PENSIONERS choose to go back to work to keep busy rather than to make ends meet, says Age Concern Bournemouth.

The statement challenges a report in a national Sunday newspaper which claimed that more than 1,000 pensioners per week nationwide are being forced back to work because they cannot survive financially.

The report in the Sunday Express claimed that most end up doing menial jobs such as street cleaning and supermarket packing.

Rising costs of living, stealth taxes, the low state pensions and the collapse of many private pension schemes are blamed.

Yet at B&Q in Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, older workers seem to be bucking the trend.

Far from being employed in a menial role, Ken Harding, in his seventies, is a part-time night crew supervisor.

Grandfather-of-two Stuart Couper is a warehouse supervisor and believes he will be able to afford to stop working when he is 65.

Stuart who celebrates his 60th birthday next January, said: "I have worked for B&Q for four years and the main reason was money.

"I won't get the full state pension until I'm 65 but I will get a private pension when I'm 60."

Customer adviser, Pam Crammer, 68, from Oakdale, has worked for B & Q for eight years.

She, explained: "I needed a job. The state pension isn't enough to manage on. It's all very well existing but I hope to live a bit."

In the 320 B&Q stores nationwide, 6,300 staff are aged 50 or over, amounting to around 21 per cent of B&Q's total workforce.

The Holdenhurst Road store employs nine older workers out of of 38, with Henry Waterman, a checkout operator aged 75, as the oldest.

Hazel Walker, chief officer at Age Concern Bournemouth, said: "The state pension is inadequate for older people but there are many older people who are choosing to return to work.

"They return because they still have a lot of energy and skills to offer employers.

"At Age Concern we are saying if people want to retire at 65 that's okay, but what we are saying to employers is if people want to stay on past 65 they have still got a lot to offer."

Other companies which have a policy of employing older workers include ASDA, Marks & Spencer, Domino's Pizza, Tesco, Sainsbury and BT.

Cllr Bill Mason, cabinet member for Caring for People, said that he believed the problems are not so apparent in the Bournemouth area.

Bournemouth is among towns chosen to take part in a pilot scheme in the South West called Care Direct which comes under the umbrella of the Department for Work & Pensions he said.

Care Direct supports elderly people and the group offers them help and advice to maximise their benefits.