Sharon Griffiths meets Car park attendant Doreen Roberts.

DOREEN Roberts is the face of the future - so it's reassuring that she's so cheerful. More of us, we're told, are going to have to work longer. In the not so distant future, retirement at 65 will seem ridiculously young.

It already does to Doreen. She's 73 and still working full time as a car park attendant for Richmondshire District Council, looking after car parks from Richmond to Hawes, out in all weathers.

"It's a marvellous job. I love it. And it stops me being an old fuddy duddy," she says.

Acknowledging that she's lucky to be physically fit - she hasn't had a day off sick since she started the job 17 years ago - she maintains that it's the job that keeps her young.

"I sometimes see people I was in school with and they look so ancient. Well of course they are! They've got nothing to do all day and they're bored. I don't have that chance," says Doreen.

"I'm out all the time, always meeting new people. There are some marvellous people, so nice. There are tourists who come back year after year and I've got to know them. It's always interesting."

There are one or two who are not so nice, of course, who can get very angry when they get a ticket.

"Most people are very accepting but I've had people shout and swear at me, posh people with big cars. I never let it bother me," she says.

"A gang of lads surrounded me once, all shouting. They still got the ticket and I just walked away. Or there are young lads I've known all their lives who think I'll let them off because I know them. But I don't care who people are, what sort of car they've got, they just have to pay and display.

"One chap who'd got very angry went round to the office later and apologised. It would have been much better if he'd apologised to me.

"I'm not sneaky, mind. When I get to a car park I make myself seen and I just stroll around for a while before I start looking at the cars. Then you see all the people scurry to the machine to get a ticket. And if they're late back, oh well, then you hear all the excuses."

For years, Doreen was accompanied on her patrols by a little Westie, who used to chew her notebook but knew every car park in the district. "He didn't die until he was 16, so work must have suited him too." He has now been replaced by a miniature schnauzer called Woody.

Maybe Doreen finds it so easy to cope with bolshy drivers because she is the mother of eight children. "I never put up with any nonsense with them, so I wouldn't take it from anyone else," she says.

Today's working mothers who complain about their lot, should think how women like Doreen coped in the 1950s and 1960s.

"I left school at 15 and worked in the steam laundry until I had my first baby. But I worked in between having the children, back at the laundry and other jobs and between the seventh and the eighth I worked at the school cleaning," recalls Doreen.

"When I came home from work I would drag out the wash boiler and start on the nappies. I had 18 years of nappies and no proper washing machine, just the boiler and an old wooden dolly.

"But I was very organised, I had to be. And the children all did their bit, they had their chores to do and I taught them all to cook, even the boys, proper cooking, proper food."

Doreen then worked for many years running the famous fish bar restaurant at the Black Bull in Moulton, then as a traffic warden and then for the Abbeyfield organisation.

"But that took me away from home during the week so when I saw the car park attendant's job advertised I thought it would suit me - especially with my experience as a traffic warden - and I was right, it's been great," she says.

"And I work with lovely people too - only don't let them know I said that - but they're really nice. We had a great night out in York recently.

"And in the summer when I'm driving up over the dales to Hawes, Muker or Langthwaite, I think I'm so lucky to be paid to do this."

There are occasional downsides, of course. A skid on the ice in Arkengarthdale, an encounter with a car speeding towards her on the wrong side of the road.

"I got out of his way but collided with the Welcome to Richmond sign," says Doreen. Then there was a time when she was a traffic warden and she got run over, "I've got the scars still, but I didn't take a day off."

All her children still live in the Richmond area.

"They're very good. I see a lot of them -I still look in their cupboards to make sure they're eating properly," says Doreen. But she doesn't believe in living in their pockets.

"That's another thing a lot of old people do, rely too much on their families for something to do. We're always there when we're needed but otherwise we have our own lives to lead. I don't intrude," she says.

"But as well as eight children I have 23 grandchildren and a little great grand-daughter and it's Christmas coming up. That's an awful lot of presents to buy. No wonder I still want to work.

"And there are always new things to learn and do. We've just started working with the police on a new scheme and that's very interesting. It keeps me going.

"When I was 70, the people in work bought me a great bouquet of flowers and I thought - that's it, they want shot of me, but no, not yet.

"Tourists who come back each year always look out for me. 'Are you still here?'" they ask.

"Well yes, I am. And I hope I will be for a good while yet."