Manager with iron in the blood

Val Robson, 56, puts on 30 washes and irons more than 180 items a day at Middleton Hall Retirement Village in Middleton St George, near Darlington.

Despite ironing more than 1.1 million items in her time at work, the grandmother still finds motivation on a Friday evening to press her own clothes, as long as she has a glass of red wine and a Westlife CD on.

She said: “I came for a fortnight to cover someone on maternity leave and I’ve been here ever since.

“I get a lot of job satisfaction from coming in on a morning and seeing rows of empty baskets, and then seeing them all full of fresh, clean clothes when I’ve finished. I never stop.”

Jeremy Walford, the Village’s managing director, who awarded her a bouquet of flowers and a meal for two, said: “No one can get through the laundry as fast as Val and she always ensures the quality is there too.”