Wartime code breaker Harry Beckhough celebrated his 101st birthday on Sunday.

Mr Beckhough, who lives in Castle Court retirement apartments in Marlborough, has two birthdays because his father didn’t register him until a week after his birth on February 15, 1914, which is on his birth certificate.

He grew up in Bristol, attending Fairfield Grammar School and studying at Bristol University. During his degree, he spent time in France and Germany and became fluent in both French and German.

In 1938 he helped found the Wakefield Shirt Company and a year later he enlisted in the Royal Engineers.

After the war, having achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he helped to rebuild universities in Cologne and Bonn.

He returned to the UK in the 1950s and set up a clothing company. In 1958 he founded the preparatory school Cundall Manor in Yorkshire.

He lived with his wife, Joan in Harrogate for 50 years and retired in 1987 after Mrs Beckhough’s death.

In 1996 he moved to Wiltshire to be near his daughter Jennifer, who is married to head of the High Court Family Division Sir James Munby.

Two years later he was awarded an MBE for his services to politics.

He wrote his memoirs Thinker Tailor, Soldier Spy in 2007 and has written other books on Germany’s Four Reichs and The Old Testament.