A 105-YEAR-OLD former Second World War pilot who has raised thousands for charity, abseiled down a hospital and topped the bestseller charts has revealed the unusual formula he credits for his remarkable longevity.
JEP reporter Tom Innes went to meet him…
While most centenarians might have opted to take life slightly easier, Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell (RAF rtd) hasn’t been resting on his laurels since his trip to Jersey in 2023, when a talk at The Royal Yacht hotel raised more than £12,000 to be split between the Jersey branch of the Royal Air Forces Association and a UK hospice.
The former Mosquito pilot, who flew 50 wartime operations over Germany in the latter stages of the war and celebrated his 105th birthday earlier this year, subsequently shifted his charity efforts to abseiling, raising thousands more by abseiling down the side of the 17-storey Royal London Hospital.
The feat, carried out to benefit the RAF Benevolent Fund, the Royal College of Nursing Trust and the London Air Ambulance Brigade, saw Mr Bell recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest person to have abseiled down a building.
More recently, Mr Bell has become an author, with his account of his wartime exploits, titled Bloody Dangerous, making it to number two in the Sunday Times Bestsellers list and subsequently selling out.
On his recent trip to Jersey, he attended a birthday lunch for Ian Le Vesconte, the partner of Mr Bell’s daughter Vivienne.
“I love Jersey, and I’m absolutely delighted to be here with my lovely daughter,” Mr Bell told the JEP prior to joining the birthday festivities at the Savoy Jersey hotel. “I’ve been here several times, including with my wife, who sadly died eight years ago, and I’ve always enjoyed my visits.
“The talk in 2023 started off as quite a small affair, but by the time I got here, we had 150 people signed up and the charities did very well.”
Having recently been informed by his publisher that a reprint of Bloody Dangerous was now lined up, Mr Bell said he was “absolutely amazed” by the book’s success.
“I couldn’t, in my wildest dreams, imagine that there would be such a demand for the book,” he said. “One of my friends told me he’d been into a shop at Bluewater [shopping centre in Kent] and the young lady had produced one and told him he was lucky to get it, because they were tumbling off the shelves like hot cakes.”
Mr Bell said he was looking forward to marking the anniversary of VE Day, which will be followed in Jersey by Liberation Day.
“It’s a very important day, and it’s important that we won the war, not only for our country, but for the Channel Islands, indeed for the western world, because the Germans under Hitler were a pretty evil lot, and they’d got some very nasty plans for once they subjugated us, but they didn’t – thank God, we won.”
With no plans to slow down as he moves into the second half of his 11th decade, Mr Hunt chuckled when asked the secret of his longevity.
“I think it’s partly down to genes, a matter of luck,” he said. “But beyond that, it’s a combination of exercise, alcohol, and the love of good women; with the odd bad one thrown in!”
