all the jobs, and all the roles over the years, it’s just fantastic.

"He has been able to turn his hand to anything asked of him – from the horses, to the early tractors and then the bigger machinery, and now overseeing the golf course, it’s amazing."

As for retiring, Les says not a chance when he enjoys what he does so much, crediting his active lifestyle with keeping him young and sprightly.

"I’ve had the pleasure of working with some wonderful people," he adds. "I’m very lucky, we’ve been blessed with good health and my work keeps me going.

"The only thing I regret is not keeping up with computers. But I enjoy what I’m doing – and when you enjoy something it doesn’t seem like work."