When Barry Sanders was born on December 30, 1917, the First World War raged across Europe, Lenin had been in Russia’s Winter Palace for just two months and in the UK, women did not have the vote.

Celebrating his centenary on Saturday, surrounded by five generations of his family, he might have been forgiven for a little puzzlement at the smart phones and tablets taking photographs.

But Mr Sanders, who has twice been mayor of Hove, is one of only a handful of centenarians who still has a driving licence and was on fine form for a newspaper interview.

“Reminds me of my mayoral days,” he told The Argus, “Of course I met your Adam Trimingham when he was just a cub reporter.”

Mr Sanders, former councillor, alderman, magistrate, mayor and Freeman of the City, enjoyed the celebration at the Autumn Lodge nursing home in Hove, to which he drives each day to spend time with his 98-year-old wife Elsie who has lived there for the last two years.

Forty family and friends attended the party, including current Brighton and Hove Mayor Mo Marsh.

Mr Sanders said: “I feel so fortunate – I certainly don’t feel my age, I feel much younger.”

Looking back on his 40 years as a councillor – including two as mayor – he said his proudest achievements were major building projects in Ellen Street and in Ingram Crescent, off Portland Road, where the council tore town pre-war slums and built flats which stand to this day.

One bears his name.

Stephen Wade, chairman of the Hove Air Training Corps of which Mr Sanders has been president for close to 50 years and for which he still fundraises, described him as “a wonderful man”.

Mr Sanders’s son Bryan, 76, praised his father’s “lifetime of civic duty”.