Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Fond memories of bingo and buses on 100th birthday
Great-grandad fought in Italy during war
Bingo-mad pensioner Thomas Page used to catch the bus from Canterbury to Margate every week to play his favourite game. But his visits were curtailed after he fell and broke his hip while running for the double-decker.
Despite then being in his 80s, he made a quick recovery and was back on the bus and crossing off his numbers as soon as he was able.
It was one of the many stories his family have been recalling as Thomas celebrated his 100th birthday last week. These days the former Royal Engineer is being cared for at the Meadow View Residential Home in Hersden.
He had remained active until his mid-90s, when he began to suffer with dementia. Born and bred in Canterbury, Thomas grew up in Cotton Mill Road and joined the Territorial Army when he was 18. Just before his 19th birthday, he was called up and joined the Royal Engineers, later serving in Egypt, South Africa and Sicily. He eventually ended up serving as part of the Italian campaign and ended the war in Austria.
He returned home and began working as a coach builder at the East Kent Road Car Company, based in North Lane, where he stayed until he retired at the age of 65. Thomas met his wife, Gwenny, on Herne Bay beach. She was from Leeds and served in the Land Army.
They married in 1950 and lived with his parents until they moved into their first house in Wife of Bath Hill, on the London Road estate.
The couple had three children, Jean, Tommy and Janet. Gwenny died in 1993, aged 66. Sadly, Thomas’s family have not be able to celebrate with him as they would have wanted to. Ongoing social distancing rules, especially around care homes, have severely restricted visiting opportunities. Jean said: “The home look after him so well and have had no coronavirus cases. But we have only been allowed to visit him in the last three weeks, dad being in a room and us being two metres away wearing face masks and standing under a gazebo, so it wasn’t ideal. “We had planned for the whole family to go, including his five great-grandchildren, but it wasn’t possible. “Because of his dementia he did not actually remember he was 100 years old. But when we reminded him, he laughed and said ‘poor old mush’.”