Hucknall man says goodbye to town firm he's worked at for more than 50 years

Mark Platts, aged 66, finished work for the last time at funeral directors George Hanson & Sons on Watnall Road on Friday, June 9, to complete 51 years of service with the company.

Mark joined as an apprentice back in 1972 – and has remained loyal to the company ever since.

He said: “I’ve worked for the company all my life and people say it’s pretty unusual to find someone like me who do that these days.

“But I love working for Hanson’s because they’re a family firm, simple as that really, they treat you like a family.”

Mark started as an apprentice joiner when he joined Hanson’s back in 1972 – and has remained a joiner ever since, jokingly calling his time with the company “one long apprenticeship”.

But then longevity and loyalty is something Hanson’s are all about with the firm currently run by Eddie and William Hanson, carrying on the line of the Hanson family running the business for more than 150 years, with Eddie’s sons also working at the company as the next generation to carry on the firm’s legacy.

And that was one of the main reasons Mark has never been tempted to work elsewhere.

He said: “They look after you, that’s all I can say, they look after you, no matter what’s happened.

“I’ve known Hanson family all my life – I used to go to school with Eddie.”

Unsurprising, over the course of half a century with the company, Mark has seen plenty of changes down the years.

He continued: “It’s grown, it really has, it’s quite a big business now and I’ve seen one or two changes in my time.”

Mark says the friendship and banter – most of which he says he bore the brunt of – between everybody at the company’s Watnall Road site is what he will miss the most now he’s retired.

But there’s no danger of him being idle in retirement as he says there are plenty of jobs to get on with at home.

He said: “I’ll still be busy, but I’ll always look back at a very happy career at Hanson’s, 100 per cent.”