When John Wilkins joined Cranleigh in 1936, he was a 14-year-old boy from Horley stepping into a school — and a world — on the brink of great change. Just two years later, as Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich with the promise of “peace in our time,” John and his fellow Cranleighans were ordered by the Headmaster to dig trenches on the ground that would one day become the Redgra All-Weather pitch. The threat of war was already shaping their daily lives.

By Christmas of 1938, a severe mumps epidemic closed the school early and sent the boys home. It was the first of many interruptions John would face, but he carried with him a resilience that defined his century-long life.

In 1939, he began his civil engineering career with Reigate Town Corporation — and almost immediately found himself training for Air Raid Precautions. Too young to join the armed forces when war broke out, John surveyed the Reigate caves for shelters and cycled out to plot bomb craters during the Blitz, searching for unexploded bombs. It was an extraordinary responsibility for an 18-year-old.

By 1942, John had completed his engineering exams and joined the Army. His training took him to Clitheroe and Northern Ireland before he embarked for India in 1944, celebrating his 22nd birthday as his ship passed through the Suez Canal. Stationed in Lahore until the end of the war, he returned to Britain in 1946 to continue his engineering career.

Life after Cranleigh — and after the Army — was no less rich. John met his wife Helen, known to all as Bobbie, on a Reigate tennis court, and they married in 1951. He became an Associate Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, working with the Brighton Borough Engineer’s Office until his retirement in 1986. Even then, his service continued, through voluntary work with local almshouses.

John lived to 103, fiercely independent and only entering care after his 100th birthday. His long life spanned eras our current pupils only encounter in history books — but the values he carried from Cranleigh were timeless: resilience, service, and community.

For today’s OCs, his story is more than a piece of school history. It is a reminder that the friendships formed at Cranleigh, and the lessons learned, can echo across a century — shaping lives long after the last bell rings.