100 years old … Centenarian Henry Martell with his wife of 70 years, Diana.
A century of wonderful memories and amazing moments will be celebrated when Jubilee Community Care client Henry Martell turns 100 tomorrow.
Family, friends and former students will all be on hand to help Henry celebrate the December 19 milestone.
Also celebrating upcoming key birthdays are Jubilee clients Alice F who turns 100 on January 22 and Ethel H who turns 101 on January 25.
Henry, a World War II veteran and retired academic, was born in Sydney, has lived around the world and settled in Brisbane upon retirement.
Henry joined the army after finishing at Sydney Grammar School, serving at the US base Torakina on Bougainville, at Emirau Island and lastly at an ammunitions base at Muswellbrook. It was here he met a young warrant officer named Peter from New Guinea and Peter’s sister Diana, whom Henry later married.
After the war Henry studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Towards the end of Henry’s time there Diana joined him and they wed in Cornwall.
A few years in New Guinea followed where Henry managed a plantation growing cocoa and coconuts. The pair, married now for 70 years, then settled in Melbourne where Henry was a tutor and lecturer at both LaTrobe University and Melbourne University.
“I am most proud of introducing Asian History to university students within Australia with college professor Jack Gregory,” Henry said of his working years. “Now, being 100, I am used to the fact that students I taught at university are now grandparents.”
Messages of congratulations have flowed in from those students, some of whom will attend one of Henry’s parties, as well as from Sydney Grammar School, the Department of Veterans Affairs and Brisbane City Councillor Greg Adermann.
And at 100 years Henry still finds happiness. “All sorts of things make me happy like my family when they are here,” he said.
Jubilee Community Care wishes Henry, Alice and Ethel a very happy birthday.
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