My Story...Cyril

A lover of nature with a keen sense of fun, former teacher Cyril, 104, is part of the family at Bethany House in Preston. We chatted to him about his long and interesting life, from the enthusiasm for birds that began in childhood, to his wartime adventures with the RAF, and his career as a biology teacher at Reading School 
 
It’s hard not to smile when you’re around Cyril. I ask if I can record our interview on my phone and he immediately rejoins, “Well, does it work? Then by all means. Not that you’ll get anything sensible to record...” 

To begin, I can’t resist asking the question often asked of centenarians – what's the secret to such a long life? The response is matter of fact and comes with a twinkle in the eye: “Not dying. Just kept going. Don’t give up. When the Great Man calls you, you don’t go.”

Cyril is renowned at Bethany House for his sense of humour, as well as his academic prowess – he holds a degree in zoology, specialising in ornithology.  
 
His love of birds stems from childhood and a father who was himself keen on birds. The oldest of five, Cyril grew up on the outskirts of Reading. The family home had a large back garden, including an aviary his father had built. “We’d get birds from the pet shop – finches and waxbills and so on – and let them go in there,” he recalls. “They’d fly off, twittering away with excitement at the space they’d got to fly in.” 
 
Cyril trained the birds to fly to him. “I used to say, ‘Come on!’, and they’d settle on my arm because they knew the other hand had a meal worm.” 
 
There was also a bird table frequented by a host of visitors – chaffinches, thrushes, blackbirds and “the local robin who ruled the roost”. Indoors, there was a parrot, Nelson, so named because he had one eye. The parrot wreaked havoc by expertly mimicking his mother’s voice. “Ern!” the parrot would shout, sending his father running in.  

After leaving school, Cyril got the chance to spread his own wings through serving in the Second World War. “I wanted to avoid being called up and put in the army so I joined the RAF,” he says with his usual frankness. “I got a free trip to India, not only free they paid me to go.” 
 
Cyril trained as an air mechanic and was posted north of Calcutta with the 101 RSU (Repair and Salvage Unit). “I didn’t know there was a war on,” he says.  
 
As an airframe fitter, it was his job to inspect the aircraft that came in, servicing them and patching up any that were damaged. “I’d said to the pilots ‘you break them and I fix them’,” he recalls. “They didn’t always like that.” 
 
Mostly, he’d find the bullets had passed clean through, but occasionally there’d be one rattling around inside. If an aircraft had broken down, he and other members of the unit would travel to the location to get it going again. “It’s nice when you do that and eventually see them fly out,” he says with obvious satisfaction.  

While he was out there, he bought a book of 400 Indian birds, ticking them off as he spotted them. I ask if there’s a connection between his love of birds and flying things in general. “Well, maybe,” Cyril muses. “Except insects. Not so keen on insects – only as a zoology specimen.” 
 
On returning to England, Cyril married Kathleen. He and the wider family bought a field on the outskirts of the Reading and built five houses where different members of the family could live.  
 
Cyril got a job at the Reading Corporation in the electricity department while also studying for his degree in zoology in the evenings at Birkbeck College, travelling to London after work. Together, Cyril and Kathleen had a daughter, Veronica. Cyril went on to qualify as a teacher and took up the post as the first ever biology teacher at Reading School. 
 

With his precise mind and love of the natural world, it was a role that suited him to a tee. “To teach others, it puts the stress on you,” he explains. “You’ve got to understand it to start with, and then clearly put it over to them. I never had any trouble with discipline, and the reason for that is interest. You have pupils who are interested in what you’re doing.” 
 
Under Cyril’s tutelage, students did a lot of practical work, including dissection. Live specimens also came his way. One day, some boys brought him a tawny owl chick they had found by the roadside. The owl came home with Cyril and became part of the household, christened Wol after the owl in Winnie-the-Pooh. The owl had to be hand-reared with meat wrapped in cotton wool to mimic animal fur so the non-digestible parts could later be regurgitated as pellets. Over the years, the family gained two further owls, two parrots and a rescued starling chick that was given the name Joe as a nod to the former Soviet leader.  

After sadly losing his wife Kathleen in 1977 to cancer, Cyril went on to marry Nancy. In her later years, he nursed her through Alzheimer’s disease before she too sadly passed away.  

In 2004, Cyril made the move from Reading to Preston (or "the Arctic Circle" as he calls it) to be near his daughter Veronica, living in sheltered accommodation. At the age of 100, he fell seriously ill with sepsis. He recovered, and some time after moved into Bethany House in March 2023.  Shortly before his 104th birthday, he developed sepsis for a second time, and again managed to beat it – a testament to his grit and determination.  

After meeting Cyril, I chat to his daughter Veronica. She remembers looking at a number of care homes and knowing immediately that Bethany House was right. “When we walked in, it was light and airy. The residents in the lounge were chatting to one another and the tea trolley was going round. It felt like a home.” 
 
On the day Cyril moved in, three of the ‘family members’ [those who live with us] dropped by to say, “Welcome to Bethany House”. 
 
For his part, Cyril has embraced life at the home. More often than not, he can be found in his usual chair next to Sylvia, a lady he gets on well with. As well as being up for a chat, he will gamely take part in activities – provided they exercise his brain power. Recently, to his family’s amazement, he joined in with bingo, something he was never interested in before. The difference? It was in French.  

“I sometimes forget Dad is inspiring to so many people,” Veronica reflects. “He has such amazing knowledge, and he can make a joke out of anything. And of course, he’s very charming.”  

 Having spent a morning in Cyril’s company, I can certainly attest to that. 

This feature first appeared in the Autumn 2026 edition of The Pilgrims’ Magazine. See here.