Robert Alford began work at Ambrosia, Lifton in October 1964 and retired in May this year after working 45 years as a mechanical engineer — quite an achievement by any standard and when asked why he stayed so long, the immediate response was: "Because I love it here."

Following his school years Robert worked at no less than seven local garages, ending his garage career at McFaul's which used to be at the top of Lifton. Whilst there Robert heard there was a possible job going down at Ambrosia so left the garage and did a week's general work before starting work in engineering. Robert spent most of his working life in the Incubation Room (where all the cans are labelled and packed) and was responsible for maintaining the machinery running those lines.

Robert's finest achievement in recent years has been the design and creation of the 'Shuffler', which is aptly named as it keeps the cans moving by shuffling them from side to side and a can sweeper, a joint project with another engineer, which ensures the cans fill up the entire width of the production line.

He was also instrumental in vastly reducing the time it takes to do a 'size change' on the production line; what used to sometimes take two engineers 1.5 hours now takes only one engineer five minutes — a huge cost saving and allowing for longer production runs, both of which help keep Ambrosia profitable!

Robert came to the factory as a shy young man; now, 45 years on, and he leaves the factory with many happy memories to start a new phase of his life with his wife Pat. Future plans include travelling around England a bit and a little engineering project to build a working model of a miniature steam engine from scratch! That, and pottering about in the home and garden should keep him pretty busy although it will be difficult adjusting to a new way of life after 45 years of shift work; no easy task for a man who has loved his job so much.

"I'm really going to miss working at Ambrosia, it has served me well over the years and I've made many friends."

He will be greatly missed but no doubt he will be popping in from time to time to see that everything is in order.