A FORMER Garrard worker who helped defend the south cost of Britain from the Nazis will celebrate his 100th birthday in Swindon today.

Alfred Page was born in Groundwell Street on this day in 1915 and has spent most of his adult life living in Old Town.

Last Saturday his huge family, including many of his dozens of grand-children and one-year-old great-great-grand-daughter Elsie got together to mark the occasion.

Alfred said: “I can’t remember anyone in our family who has reached 100. I was born in Swindon and lived here all my life. I never wanted to be anywhere else.”

At the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and was given responsibility for maintaining the old First World War naval guns along the coastal defences.

He said: “I played a pretty big part in that war.

“I went over in the invasion and served in France and Belgium before finishing the war in Germany.”

But he had a couple of narrow escapes. After drinking contaminated water in Belgium he contracted diphtheria and nearly died.

Then he was lucky to escape a final posting to the Far East.

He said: “They were preparing to send me over to Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped, which just managed to spare me going out there.

“When I was called up, I tried to join the air force, but my eyesight let me down. At that point they put me in bomb disposal, but I had to get out of that as soon as I could otherwise I wouldn’t last very long.

“After that I had to keep all the guns on the south coast in action, including Newhaven and Beachy Head.

“They stationed me in Portsmouth when they thought the invasion was going to come there, but in the event they only got as far as the Channel Islands.”

After demobbing in 1945, Alfred took up work at famous record player manufacturer Garrard, where he spent 25 loyal years before the company began outsourcing its work.

His late wife Dorothy was a war widow, and Alfred raised her four children, Molly, Patricia, Gay and Richard as his own.

The couple went on to have three children of their own, Michael, Kevin, and David.

Michael, 67, said: “His hobby, after retiring from Garrard at the age of 63, was repairing watches and clocks.

“He used to come home with pockets full of them, and would offer to repair anything for half a crown, even though we were on new money by then.

“He was always pretty laid back, and we could get away with what we wanted as long as mum didn’t catch us out.

“He has outlived everyone of his generation, and I think he would put that down to hard work. He never smoked and he rode a bike all his life. He cycled until he was about 80, when mum had to ban him because there was so much traffic on the roads.”

Alfred’s 74-year-old daughter Molly said: “He has always been a deep thinker, a very even-tempered man.”