While most of us expect to retire at some point in our 60s or 70s, some people keep working well beyond the average retirement age. Whether it's to serve their country, through a sense of duty, or to relieve the boredom, here are the world's oldest people who just can't stop working.

UK supermarket worker Irene Grice refused to retire at 60 as she didn’t earn enough money. She started working at Morrisons supermarket  in Solihull in the bakery section at the age of 66, and around the same time, began working as a cleaner for the local government.

According to the latest reports, Grice, who’s battled both cancer and a broken hip in recent years, had to temporarily take time off work during the coronavirus pandemic in 2021 to shield herself. However, rather than enjoying some well-deserved rest and relaxation, the then 92-year old instead began fundraising for cancer charity Marie Curie, raising £1,400 ($1.7k) in under two weeks.

The 96-year-old Queen has yet to officially retire from her royal duties. In 2022, she celebrated her Platinum Jubilee, which marked 70 years of service. The Queen does not intend to abdicate, though her son Prince Charles, himself 73, is taking on more responsibilities as she carries out fewer public engagements. In 2007, the Queen surpassed her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, to become the oldest British monarch.

Irish sheep drover Eugene O'Sullivan, 94, has worked at Kenmare Co-op Mart, Co Kerry, for about 15 years and shows little sign of stopping. He started his professional life as a farm laborer, before going on to become a wool-packer, and nowadays still guides sheep in and out of the sales ring at the mart. Speaking to the Irish Examiner on his 90th birthday, Mr O'Sullivan said: "Of course, I’ll keep going. Sit down in a chair is it? Anyone who ever sat in a chair failed and just died."

Helga Weyhe, 97, is the third generation to run her family's beloved bookshop in the German town of Salzwedel. She started working in the shop in 1944 and still staffs it six days a week. But the shop itself has been here since 1840 and its shelves were built during the 1880s, when Otto von Bismarck ruled what is now Germany. She told AFP: "I had lots of dreams when I was young but they always involved books."

Dr Christian Chenay, 98, is France's oldest practicing doctor. Dr Chenay still holds a clinic two days a week in Chevilly-Larue, a Parisian suburb with scarce access to doctors, and worked with his son for 37 years, until the latter retired at the age of 66 after his wife died. He told The Guardian newspaper in 2019 that one of the reasons he kept going was a lack of local family doctors in France.

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Jack Bertrand Weinstein, 98, is a US District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York. Born in 1921, he served as a lieutenant in the US Navy during the Second World War and was nominated to the federal court by President Lyndon B Johnson in 1967. Judge Weinstein has also worked as a lecturer and professor at Columbia University. Made a senior judge in 1993, he is known for his preference of appearing in court wearing business suits instead of judicial robes. 

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Tao Porchon Lynch, 101, is the world's oldest yoga teacher, as recognised by the Guinness World Records. Born in 1918, she was raised by her uncle in southern India, where she discovered yoga at the age of eight. After working as an actress in the UK, France and the US and serving in the French Resistance, she founded the Westchester Institute of Yoga in 1982 and has since taught yoga across the world. Her mantra is "smile at the world and it will smile back at you".

Swedish blogger Dagny Carlsson, 107, started blogging after going on a computer course at the age of 99 and now has followers all over the world. Thought to be the world's oldest blogger, she puts her longevity down to good genes and a curiosity for life. Late last year she was hit by car in Stockholm, but was soon back at the keyboard. Ms Carlsson said one problem with blogging is that if she doesn't post something each day, her followers think she's died.

Dr Bill Frankland, 107, is said to be Britain's oldest doctor. Born in 1912, a month before the Titanic went down, he qualified a decade before the birth of the NHS, was held by the Japanese during the Second World War, and once treated Saddam Hussein. The allergist now has a clinic in St Mary's Hospital, in west London, named after him and has no plans to fully retire. He recently told the i newspaper: “Between the ages of 100 and 105, I produced four academic papers, two entirely by myself."

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