It was a system that worked well; pensioners would open the school gates in the morning – it gave them something to do and added a little to a meagre pension. Everybody was happy, as the arrangement had been in place for decades… but then an opposition party denounced that one of the janitors was the father of one of the ruling party.

As long as everybody played ball, the elderly could do something to feel useful and necessary, and the successive Town Councils could find a little extra cash to pay them in this non-official post, but with the judicial spotlight on the arrangement, the Town Hall has had to stop it. Irony would have it, by the way, that the party who denounced what was happening, was the very party that had set up the inoffensive system all those years ago.

But, after much head scratching, the Town Hall has found a way to do it all above board, providing a salary of 400 euros a month to the 20 pensioners that carry out the ‘janitor’ task in the schools and public buildings in Almuñécar and La Herradura.

The system is now called, Programme for Active Aging for Pensioners, which means that they are not employed, as such, but participate in a social welfare programme.

As one pensioner puts it, “I leave home in the mornings because I have something to do – it makes me feel alive.”

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)