At 92, Derek Ward is one of Kent’s oldest company directors - but he has no intention of retiring.

His job is helping him thrive and stay sharp and energetic, with the stamina to keep working 62-hour, six-day weeks.

Even heart bypass surgery can’t keep him away, returning to his desk just a few days after a major operation earlier this year.

He told KentOnline: “All of my friends who retired are dead. I’ll carry on working till I kick the bucket.

“I’ve been working for 80 years already.

“Also, there isn't anybody else to take over from me at the moment.”

Mr Ward is the managing director of Envirograf in Barfrestone, near Dover, which makes fireproofing products such as barriers and specialised doors and coatings.

He is in charge of a bustling factory there with 128 workers.

He also runs a satellite office at Poulton Close, Dover, with six workers, and two more sites at Bishop Auckland in Durham.

Mr Ward is still inventing new products and is in no rush to quit work, believing it can accelerate people’s decline in their old age.

He explained: “If someone retires, maybe their wife gives them a lot to do, like gardening and redecorating. Within six months they've done it all.

“After that they are sitting there reading the papers until 11am and then all day watching TV.

“What a waste of time.

“I would say to people: ‘Don't retire, just keep going.’

“If we all kept going everybody would be doing a job and they'd be earning money, instead of saying: ‘Oh dear, I haven't got any money.’

“Why, if they can still work?”

Mr Ward’s longevity has been aided by a healthy lifestyle.

He has never smoked and the strongest alcohol he takes, very occasionally, is shandy.

He can get exercise simply by regularly walking around the factory to keep an eye on how production is going.

Mr Ward works fierce hours, from 6am to 5pm Mondays to Fridays, and 6am to 1pm Saturdays.

After heart bypass surgery on a Thursday four months ago, he was back at his desk the next Monday.

“You can’t get rid of me,” he remarked.

Mr Ward moved from London to Kent in 1958 and founded Envirograf in 1979 at Barfrestone. He now lives in Ramsgate.

“Previously, this was a factory where they made pies for Tesco,” he said.

“The staff had to work under umbrellas because the roof would leak.”

Mr Ward is widowed twice and his third wife is Mirslava, 52, who is a Polish national and the factory manager at Barfrestone. The couple have been married for 10 years.

He also has a nephew, Paul Ackerman-Mond, who is general manager.

I don’t know of any other company director in Kent of my age…

Now a father-of-two and grandfather-of-seven, Mr Ward spent most of his childhood living in Balham, south London.

He and his family had to dodge Hitler’s bombers durng the Blitz in 1940-41 and again the Nazis’ doodlebugs in 1944-45.

“When we were in the classroom at school and the air raid sirens went off the teacher would tell us to get our gas masks on and get home,” Mr Ward recalled.

“At home we would go inside an Anderson Shelter in the garden, which was covered in earth. We used to watch the warplanes overhead and literally saw the bombs drop.”

Mr Ward started his working life as an electrician in London, mainly dealing with lighting in theatres, when he was 13.

“I was slung out of school for dropping a snowball down the back of another kid’s neck,” he said.

“The headmaster also gave me six of the best on each hand. When I got home and my old man heard about what happened, he also gave me a good hiding.”

Aged 17 in the late 1940s, he was struck by double pneumonia and spent 20 months in hospital.

“I was in National Service when I collapsed,” Mr Ward said. “The other soldiers put me on the back of a lorry and took me to hospital.”

In the 1980s, he suffered an unbearable tragedy when his son Nigel, 38, collapsed and died from a heart condition after scuba diving in Jordan.

Over the decades, Mr Ward has thrown himself into his work and found ways to adapt to changing demands.

His company does not restrict itself to fireproofing materials, moving into other areas such as developing special domestic sink wastewater filters to stop drains from being clogged.

In response to the Grenfell fire tragedy, Envirograf made fire-resistant panels for the building of eco-homes and flats.

Mr Ward said: “I don’t know of any other company director in Kent of my age - but people luckily still keep ringing me up and asking me to invent something.”