FRED Sanders, who has lived in Haslemere most of his life, reached the milestone of his 100th birthday on September 15.

Celebrations were enjoyed with family, friends and staff at Shottermill House, and lunch with his daughter and son and their husband and wife.

A tea party at the Harbour Hotel in Guildford followed on the Saturday, where he was surrounded by many family members, including all his grandchildren and great-grandchildren and most of his nephews and nieces, including one, Lorna Mills. who came all the way from Canada.

Fred, who was born Henry Frederick, has lived in the town since the age of seven, moving with his family in 1923.

He was the youngest of six children, the family living in Little Stone Cottage, Bell Vale Lane, then owned by Admiral Tyrwhitt, who invited Fred’s father to be his head gardener.

He attended Haslemere CofE School which he loved, but left at the age of 13 because of family finances. However, through his love of books he continued to read widely for many years, with particular interests in history, politics and biographies.

Daughter Judith Loosley said: “Fred was privileged to enjoy a carefree, country boyhood of simple self-made fun with his mates around the Haslemere area, and has since often entertained his family with accounts of their escapades and mischief – a favourite story being of them following the Haslemere lamplighter at a distance and extinguishing the gas lamps after he had lit them!”

In 1938, Fred, with a group of friends, joined The Territorial Army branch of The Queen’s Royal Regiment, with its headquarters at the drill hall at the top of Wey Hill, going on to serve in the army for the duration of the war until he was wounded in Italy, in June 1944.

During a brief leave in 1941 he married his sweetheart, Ruth Mills, whose father was the butcher at Rose Corner, Junction Place.

They later had two children, Judith and Charles.

Within a week of being demobbed, Fred fulfilled his long held ambition of joining the Genteral Post Office as a telephone engineer. Too old by then for a trainee position, he had to start at the very bottom of the pile in a ‘gang’, digging trenches and erecting telegraph poles.

But this began an enjoyable career, which included looking after the telephone exchange at Hindhead, and lasted until his retirement, by which time he was an inspector, based in Guildford.

After returning to civilian life, became a popular lay preacher at many chapels in the area – cycling to them in the early days.

Later, accompanied by Ruth, he was a much-loved pastor at Woodside Road Baptist Church, in Chiddingfold, for 10 years – still doing his ‘day job’ for the GPO.

Ruth had a series of very severe strokes in the 1970s and Fred faithfully and tirelessly cared for her during her five year stay in Haslemere Hospital and for two years at home, before she died.

Fred’s last home before moving to Shottermill House was Old Museum Court on Museum Hill.

Judith said: “It was a place with special significance for him, being built on the site of the original Haslemere Museum which he’d loved to visit as a boy, receiving prizes for exams.

“He has fond memories of the encouragement he and the other children received from the soft-hearted first curator, Mr Swanton, who would occasionally whisper the answer in the ear of a student struggling to recall it.”