Leslie Jubb

REMARKABLE Leslie Jubb, who has turned 100, puts many of us to shame.

Family friend Joan Charles, Leslie Jubb, daughter Nova Jordan

He cycles around WGC on a daily basis, reads French fluently every day, keeps a pristine garden, creates and designs things for around the house and looks after himself fully independently.

So what does the Springfields resident thank for his incredible lifestyle today? Healthy living.

Leslie has been a vegetarian since World War Two, he does not smoke and only drinks on special occasions.

One of his daily routines, of which there are a few, includes eating poached eggs on toast.

The father-of-two, grandfather and great-grandfather, who celebrated his birthday on Monday last week with a lunch with his friends, told the WHT his health at the moment felt like that of a 70-year-old.

“I go to see the doctor just for a check-up monthly and he says my health is remarkable for someone of my age. I have a dodgy knee, but otherwise I get on ok.

“I think it’s important to keep an active mind so I get my daughter, who lives in Geneva, to send over the Swiss edition of the Reader’s Digest and I can read that in French just as if it was English, without a dictionary.

“I like to cycle as well, I have cycled nearly every day since I was eight or nine and when I was a young man I was a keen cyclist and would travel around 100 miles a day.”

Originally from Sheffield, Leslie moved to the area 70 years ago for work, first living in London, then moving to Datchworth, before he called WGC his home.

An inventor with a patent on several “technical things”, by trade Leslie was a precision tool maker.

He was exempt from service during the war as he was working for Norton’s, which supplied engineering parts for de Havilland aircraft, however he still served in the Home Guard.

He married his wife Vera, who was also from Yorkshire, in 1940 at St Mary Magdalene Church, Hollybush Lane.

Leslie worked most of his life at ICI and during his time with his wife, who died 14 years ago, they spent much of their time travelling around Europe – and even got as far as the Arctic – in a Volkswagen Campervan.

It was during this time that Leslie not only learned French, but Spanish, Dutch and German too.

Summing up 100 years he said: “I feel incredibly lucky really.

“For me the biggest change has been what us pensioners are giving to live on.

“My parents hardly got by as they had to live on like 30 shillings a week, but today you can do alright on the pension.”