A LIFELONG smoker has defied the medical odds to celebrate his 100th birthday – despite getting through about 300,000 cigarettes.

Arthur Langran, from Bury St Edmunds, reached the milestone earlier this month, sharing the occasion with family and friends at a pub run by one of his sons.

The father-of-two, who has smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day since the age of 20, also religiously drinks a dram of Macallan single malt Scotch whisky every evening before getting into bed.

He joked: “I always say the secret is doing things you’re not told to do. I have been smoking since I was 20 and I still enjoy it, and a pipe. I have a whisky every night.

“I also like reading the papers and doing crosswords with the help of my son John.”

Mr Langran’s eldest son Peter said: “The doctor has said it’s not worth getting him to give up the cigarettes. He’s still in good health despite the smoking and still mobile and gets up stairs whenever he wants.”

Mr Langran, an orphan, was sent to Canada when he was just 14 years old to work as a farmhand.

He returned to Britain in 1930 at the age of 20 to join the Army and fight the Nazis in the Second World War.

It was also the same year that he smoked his first cigarette, shortly after signing up with the Suffolk Regiment.

During the war Mr Langran was hit by a grenade and 80 years later chunks of lead shrapnel from the explosive remain underneath his skin.

After 25 years in the Armed Forces, he worked as a storeman at the Army barracks in Bury St Edmunds before joining the civil service.

Mr Langran, who was married to Ivy, who died in 2000, celebrated his birthday at The George pub in Hintlesham, which is run by his youngest son John.

Through the supporters’ club at Ipswich Town Football Club, he was treated to a card signed by all the players and a bottle of whisky.

For many years Mr Langran, of Northumberland Avenue, celebrated his birthday on September 8, but he discovered it was September 6 after applying for a birth certificate upon leaving the Army.