Air Force mechanic from Alliston reflects on Avro Arrow on 106th birthday

Gerald McCulloch spent his 106th birthday reminiscing about his time working on the Avro Arrow interceptor in the 1950s.

“I don’t know what machines they’ve got these days, but they won’t compete,” McCulloch said. “The arrow was designed to travel over that countryside and long distances. It’s still needed.”

Celebrating his birthday at the Riverwood Retirement Home in Alliston, McCulloch credits making it 106 years to a lot of luck, especially during his time dodging explosions on air bases in Britain during the Second World War

“Halfway across the runway to the planes I heard a big noise. I looked around and the Germans had just gone over and dropped a bomb. It’s a good thing the bomb went the other way.”

He says the world has changed a lot in his century on earth but jokes that learning how to use a tablet a couple years ago wasn’t as drastic of an adjustment as returning from war.

“I think the change after the war was actually it. Coming back and having to fit in,” he said.

He has seen Greece, the pyramids in Egypt and more, but nothing impressed him more than the resilience of his wife Catherine who passed away in 2013 after 64 years of marriage.

“She’d walk to school about five miles each way in all the weather up and down the hills,” he said.

Gerald who just recently moved to Alliston from Collingwood says he looks forward to more cupcakes next year for number 107.