{"id":36024,"date":"2026-05-14T08:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/36024\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T08:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:59:11","slug":"good-morning-britain-viewers-floored-by-105-year-old-wwii-veteran-thats-amazing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/36024\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Morning Britain viewers floored by 105-year-old WWII veteran &#8216;that&#8217;s amazing&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell, the last surviving World War II Mosquito bomber pilot, appeared on ITV&#8217;s Good Morning Britain<\/p>\n<p>09:39, 14 May 2026Updated 09:40, 14 May 2026<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Colin Bell appeared on Good Morning Britain\" loading=\"eager\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1_ColinBellJPG.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p aria-label=\"Colin Bell appeared on Good Morning Britain\" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">Colin Bell appeared on Good Morning Britain(Image: ITV screengrab)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">A <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/all-about\/second-world-war\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"_self\">Second World War<\/a> veteran who recently celebrated his 105th birthday revealed his secret during an appearance on <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/all-about\/good-morning-britain\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"_self\">Good Morning Britain<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell, the final surviving World War II Mosquito bomber pilot, featured on the <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/all-about\/itv\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"_self\">ITV<\/a> programme on Thursday (May 14), with viewers left &#8220;amazed&#8221; by his youthful appearance, reports <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/tv\/tv-news\/i-married-best-woman-world-37153639\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"\">the Mirror<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Presenters Kate Garraway and Richard Madeley questioned him about his secret, with Colin explaining that being &#8220;lucky&#8221; played a part as he honoured his late wife of 73 years. He also revealed to the hosts that he steers clear of negative people &#8220;like the plague&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Colin was discussing a recent return to the skies and writing his bestselling book, Bloody Dangerous, when Richard remarked: &#8220;Colin, I, I just don&#8217;t know how you manage to be so trim and fit and so strong.&#8221; &#8220;You&#8217;ve got you&#8217;ve got a quick secret of 105, haven&#8217;t you, of how you managed to be so fabulous?&#8221; Kate asked.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Colin Bell\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0_ColinJPG.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p aria-label=\"Colin Bell turned 105 this year\" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">Colin Bell turned 105 this year(Image: ITV screengrab)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;Well, I&#8217;m not fabulous,&#8221; the former pilot responded. &#8220;But I&#8217;m very lucky. And that plays a very large part in one&#8217;s life. I&#8217;ve been very lucky all the time. I was lucky to be married to the best woman in the world for 73 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;And unfortunately, I lost her eight years ago. But, you know, you just have to get on with life, don&#8217;t you?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Richard pointed out that following each mission he flew, Colin&#8217;s odds of returning safely from the subsequent one diminished.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">But the centenarian said: &#8220;No, I disagree with you. It&#8217;s like flipping a coin. You stand the same chance when you flip a coin as it is when you&#8217;re coming back from an operation. The chances of survival are exactly the same for every trip that you go out, except that you&#8217;re most vulnerable in your early stages when you haven&#8217;t got experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;Because without experience see, until you&#8217;ve actually been out and experienced being shot at&#8230; nobody can tell you what it&#8217;s like. But when you&#8217;ve experienced it and you know how, then you become less vulnerable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Richard Madeley and Kate Garraway hosted Good Morning Britain\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0_GMBJPG.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p aria-label=\"Richard Madeley and Kate Garraway hosted Good Morning Britain\" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">Richard Madeley and Kate Garraway hosted Good Morning Britain<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Following Kate&#8217;s observation about his &#8220;positive&#8221; outlook, Colin responded: &#8220;Well, you would need to be positive. I like positive people, and I avoid negative people like the plague.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;Let&#8217;s put it this way. It was a job that had to be done. I think I lacked quite a lot of imagination, which was in my favour. I think I was pretty thick. But I got on with it because, as I said, it was a job that had to be done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Viewers watching from home were struck by Colin&#8217;s remarkable story and youthful appearance, with numerous viewers taking to X to share their thoughts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;105!? Woah, Amazing&#8230;! What a man,&#8221; one remarked on the platform, formerly known as <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/all-about\/twitter\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"\">Twitter<\/a>. &#8220;105, good for him,&#8221; added another.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">One user wrote: &#8220;Colin Bell, where&#8217;s his knighthood!!! 105 still going strong and he&#8217;s amazing, totally on the ball still. Thank you for your service Sir.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV1 and ITVX<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell, the last surviving World War II Mosquito bomber pilot, appeared on ITV&#8217;s Good Morning&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,319,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-36024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-good-morning-britain","10":"tag-itv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116572111728761022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}