octogenarian Dennis Willcock is still enjoying the cut and thrust of fencing ? he has just won a national competition. The 88-year-old from Tavistock was the oldest competitor at the National Veterans? Fencing Qualifiers last month in Milton Keynes. Dennis, who has been fencing since 1945, competed in the over 70s group and was rewarded with a medal for his first prize position. The event was for fencers to qualify for the September world competition in Bath where more than 380 competitors from 35 countries will compete for four intensive days. Dennis, who is president of Devon County Fencing Union and Plymouth Fencing Club, said: ?So many took part and were all so keen. I will be lucky to get selected as they have to select four people from the 200 to 300 who competed in the qualifiers throughout the country.? Dennis first found his passion for the sport back in 1940 when he met a Frenchman, Prof Henri Faubert, while they were part-time firefighters in the Birmingham Auxiliary Fire Service during the second world war While on watch, Henri would fascinate Dennis with his many stories of fencing in France. When the war ended Henri founded a fencing club in Birmingham and gave 27-year-old Dennis his first lesson. Dennis, who worked in engineering, returned to normality after the war and was given a defence medal and discharged. But the free hours of leisure time he could now enjoy, enabled him to pursue the sport of fencing. Dennis said: ?I embraced it with enthusiasm and passion that has remained undiminished after 60 action-packed years.? In the 1940s fencers faced many problems with equipment and protective clothing. Often the jackets would be hand-made. Dennis?s wife, Elsie, said: ?When he first started fencing we didn?t have enough money as it was expensive in those days, so I made a jacket out of sailcloth to protect him ? it did the job.? Dennis and Elsie were born in Birmingham in 1918. They married in 1940, but because of an air raid they spent their honeymoon night with Elsie?s parents at the bottom of their garden in a bomb shelter. They moved into Courtlands Road, Tavistock, in 1967 when the houses were first being built along the new road. Dennis, who retired in 1983, assisted with training Olympic pentathlon bronze medallist, Kate Allenby, in the art of fencing and is currently assisting Rhiannon Lawrence, an 18-year-old Plymouth girl, to train for Great Britain. Dennis said: ?I cycle to keep fit and I fence to keep sharp. I call myself the oldest competitive fencer in the country. ?My motto is never smoke, drink a little and fence a lot.?
