A FORMER PE teacher who still enjoys driving his car and ride-on lawnmower turned 100 today – just two months after his wife also marked reaching a century.

Reg Townsend celebrated his day with friends and Edna, his wife of 75 years, at Dewstow Golf Club in Caerwent, next to the course he regularly played on until last year.

The couple still live at their home on Five Lanes and are helped by friends, including their next door neighbour Ann Davies and other locals Helen Slater and her husband Rob, all who attended the celebration.

Mr Townsend said: “I was playing golf until recently. I gave up last year when my last pal died: I was the last man standing!”

Mr Townsend was initially reluctant to tell the Argus why he has been able to stay healthy for so long – but later put it down to ‘girlfriends’ he has around the area. A friend said he has one in every shop but that Mrs Townsend remains his favourite. Other reasons he gave include tending to his large garden and keeping active.

He said once he and his wife retired in 1975, they pledged to go on holiday abroad every year and did so into their mid-90s. One of their favourite destinations was Australia and some of their friends from the country arranged for flowers to be delivered to Mr and Mrs Townsend’s house to mark his birthday.

Both were born in Newport and they married on Christmas Eve in 1939, just four months after the outbreak of the Second World War. During the war Mr Townsend was stationed with the Royal Air Force to give parachute training in Manchester and later in Yatesbury, Wiltshire.

He became an accredited Welsh Rugby Union (RFU) referee in 1951, overseeing an international match between Wales and England’s schoolboys at Twickenham in 1954. One friend gave him a personalised rugby cake to mark his love of the sport.

On the couple’s courting before their marriage, Mr Townsend said: “I was in Beechwood and Edna was from the Baneswell area. I saw her on the stairs and that was it.” They were married when they were 25.

Mr Townsend taught at Hartridge School from when it opened in 1959 and at Stow Hill School, while his wife taught at primary schools in Alway, Lliswerry and Hartridge.

Among the cards delivered to the couple on their respective birthdays, they received best wishes from the Queen, the Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones, the Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb and the work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith.