One of the UK’s longest serving engineers insists he wants to carry on until he is 100 – after clocking up 76 years working in industry.
Vic Sutton, from Rugeley, celebrated the achievement this week, when he spent his 90th birthday at work and was thrown a surprise party by colleagues.
The calibration engineer started work just four years after the end of the second world war and began his career as a mechanical engineering apprentice.
An insatiable appetite for Northern Soul music has also seen him become one of the scene’s most loved DJs with more than 700 gigs under his belt.
It was only the weight of equipment that saw him pack up his decks a few months ago, but he still gets pulled into doing some guest spots by friends.
“My family keep asking me when I’m going to stop, but I genuinely just love coming to work,” said Vic, who still works three days per week and has previously been a radio engineer in the Royal Air Force.
He believes the biggest change in manufacturing during his career has been the emergence of technology and the fact everything is done on computers – including his calibration work.
Vic has been working at Teepee Electrical for the past two decades and is responsible for the calibration of more than 428 hand tools used by colleagues to crimp wires.
The great-grandfather-of-four added: “I love my family to bits, but I have no intention of giving up work just yet. As long as I remain fit enough – both in body and mind – I hope to still be working at Teepee Electrical when I hit the big century.”
Vic’s message to the engineers of the future is ‘education, education, education’, making sure that young people take every opportunity to learn, whether that is at school, college, university or on the shopfloor.
Steve Clarke, Managing Director of the Bloxwich company, said: Vic is a walking, talking inspiration…it’s as simple as that.
“Everyone loves him, and he really brings a feel-good factor to the factory, not to mention years of manufacturing and problem-solving experience that makes a real difference on our shopfloor.
“His stories are amazing, from overcoming tuberculosis as a child and playing in two bands in Stoke-on-Trent to rubbing shoulders with Alvin Stardust and Billy Fury.”
