Staying fit the key to 100-year-old's long life

Bill Redston said it was important to 'stay fit and well'

A D-Day veteran celebrating his 100th birthday has put his long life down to staying active.

Bill Redston from Wolverhampton said: "By no means am I the sort of person that has to stay in bed all day or anything like that."

He ran the London marathon at the age of 65 and then followed it up with the New York race the following year, "just to prove that London wasn't a one-off."

The former civil engineer said he would celebrate with close family at his home on his birthday, Thursday, and then have a larger party for 100 guests on Sunday.

He said he regularly walked around his housing estate and that "staying fit and well" was one of his greatest life lessons.

He became a member of his local cycling club in his 80s and said: "I still get on my exercise bike or go for a one-mile walk at least four times a week.”

Mr Redston found his love of physical activity when he joined the Royal Navy at the age of 18 and said "from that day onwards, I was quite keen to do any sort of sports, or running, or anything like that that I needed to do".

Mr Redston joined the Royal Navy at the age of 18

The Second World War could have turned out very differently for him, however.

At the time of the D-Day landings he was a First Lieutenant of Motor Launch 191 as part of the naval coastal forces.

He was due to guide US soldiers on to Utah Beach, but at the 11th hour the Americans decided to replace his motor launch with one of their own.

That American ship was one of the first to be sunk on D-Day and he later reflected that he might not have survived the war if he had led the landing instead.

Mr Redston said he had been honoured to meet King Charles on two occasions

After D-Day, Mr Redston and his comrades were sent to patrol in Burma until the end of the war.

When the war ended, he went on to work for Wolverhampton-based Tarmac for 27 years, mainly on the construction of motorways.

For the last 20 years, he has worked as a volunteer at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire and in 2020 he met the then Prince Charles there.

The following year he was presented with France's Legion d'Honneur medal at the Arboretum for his services on D-Day, which he said was one of the proudest moments of his life.

Mr Redston, who has lived in Wolverhampton for more than 60 years, requested that anyone who wants to celebrate his birthday make a donation to the National Memorial Arboretum in his honour.