NO-ONE knows the roads of Essex quite like Arthur Clark.

For more than half a century, the 69-year-old has worked continuously for Essex County Council, mainly in the highways department.

Every bend, bypass and drainage ditch he has crafted sticks in his memory.

He is a walking encyclopaedia on everything roads, and, at 53 years and counting, is the authority's longest-serving member of staff.

When he joined the council straight from school at the age of 16, the A12 was a single carriage road meandering through the Essex towns and villages it now bypasses. The tools of road design were a sharpened pencil and a set square.

But it was a busy time for highways with post-war construction projects underway and a growing population of car owners.

"I know the roads of Essex like the back of my hand," said Mr Clark, the son of a farm worker.

"I do feel proud. I can look at a road and I know I was involved in deciding where that road was."

Born in 1941 on his grandmother's kitchen table in Woodham Mortimer, Mr Clark went to the local school, before Chelmsford Technical High School, where teachers got him an interview at County Hall.

The senior engineer's tenure began as a junior draftsman and tracer in the improvements section, before he moved on to the trunk roads department and then to the bridges team.

"We used chain and tape to measure out, where now they use satellites," he said. "You look at that, and how we worked then, and it just seems incredible.

"I get enquiries on highways schemes that were done 40 years ago. I remember what was done. One look at a drawing and it all comes back, what we did and how we resolved problems."

Arthur helped to design numerous A12 bypasses, at Witham, Kelvedon, Stanway and Brentwood, and with his boss he successfully opposed a Department for Transport proposal to route the trunk road through Boreham.

The A414 from Ongar to Writtle is 'his' road, after improvements made during the 1970s.

If David Cameron wants an example of why we should all work beyond 65, Mr Clark is it.

After 49 years in highways he moved to the waste and recycling department when he turned 65.

He's been involved with a number of new household recycling centres across the county and says the five-year long project for a new centre in Braintree, opened just last week, is among the highlights of his long career.

"I would keep on forever," said Mr Clark, an avid table tennis player who organises vast county competitions as efficiently as he routes a one-way system.

"I am not married, I'm at home by myself and the last thing I want to do is put my feet up on the mantelpiece while I am fit and active. If I had children it may be a different story."

However, cuts in spending may signal an unwanted end to his career.

"This is probably the end of the line for me," said Mr Clark, who has lived in Woodham Walter most of his life. "With the budget cuts I can't see there being another big project in the next few years.

"They have got work for me at the moment but I don't know how long that will last.

"But with all the changes now I can't see anybody else getting near 53 years."