Howick man celebrates a century of ‘tonk’

Family flew in from Canada and Australia to celebrate the 100th birthday of Roy Roberts, who lives in the Amberfield Retirement Village in Howick. He was the guest of honour at a party, hosted at the Presbyterian Church in Main Street, on Thursday, where his eldest son, David, revealed that his father had always encouraged them to give everything they did in life “a good tonk”. “Dad took that as a motto through his life as well,” he said.

He was the first person in his family to go to university when that was not a common thing to do. We’re very lucky that he did, because that is where he met our beautiful mum, Elizabeth. In his spare time, Roberts renovated and rented out old houses, and was a beekeeper with 50 hives, making and selling his own honey.

He also loved travelling and would pack his wife and children into a small Austin A50 and head off on holidays around South Africa and to places in neighbouring countries. “When you think of the last 100 years, all of the events and all of the circumstances that Dad has survived and surmounted, it’s absolutely incredible,” David said. Asked what he put his longevity down to, Roberts said it was important to choose your parents well. “My mother was 95 when she died and my dad was in his early 70s when he got cancer,” he said.