A VETERAN of the Second World War has celebrated his 100th birthday with friends.

Former DLI soldier Walter Watson, who said he was evacuated from Dunkirk, served with Montgomery in the Middle East and stormed the beaches at Normandy, reached the landmark age at the weekend.

He was born on June 27, 1915, to Robert and Clara Watson, on Sunderland Road in Gilesgate, Durham, not far from where he lives now.

He left school aged 14 and started work at Wood and Watson’s pop factory.

Mr Watson worked there all his life, except for the six years of the war.

He married Rose, his wife of 45, in 1940 but the couple did not have children.

Mr Watson celebrated on Saturday with friends, former colleagues and customers at the Crossgate WMC in Durham where he is a life member.

He visits three times a week and has two whiskies before getting a taxi home.

Mr Watson said: “I have had a good life and it means a lot to me to reach 100.

“I do not gamble but in 1982 I bet a bloke a fiver I would make 100 and he said: ‘never in the world, Walter'. He is dead now, though.”