I Like My Job

When I get up of a morning, I actually look forward to going into work. I'm always out doors and I work in mainly rural areas. The Fenland has a few big towns, but mostly countryside. To get from one town to another, a person must drive across miles and miles of open farm fenland. 

As a kid, living in London, the streets and towns never ended. One went from one district into another. Since moving to the rural fenland, my whole life has changed. I'm middle aged and own my lovely house and just needed any old job to make a few quid each month. 

I took a chance and moved here and hoped for the best. I went to am employment agency and two weeks later was phoned to start work at Fenland District Council. The work's yard was walking distance from my house. I could hardly believe my luck. In all the Fenland the work's yard was 10 minuets from home.

I went out with the garbage lorries and emptied bins from all over the Fens. The towns, the farms the villages - every where.

My work crew are great and we all get on well while plodding about all day emptying wheelie bins with selected waste. The whole environment is calm when I look out across the fields and farms. It feels like I'm a million miles away from the old woes and worries of my former life.

I'm enjoying my fifties and all I seem to do is plod along with great work mates and a job I love. Its incredible because being a bin loader on garbage trucks is something most people would not want. I love it. We are out with our own little crew with no one breathing down our necks. We are left do our round and we get on with it.

In summer its wonderful and there are countless things to see. In the winter we see the sun rise and it all makes for a serene sight.

I was just over 16 stone when I came here. I was over weight to say the least. I walk around 12 miles a day. Now my weight is under 14 stone and I'm much fitter. I was surprised to know that there are still a few bin loaders older than me and some around my age too. As a job for seeing out my working life, I could not want one better. 

I have time to come home and do the things I want and am able to get exercise each day doing my job. At the moment it is cold because the winter is beginning to show up. But still, I like working outdoors in the Fen. Even in winter.

Lillian Board and France's Colette Besson

Lillian Board was born in Durban South Africa on December 13th 1948. Her parents returned to their native Britain in 1950 before Lilian was two.

I was a seven year old schoolboy when I first heard the name Lillian Board. We all knew that this nineteen year old athlete was Great Britain’s new golden girl of the track and the Mexico 1968 Olympics was the first games I remember because my junior school teacher, mister Larter, had made a chart that he stuck on the classroom wall. It contained a column of circles: Yellow for gold, Grey for silver and red for bronze. Each morning he would revise the chart and stick Great Britain’s new medals on the chart. We all expected gold for Lillian but got a grey for silver because a French lady called Colette Besson pipped Lilian right on the finishing line. Still Lillian was only nineteen and not yet at her peak. Our golden girl would be better in Munich 1972 - roll on Munich.


In the mean time Lillian Board and Colette Besson would have some fine duels on the track. In the following year Lillian won the European 800 m title and the 4x 400m rely title pipping Colette Besson during the final stages – a roll reversal of the Olympics. Again, Brits were excited and saying roll on Munich.


Before the 1970 Commonwealth Games began in Edinburgh, Lillian Board had to pull out of the games because of pains. Tests revealed a terrible illness. Lillian Board had colorectal cancer and it would tragically claim her life before the year was out on December 26 a few days after her twenty second birthday. The UK was stunned by the death of their golden girl.


She was awarded an MBE in the 1970 New Year honours list and is commemorated in Munich, where she died. An avenue bearing her name leads to the Olympic stadium.

(France’s great athlete, Colette Besson, pays tribute to Lillian in the above clip. She speaks kindly in her native French and both ladies duelled well in these bygone days. Sadley Colette, also passed away of cancer in 2005. Both are sadly missed from that era.)