A pensioner has become the oldest person in Britain to pass a GCSE exam at the age of 92.
Derek Skipper achieved a level five in maths on Thursday - the equivalent to a high B or low C.
He told BBC Breakfast that he was “delighted” to pick up the grade, the highest possible result he could achieve in his foundation exam.
“I was a little bit worried last night,” he said on air. “Knowing I was coming on camera, I was thinking ‘boy oh boy, it will be a very short interview if I fail.”
The former RAF radar engineer from Orwell in Cambridgeshire was part of the Korean war effort and now has another achievement to add to his British Empire Medal.
He said he wanted to improve on "what must have been a very basic pass” when he last sat the exam shortly after the second world war in 1946.
For months he had taken part in the free adult education service offered by Cambridgeshire county council and sat the exam at The Cam Academy Trust.
“I think it was a case of wondering why not [take it again],” he said. “When I first took it, I went through the motions and didn’t understand much about it.”
He told ITV that friends said he was daft to undertake the effort, which involved him using a microscope to read some of the mathematics text books. But the hard work of attending five hours of Zoom classes per week eventually paid off.
“Other people try crosswords and that doesn't turn me on very much,” he added.
