A WW2 aircraft engineer who was born and bred near the Old Kent Road celebrated his 100th birthday this week.
William Henning was born in 1925 and is one of Southwark Council’s most senior tenants.
William, who was raised near Old Kent Road and has lived in Bermondsey ever since, said: “I’ve made lots of friends in Southwark and have a good support network.”
He said the housing and other staff who check on him every day, including the estate cleaner who always says hello, are ‘wonderful’ to him.
The Old Kent Road area was a hub of industry, with the Grand Surrey Canal network running under the bridges, when William was a child.
The legacy of George Livesey – Camberwell and Peckham’s first public library, would still have been open in the local area and the R Whites Lemonade factory, open for much of William’s life, would also have been making fizzy drinks for distribution down the canal.
But, much of what William would have been familiar with in the area as a child in Southwark was destroyed during the Second World War, by which time he would serve for four years as an aircraft engineer, repairing fighter planes.
His wife, Ivy Lilian, sadly died 14 years ago. Ivy Lilian and William moved into their council home, where he still lives, just after they were married, and they have a daughter.
He was recently visited on his special centenary by Stella, one of Southwark Council’s housing officers, to wish him a happy birthday with cards and gifts on behalf of all the housing team who know him.
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Councillor Sarah King, cabinet member for council homes, said: “This is what makes council housing so special – it’s such a huge privilege to learn about Mr Henning’s long life in the borough – what incredible changes he must have seen in Southwark over the years.
“The kindness and care our staff have for the individual people they get to know is just wonderful and I’m proud of both of them and our amazing residents like William, who are part of such a fantastic community in Southwark.
“I wish Mr Henning a very happy birthday!”
Hakeem Osinaike, Director of Housing at Southwark, said: “As a social landlord, our jobs go beyond managing tenancies and this visit to Mr Henning on his birthday, demonstrates a deep understanding of this.”
When Mr Henning was born, it was still 40 years before Southwark Council would be officially ‘born’ itself.
It was not until 1965 that the London Borough of Southwark was created out of three metropolitan borough councils – Camberwell (taking in Camberwell, Peckham and Dulwich) Bermondsey (taking in Bermondsey and Rotherhithe) and Southwark (Borough and around Elephant & Castle).
