Members of Newmarket bowls club lay on an early birthday celebration for Reg Howard, its oldest member

Members of Newmarket’s Avenue Bowls Club laid on an early celebration for its oldest member ahead of his 100th birthday next week.

Reg Howard has been a member of the club, where he still plays and which is a stone’s throw from his home, since 1998 and on Saturday was greeted by president Bryan Short, who presented him with a birthday cake on behalf of his fellow bowlers.

Born in Upminster in Essex, Reg was just four when his father, who was an engineer, died and he was placed in the Alexandra Orphanage in London.

Although he was not an orphan Reg’s mother, now alone, had to work and in the days before the welfare state she believed the facilities there, including a good education, offered her son a good start in life.

When war broke out 14-year-old Reg, along with the other older children, was evacuated and billeted with families in the Bedford area. He then studied at the Cambridgeshire Technical School which he left at 16 to work in the construction industry in Kent where he was reunited with his mother.

A year later he volunteered for air crew with the RAF and was finally called up at age 18. “I failed the medical because I had a problem with my left eye,” said Reg, “so as a trained carpenter I ended up repairing the wooden Mosquito fighter planes and was based at RAF West Raynham, in Norfolk, where I was until the war ended. I can remember celebrating in Piccadilly Circus in London. They were great memories.”

A career in construction followed and Reg eventually became the director of Radford Construction, in Tunbridge Wells, until he retired at 62. In 1952 he married his first wife Betty and they had two sons Graham and Paul. They were married for 43 years before Betty lost her battle with breast cancer.

He first met Chris Cooper, who would become his second wife, when, as ladies captain at Newmarket Golf Club, she came to Reg’s club in Kent to play a match.

After they married they lived first in Six Mile Bottom before moving to The Avenue. Together they played golf and bowls and travelled widely before Chris died two years ago. “We had a wonderful life together,” said Reg. “Ours was a real love affair and I still talk to her every day.”

Reg, who has four grandchildren and seven great grandchildren, was also joined by members of Chris’s family at Saturday’s celebration and is looking forward to his centenary on September 28.

And his secret to a long life?

“I have always been active,” said Reg, “and I was very lucky I failed my medical for air crew because their life expectancy at the time was around five weeks.”