Swanage’s Des Wood, known as Mr Electric due to his job as an electrical repair man, has celebrated his 100th birthday at home with his family and friends.
Des, who was born in a house in Cluny Crescent in Swanage, Dorset, on Friday 19th December 1924, has lived in the town all of his life, only ever moving away for three years during World War Two when he served in the Far East.

Des and his wife Betty took their honeymoon in Cornwall in 1950

Royal greetings from Buckingham Palace on a special day as Des Wood receives a birthday card from the King and Queen
Letter of thanks from Edward Fox
He joined Southern Electric in 1940 and remained working for them until his retirement in 1989, carrying out domestic repairs and installations throughout Swanage and Purbeck, including farms and quarries, becoming a familiar sight on his bike and earning the nickname Mr Electric.
For many years, he would have to carry cables and work tools with him on his bike and he still remembers fondly receiving a letter of thanks from The Day of the Jackal actor Edward Fox for mending the cooker in his Kimmeridge cottage.
Des was a founder member of the Swanage Town Twinning Association setting up a link with Rudesheim am Rhein in Germany, learning the language and taking his one and only foreign holiday – a trip down the Rhine – as part of the twinning process.
His honeymoon in 1950 with wife Betty, who worked for Swanage high street grocer Robsons, was spent in Cornwall and later family holidays with sons Mike and Andrew were spent closer to home.

Actor Edward Fox personally thanked Des for mending a cooker at his Kimmeridge cottage
“I am really lucky to live in Swanage”
Des Wood said:
“For every other holiday, I would hire a car and we’d drive out to visit other places, like Salisbury, but I never wanted to drive too far.
“I think I am really lucky to live in Swanage, it is a wonderful town and there is so little crime here, you always feel very safe living here.
“I was born in Swanage and never lived anywhere else in my life. The only break was during World War Two, when I was away for two or three years, but as soon as I was demobbed I was back in Swanage, back in my old job and here I’ve been ever since.
“One of the biggest changes I’ve seen in Swanage is in the hotel industry. Before the war, people didn’t have cars so they used to come on the railway and stay a week or a fortnight in Swanage – now they all have cars, and a lot of the hotels and guest houses have closed. There’s nothing like as many as we used to have before the war.”

Des trained as an RAF wireless operator, but served with the Royal Artillery in the Far East
Served in Singapore and Malaya
Des was only 14 when the war started, but as soon as he turned 18 he enlisted in the RAF as a wireless operator. However, once he had completed his training he was transferred into the Army’s Royal Artillery to join an anti mortar regiment in Singapore and Malaya.
He talked little about his war service to his family, until son and daughter in law Mike and Marilyn Wood surprised Des and Betty with a holiday in Cornwall for their 60th wedding anniversary, to visit all the places they had been on their honeymoon.
There, when they visited the Eden Project in St Austell, the tropical biome filled with plants from rainforests around the world, brought back memories of the conditions in Malaya.

Des spent 50 years working for Southern Electric in Swanage, eventually upgrading from a bicycle to a van to make home calls
Parade with a brass band
Des said:
“I was with the anti mortar regiment, the idea was to find the mortars by range finding and then to bring them down with 25-pound shells.
“But although we were all ready for it, we never got around to doing it because the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Japan and ended the war before we got to see any action.
“I can remember a lot about Swanage before the war, especially Swanage Carnival which then only lasted for one day, not like it does now. I can remember there was a parade which was led by someone important from the town on a horse, with a brass band marching behind it.
“They had a greasy pole and children used to bombard each other with bags of flour and bags of soot, but I don’t think they’d allow it today because of health and safety.
“On the Rec they used to have swings and roundabouts, and rifle shooting with air guns, but that was about the extent of the entertainment.”

Des was an original member of Swanage’s town twinning committee which set up a permanent link with Rudesheim in Germany
“There were some funny people about”
Des added:
“There were some funny people about in those days – we had a man who walked around town wrapped up in a white sheet and we never found out why, then there was another who wore a kilt and used to play the bagpipes on Armistice Day.
“There was a bloke who lived in a stone cottage with rendering on the front, including a picture of an apple tree, and every autumn he used to collect real apples and hammer them with a nail onto the wall of his house, he was quite mad.
“He also used to throw coppers for the children to scramble for, but our headmaster at Mount Scar, Freddy Moore, didn’t go a bundle on that and we were all instructed we must never scramble for the money.”
Despite a recent fall which left Des in Poole Hospital for five days, he is now back at his home near Townsend Nature Reserve, having previously lived in Osborne Road, Hillview Road, Priest Road and Bell Street, although when he and Betty first married they lived in a flat in Station Road over Smiths Radio.

Swanage seafront in the summer of 1934 – much has changed since Des’s childhood, but it still remains the best place to be!
Crowds would watch him play tennis
Son Mike Wood said:
“Living at home is the best arrangement for him, Care Purbeck is brilliant and send someone round four times a day to help him get up, prepare lunch and tea and go to bed.
“He has weekly visits from myself and my brother Andrew, and other friends drop in to see him, as well as George the gardener and a lady who does the cleaning.”
Daughter in law Marilyn Wood added:
“Probably now he’s one of the few, born and bred in Swanage who has lived and worked his entire life here. I think many people in town will still remember him fondly, he was a great tennis player and crowds would come to watch him play.
“When younger, he would go off cycling miles with his then fiance Betty and a group of friends. He loved electronics and built radios, the family’s first television in 1960 and even a telescope to enable stargazing.”

Des with sons Michael and Andrew, grandson Alastair and granddaughter Emily
Greetings from King Charles
In retirement, Des spent a lot of time playing tennis, then table tennis at the football club’s sports hall up until the age of 80.
He and Betty would also take regular walks to Corfe Castle, catching the bus back, and they would regularly drive to Devon to visit their grandchildren, turning up at his son’s house before 7 am because Des didn’t like driving on busy roads.
Des has already received an envelope from Buckingham Palace with greetings from King Charles and Queen Camilla, and family members will join Mike and Marilyn at his home before Christmas to wish him a happy 100th birthday.
They include grandson David, a doctor at Manchester children’s hospital, his son and daughter in law Andrew and Yvonne, and their two children Alistair and Emily.