Honour for Colin - still volunteering at 101
Volunteer Colin Cole has been honoured by the High Sheriff of Shropshire for the hours he gives to the community - at the age of 101.
Mr Cole was still selling poppies in Oswestry and monitoring the cameras for the town's CCTV system as he turned 100.
Although the Coronavirus lockdown has curtailed his hard work, it hasn't stopped him being keen get back into the swing when restrictions are lifted.
Mr Cole was nominated for the Community Service Award by Mike Suter, from Oswestry.
"The hours that he gives to the community are an wonderful example to follow," Mr Suter said.
The outgoing High Sheriff, Mrs Dean Harris, made a special visit to Oswestry to give him his award outside Oswestry police station where the CCTV control centre is housed and run in conjunction with the town council.
A West Mercia police spokesman said: "Massive thanks and congratulations to Mr Colin Cole. His passion for volunteering and commitment to Oswestry are immeasurable and rightly deserve this recognition."
Mr Cole said he was missing his volunteering.
"I enjoy meeting up with all the other volunteers," he said.
Mr Cole started volunteering for the CCTV system in 2015, shortly after his wife, Joan, died after 74 years of marriage. He said it was important to do as much as he could to keep his mind occupied.
RAF
In 2017 he was part of the CCTV team that won the National Association of Local Councils Local Council Project of the Year Award. He also switched on the town’s Christmas lights that year.
He first started volunteering when he joined the Metropolitan Police as a special constable and then volunteered to join the RAF before the outbreak of World War Two so he could choose the service he joined.
“I was posted to be a radio operator on a Lysander reconnaissance plane flying over enemy lines. It was a dangerous job and many lives were lost.”
Following an ankle injury he was posted to Air Sea Rescue in the English Channel and North Sea, rescuing both Allied and German pilots and air crew.
"They were all human beings who needed our help," he said.
After the war he trained as a teacher and he and his wife moved to her home town of Oswestry to take up teaching posts in the area, Mr Cole working with students with special needs.
He finished his career as special needs adviser for Shropshire, based in Shirehall.
