ONE of Swindon’s oldest sons will celebrate his 102nd birthday later this month.

Former Garrard worker Alfred Page was born on February 25 in the second year of the Great War and has lived his whole life in the town he so dearly loves.

He went to King William Street Church of England School as a boy and was lucky enough to find a job as soon as he left as a fresh-faced, starry-eyed teenager.

He had a series of odd jobs as a young man, from working in a drapers to trying his hand as a butcher’s boy.

As his son Michael, 69, said: “He had a lot of jobs when he was younger.”

Alfred, a little hard of hearing but still razor sharp, said: “I used to have to go and get whatever work I could. It was the slump of the 1930s and it wasn’t easy to get a job. I worked all over the place and did whatever job was going.”

Later, as Hitler’s armies marched into Poland, Alfred joined the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and was given responsibility for defending Britain’s coast in anticipation of a German invasion.

He fought in Europe and ended the war in Germany, before returning home and marrying his sweetheart Dorothy Silk in 1946.

The pair met in Old Town in 1945, she was a widow as her first husband was one of the 60 million killed during the war.

The hero, resplendent in his shining medals, then went to work at Garrard’s engineering firm, where he stayed for 25 years.

Throughout the years, the father-of-seven has kept up his love of mechanics with an interest in clocks and watches – though them more than wearing them.

“I have done watch repairs since I was 14 years old,” he said. “I really enjoyed it, and still do. When I worked at Garrard’s I would come home with pockets full of watches.”

Alfred’s daughter-in-law, also Michael’s wife, Liz Page, said: “He gets in a little world of his own when he’s mending watches and he wouldn’t take any notice of what’s going on.”

Sadly Dorothy died five years ago, aged 91.

A proud Michael said: “It’s amazing that he’s got to this age. I have always said he will out-live all of us.”

And the secret of a long life, says Alfred, is quite simple: hard work.