HERBERT Sampson from Bridestowe was 100 this month yet he does not feel a day over 50. Work hard and play hard is the advice of the centenarian who lives with his wife of 70 years Rene at Springfields Residential Home. After spending a weekend with 24 relatives from all over the country, Herbert enjoyed a quiet birthday with friends and staff at the home, opening his presents and receiving messages of goodwill. A former resident of North Tawton, where the couple spent many of their married years, Herbert said he kept himself healthy and fit by walking each day, despite a hip replacement in January. ?I do not feel any different than when I was 50,? he said. ?Work hard and play hard is the secret.? Senior nurse Maggie White said Herbert was a ?remarkable? man with a very active mind and a brilliant sense of humour. ?He and Rene have been here for four years and he is always happy ? he really is a super person.? Herbert was born in Putney but moved to North Tawton with his parents when he was still a boy. He met his wife-to-be at school in Okehampton and they later married in the Methodist Church in 1935. They moved to London where Herbert worked in the building trade but later returned to Devon and the young couple took on a family agricultural ironmongery business. Herbert became a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers during the second world war and spent many years travelling around India working on construction projects. He helped to rebuild parts of Plymouth City Centre destroyed by the war when the conflict ended but his line of work later took him to Ghana and Borneo. The couple returned to North Tawton in the 1960s and Herbert took up a post with the old Okehampton Rural District Council as a building surveyor. The centenarian said he and Rene were extremely happy living at Springfields which was a ?lovely place.?
