A SCHOOL dinner nanny who has been told she is too old to work is making a last ditch plea to keep the job she loves.

Pensioner Lena Morrison will be forced to retire this summer despite her insistence that she is fit enough to keep working another two years.

The 68-year-old is hoping the headteacher and governors at Chilton Primary School, in Chilton, County Durham, will have a change of heart and allow her to keep the job she has done for nearly three decades.

Mrs Morrison, a widow with two daughters, started work as a supervisory assistant at the village infants' school 28 years ago, before it amalgamated with the junior school in 2002.

But this year she was told she has to retire because she had exceeded the age limit set out in guidance from the local education authority, Durham County Council.

She has since pleaded with school governors, of which she is one, to stay on until she reaches 70.

She said: "I offered to take a medical test to prove I can still do the job. I love my job and just hope I'm allowed to stay on for just two more years.

"I've seen generations of pupils go through the school, I love those children.

"My job is very important to me. I was just devastated when I found out the school wanted to let me go."

Along with the pleasure she gets from the job, she says she needs the £42 weekly wage to save up to visit daughter, Sandra Gilbert, and granddaughters, Hannah and Lily, in the US

Headteacher Dave Wallace said: "Mrs Morrison has given 28 years service to the school and its pupils and we are greatly appreciative of her hard work in that time.

"However, she has now reached, and indeed gone beyond, the normal retiring age.

"The local education authority, and local authority as a whole, has a policy of retirement at 65 and the governors, having taken advice and given the matter great consideration, felt that the policy should be implemented."