At the age of 65 when most public servants are looking to head into retirement, Errol Wright has no such plans.

In fact, he was the oldest member of the latest batch of 95 Jamaicans who left for Canada on Thursday to participate in the Overseas Employment Programme.

Wright started going on farm work duties in 1986 and has gone ever since then, having found favour with his boss, Abe Epp, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, a town in southern Ontario, where Wright was headed to face weather of -3 degrees Celsius. However, after 36 years, he is quite used to the cold.

When asked about his secret for keeping pace with younger workers, the lanky cultivator was quick with his answer: “This is my philosophy: ‘Hard work always makes me fit,’ because I take work as exercise.”

When Wright first started on the programme, his employer cultivated peaches, but has since switched to grapes, and the Jamaican has easily made the transition to harvesting the new crop.

The senior citizen hails from St Catherine West Central.

Over the years, he has been able to send his three daughters through university and built a comfortable home in rural Jamaica.