IF you want to live to be 100, avoid marriage and drink lots of beer.
That’s the advice of former Luton architect Reg Day and he should know - he celebrated reaching the magic ton last Friday.
He’s joined the exclusive centenarian club at Castleroy Residential Home in Cromer Way which now boasts a membership of three. The other two are Herbert Bunyon, 101, and Lillian Hallam who turned 100 in February.
And they have slightly different views on how to achieve such awe-inspiring seniority.
Herbert toiled in the borough treasury department all his working life and devoted his spare time to building up Caddington Baptist Church.
“I loved it and I stuck to it,” he said.
“It was God’s decision, not mine, that I’m the age I am,” he added, neat as a pin in dark cardi and matching tie. “I talk to Him every day. Not that I can tell Him much – He knows a great deal more than I ever will.”
Former hat factory worker Lillian has a similar philosophy. “I led a simple life and did nothing exciting,” she said. “But I’ve always been happy with what I did.”
Reg, a one-time Luton Town Football Club shareholder, was looking after himself until a year ago. His greatest regret was having to leave his little fox terrier, Penny (now being looked after by a ‘very nice lady.’)
“I used to make us fresh herrings,” he recalled. “Penny would sit next to me and eat all the bones.”
The one-time Co-Op building department employee travelled the world. “I buggered off when I wanted to,” he said, before confessing: “I kept looking for a wife but couldn’t find a bugger.”
His search took him to China, Russia, the Caribbean and Sweden. But Mrs Right remained elusive.
He was the centre of attention at a circus in Russia. “All these Mongol people asked if they could take my picture,” he said. “They were very interested in me. I was probably the first Westerner they’d ever seen.”
He also has happy memories of singing a hymn all on his own, surrounded by an admiring crowd in the West Indies.
Reg celebrated his milestone birthday with a tea party, followed by a trip to the Boater pub with five of his fellow residents and their carers.
Did he have a hangover the next day? “I can’t remember,” he smiled.