Worked to the bone into a lonely old age

THE plight of old Irish labourers in Britain was in the news again lately.

I worked in England in the late 1960s and early '70s. I knew a lot of the men who worked 'on the lump' so called because they did not pay tax, put up a stamp or pay union dues. Most of the Irish worked that way.

I used to meet them in Luton where there were 25,000 Irish at that time. I advised a lot of them to pay a stamp every week and to get away from the sub-contractors. Very few took my advice.