LONDON’S oldest surviving fireman has been honoured – on his 105th birthday.

Jack Corbett, now living in Copford, was based at Clerkenwell Fire Station throughout the Second World War and was part of a team which endured the London Blitz in 1940 and 1941.

Mr Corbett eventually served in the London Fire Brigade for almost 30 years, having began in the auxilliary service in 1937. He retired in 1965.

During the war, the dad-of-two fought hundreds of blazes in the East End caused by Luftwaffe bombing campaigns and had a special responsibility for keeping St Paul’s Cathedral safe.

He is one of very few people to have stood inside the cross at the top of the Sir Christopher Wren-designed church.

After leaving London in 2000 Mr Corbett and his wife Ivy moved in with their daughter in Maldon but is now a resident at Springfields Nursing Home, in Copford.

Ivy died in 2003, but Mr Corbett continued to visit the town’s Promenade Park every day, either on foot or on his mobility scooter until he moved to Copford.

To mark his 105th birthday, widower Mr Corbett was visited by the London Fire Brigade’s Allen Perez, deputy assistant commissioner north-east area and given memorabilia to mark 150 years of the London service.

His daughter Pam Shrimpton said: “We will definitely be having some conversations about it in the next few weeks.

“It was a great event and it was really nice of Mr Perez to come. He said it was a privilege to meet dad.”

Mrs Shrimpton, of Washington Road, Maldon added: “He is very proud to have played his part during the war and always enjoys talking about his time in St Paul’s, where he said in those days you could see for miles.

“He is an amazing person and someone we have always looked up to.”

In a previous interview, aged 102, Mr Corbett said he became a fireman by accident “because I happened to live within a mile of the station”.