SIR - The article by your business correspondent on the number of over-65s still in work was interesting (T&A, January 2).

We learnt that “7.6% of over-65s across Yorkshire are in employment; 1.1 million over-65s are in work; and more than 400,000 people over 65 are now in self-employment.

Notwithstanding the rights of persons of this age to work, for what reasons do these people continue to slog it out in what were once considered twilight years to be treasured and enjoyed, no longer at the beck and call of the factory whistle?

Forget the “I miss the company” and the “I love to volunteer” brigades, they have always been around.

Most people continuing to work after 65 do so because they cannot make ends meet for such reasons as not having been able to afford a private pension or savings in work; are still paying off negative equity mortgages; are supporting other family members, themselves out of work. The historic move by the Tories to abolish enforced retirement was not done altruistically for a bunch of people begging to be allowed to work longer or to free up the work market.

It was done as part of their larger social engineering programme.

A Waterhouse, Barmby Road, Bradford