'I am still working at 80 - and love every minute'

An 80-year-old woman, who runs her own business, has said she loves working full-time.

Speaking to BBC Radio Sussex at 7:40 GMT - having already been at the gym for an hour – Sylvie Hampton said she retrained as a nurse at 40 while working nights as a hospital health assistant.

"I always wanted to be a nurse from the age of five, but never got the opportunity", she said.

Hampton, from Hailsham in East Sussex, added her classmates were a "good twenty years younger than me - some more."

"But they did not have the commitment that you have when you are my age," she continued.

"When you are 40, you think I've got to do well because I'm up against all these youngsters.

"So actually sometimes you do better - simply because you can commit yourself to not going out at night and coming in in the morning with a headache," she laughed.

Hampton said she later did a bachelor's and master's degree, eventually becoming a tissue viability nurse.

"If you have a really nasty old ulcer that is not healing, I am the guy you come to," she told the BBC.

Hampton added that she then started her own wound care consultancy business in her 50s, which she is currently expanding.

She said she is still working "50 hours a week", but added: "I love what I do".

"It is always different every day."

Hampton said she works as an expert witness in the courts, with police on manslaughter cases and coroners, alongside private patients.

She also won an award as one of the top 10 nurses in the world in 2024 out of 78,000 nurses from 202 countries.

"Not bad for an old bird huh," Hampton said.

"They say if you love what you do, then you don't work a day in your life," she said.

"That is how I feel."

"I have loved every minute," Hampton added.

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