Video: Yorkshire’s oldest undergraduate - he’s 86.

WHEN I first walk into the room, the other students always think I’m the lecturer”, Graham Bell chuckles.

For, at the age of 86, the retired steelworker is old enough not just to be the tutor, but the great-grandfather of some of those studying alongside him at Sheffield University.

Mr Bell, who will be 90 when he graduates, is studying for a degree in French through the Institute of Lifelong Learning (TILL) at the university and is one of the institution’s oldest-ever students.

But he’s used to that, having also been the oldest student on his course when he completed his first degree, in Combined Studies, at Sheffield Hallam University at the relatively tender age of 74.

“I’ve been interested in France and the French all my life”, he said.

“In fact, I think that in a previous life I could have been at Versailles with Louis XIV.

“It gives you a great feeling if you can speak to people in another language.”

Mr Bell, from Handsworth in Sheffield, began studying French in his forties when his son took an O-level in the subject.

“I wondered if I could do that”, he said.

“I did, and then I went on and got an A-level. It’s snowballed from there.

“Studying French has changed an awful lot since then, though. Back then, I had to read the French classics and poetry, including Baudelaire, but they don’t do that any more.

“Instead, it’s a lot more about speaking, and learning how to have conversations with people.

“I did it for the fun of it, not because I wanted another degree especially, but the university said that if I wanted the funding then I had to do a degree.

“What am I going to do with a degree at the age of 90? I got a 2:2 last time but, this time, I’ll be happy with a pass.”

In between his studies, Mr Bell volunteers for countless charities and has helped to raise more than £10,000 for several organisations including Sheffield Children’s Hospital, Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind and Brunswick Gardens Retirement Village in Woodhouse.

He was awarded the MBE six years ago and, just last week, was nominated for the national “Diamond Champions” award, which recognises pensioners who undertake voluntary work.

The award, to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, is supported by The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.

It’s a long way to come for the boy who left school a “complete failure” at the age of 13 and went into the steel industry.

Mr Bell said: “I’d failed the 11 plus and left school at 13 a complete failure. I started work in the steelworks, but then the war started.

“At 17 I was in the Navy, and I was at D-Day. I’d been in the sea cadets for two years and it whetted my appetitite to be a sailor.

“I saw the world and it was very interesting, very adventurous.

“I was in the Navy four years and left in 1947. I came back to Sheffield then, back to the steelworks where I’d worked since I was 13.

“But I found I couldn’t settle and went on a farming course in Lincolnshire, where I met my wife.

“The idea was that the Government would lend us money to set up on our own, on little farms.

“But I’d met my wife, Mary, and there wasn’t enough money in farming if we wanted to get married.

“We got married in Hull and moved back to Sheffield, where I worked in the steelworks again until I was made redundant at 60.

“I didn’t want to finish but I was more or less made to.”

It was towards the end of his career in Sheffield’s steel industry that Mr Bell, who has three children and six grandchildren, began undertaking voluntary work.

He said: “When I was still working I used to volunteer for the NSPCC and raised thousands by raffling cars off.

“I seemed to have the right patter for that, I liked talking to people.

“Everybody’s wanting volunteers so I started working for everyone I could - the blind, children’s charities, as an appropriate adult with Victim Support.

“When I see the word volunteer I’ve got to do something. My wife thinks I’m a bit stupid, as she only sees me once a week or so.

“When you do good for people they’re so grateful. It’s good to see the look on their face and it gives you a buzz.”

He also began running at the age of 55 and still runs for five miles a day, after completing several full and half marathons in the past.

Next month, he will be competing in the Great Yorkshire Run in Sheffield to raise money for both the Support Dogs charity and Brunswick retirement village, where he volunteers.

“I run every day”, he said.

“I don’t run very fast any more, but I won’t be last in the race.

“When I was 60 I did the London marathon in three hours 40 minutes, but it’d take me all day to do it now.”

Running, studying and volunteering keep him young, he says - and he intends to keep it up for as long as he can.

“I like being around the other university students”, Mr Bell said.

“When you mix with young people and you find you can talk to them easily it’s great.

“I would love to have some more 80-year-olds in my class but, as you get older, people get tired and they don’t want to move from their armchairs.

“You’ve got to be active to stay young. How many people of my age go running for five miles every day?

“I want to run or walk every single day. When I go to the gym, four times a week, I’m looking after the old people and also exercising while I’m doing that.

“I try hard to be healthy and I try not to drink much beer any more. I’ve drunk it in the past but I find it easy not to drink it now.

“These days I’m satistfied, if I go in the pub, to have a lemonade.

“I don’t smoke at all any more, either. When I was in the Navy I used to wake up in the night for a cigarette, but I’m glad I kicked that a long long time ago.”

Mr Bell added: “I suppose my children are proud of me, in a way. My son and grandson are both runners, and my daughter’s the same. It must have rubbed off on them in some respect.

“You get energy if you use it. It’s not enough to sit back and watrh television.

“If I am watching sport or whatever, on the television, I’m sitting on the floor, doing my stretches at the same time.

“It drives my wife absolutely mad, but it keeps me young.”