A LOYAL employee is marking his last shift today (August 31), 51 years to the day since he started his first one.

Kenny Clegg was just 15 years old when he began work with the North Eastern Electricity Board on August 31, 1964.

The 66-year-old, of Newton Aycliffe, recalled leaving school just a month earlier, along with most of his friends, and beginning work after a leader of his church boy’s brigade “put a good word in”.

The teenager lived in Ushaw Moor, Durham, and said he remembers starting his first day at the old depot in the city and has never looked back since.

Mr Clegg began work as an operative trainee and spent about three months at technical college learning the trade before coming back to the depot.

He then worked with all the other skilled departments such as joiners and fitters before progressing with the company, which later became Northern Electric and Northern Power Grid.

“By the time I was 18 I was a linesman’s mate and I was doing a man’s job so I quickly learnt how to climb using the climbing iron and I went into a live line team working on the electric wires,” he said.

“They were still alive and you just used plastic sticks to do different jobs and sometime we could feel the electricity come down the rods.”

The father-of-two soon became a linesman himself and accepted a permanent role in Bishop Auckland which was closer to his new family home in Newton Aycliffe.

He also worked in Ireland for a time in 1999 before returning to his home county.

Today (Monday, August 31), while being the anniversary of his first shift, is also his last.

The grandfather said: “It feels weird not to be at work and I don’t think it has hit me yet because it’s a long time to be at work and I went everyday more or less so it’s bound to feel a bit queer.

“Now I’ve got plans to decorate the house and I like my holidays so I will do quite a few of them.”

Mr Clegg is the longest serving member of the electricity board and his workmates honoured him with an ‘Ales in the Dales’ retirement day in July, where they also presented him with an inscribed silver tankard and a watch as a leaving present.

Mr Clegg added: “I thoroughly enjoyed going to work – it was a good job because you were outside all the time in the fresh air and the comradery was great working with the lads.”