A man who recently turned 102 says he is thankful to have survived all these years.

Sidney Benjamin, who lives in Waverley Road, Hendon, celebrated his birthday last Friday with family and friends.

Born in the East End, Mr Benjamin was the fifth of eight children. He left school at the age of 14, and became an apprentice at a shop which repaired clocks and watches.

After he qualified in 1930, he started his own business in east London before moving to Highbury.

Mr Benjamin said: “I went from zero to building a business. I was on the Holloway Road for 50 years, working with watches, clocks and jewellery. I ran a shop called S.Benjamin. I loved my work, it was my life.

“I was proud of what I achieved because I never came to anyone for help, I was a self-made man.”

Mr Benjamin married at the age of 24. He and his wife Ann had a son called Daniel, who became a pharmacist.

Sadly, Mr Benjamin lost both of them when they were quite young, with Ann dying at the age of 48, and Daniel at the age of 53.

During the Second World War, Mr Benjamin's shop was blown to pieces in the blitz.

He said: “I remember the blitz well. We organised street protection. All the shopkeepers joined up and we did a rota of fire watching each night.

“We had tin helmets, sandbags and buckets of water. The shops were all blitzed, and the windows were blown in. I had to build it back up again. If you didn’t do it yourself, no one would do it for you. They were hard times.”

The businessman volunteered for the RAF, and was sent to Holland in 1942. He eventually ended up in Denmark, and returned to London in 1946.

Mr Benjamin said: “I felt relieved to get back. I lost a lot of friends, and there were a lot of widows about. I was lucky to be able to come back and pick up the pieces of my business. London was in a bad state. People had lost everything.”

After the war, Mr Benjamin rebuilt his business in Holloway Road, where he remained until the 1980s. He then took up a workshop in the city, and retired at the age of 95.

Looking back on his life, he said: “I am thankful I have survived all these years. Life has been full of ups and downs. There have been happy times, and there have been unhappy times.

“I don’t think there’s anything special to reaching old age, other than living a clean, honest life and taking nothing in excess. Hard work doesn’t kill. If you want to be successful, work hard.”