Bill hard at work
For a quarter of a century, Bill Reynolds was consigned to the employment scrapheap.
When a workplace accident cut short his career he struggled without success for 25 years to get another job.
But now at the ripe old age of 65, a time when most people are toasting their retirement, Bill is celebrating a new chapter in his life by going BACK to work.
He's just started a job as a cleaner with City Facilities Management, working at Asda's headquarters in Leeds, and says he is loving every minute of it. It's absolutely great," said Bill, of Richmond Hill, Leeds.
"I got so low after all those years that I thought I would never work again."
Bill was forced to quit work as a maintenance engineer in 1980 when he suffered a horror injury as he repaired a machine used for printing carpets.
It left him with a serious back injury from which he took two years to recover.
But despite being eager to find a route back to the world of employment, Bill was frustrated to find every door firmly shut and turned to voluntary work instead.
"It was ridiculous," he said. "It got to the point where it would have cost me money to work because I would have lost all my disability benefit payments.
"I had to wait until I retired so that I could work because that way I still had my pension."
Bill's ray of hope came in the shape of the Government's New Deal for Disabled People which encourages people like him to re-enter the workplace.
He went into the Leeds office of national charity the Shaw Trust and was given help putting together a new CV and looking for suitable jobs.
Eventually they were able to find him a position with City Facilities Management (CFM) and Bill hasn't looked back since.
"I was over the moon when I got the job," he said. "I've found I've still got all my energy and enthusiasm and my workmates are fantastic."
Adrian De Montfort, recruitment consultant at the Shaw Trust, who helped him find the job, said: "Bill's is certainly the longest time out of work of anyone I have seen so far.
"After all that time his confidence needed re-building but he was so keen to work. We're delighted for him."
Story courtesy of grant.woodward@ypn.co.uk
