He has taken every opportunity to sing — in the shower, in the car, at work and, of course, on stage.
But on very rare occasions, like one that happened recently, the once semi-professional bass/baritone opera singer found himself having to sit silently while everyone else around him sang.
"It was most uncomfortable," he said.
That’s because everyone around him was singing happy birthday to him during a St Patrick’s Basilica Mass in Dunedin, on Sunday, to celebrate his 100th birthday — which is officially tomorrow.
Despite not being allowed to join in with the singing, the centenarian was delighted with the "lovely surprise" from the congregation.
Mr Jenkinson said he grew up in a very musical family in Yorkshire, England, and his father David Jenkinson was a professional bass opera singer with a local opera company.
"My mother said to him, ‘why don’t you train Bill to sing?’ And he said, ‘well, it wouldn’t be much good because he’s too shy to go on the stage’.
"Those are the words I have always remembered."
Mr Jenkinson said it was true — he was very shy as a boy — but it failed to stop him from singing around the house and at church services as a chorister.
When he was 25, unemployment was high in England and he came to New Zealand with his brother to find work as a watchmaker.
As soon as he arrived, he started taking singing and voice production lessons.
"I thought to myself, ‘I’ll show Dad’."
He spent six years training while working at a Dunedin watch-making business.
Then in his early 30s, he got to sing in his first opera for a Dunedin opera company.
While he could not remember the name of the opera, he said it was the start of a semi-profess-
ional part-time career as a singer.
"The first programme that they put on television here was made in Dunedin, and it was called Tang of the Sea.
"It was a set piece with water and sand and fishing gear, you know, and it had singers on it.
"I got paid for that. And a couple of months later, I got paid again because the show had been sold overseas, so I got paid the professional rate."
Not long after he arrived in New Zealand, the 25-year-old was mistaken for a much younger University of Otago student and invited to the annual Dunedin Catholic Church ball.
It was there that he met his future wife Zelie (nee Hart), and they went on to have two children, seven grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.
Not surprisingly, Mr Jenkinson still sings around home and at Sunday Mass every week, and he believes it is the reason he is still so quick-witted and agile at 100.
"Singing keeps my heart happy and healthy.
"I sing in the full voice, so I take deep breaths — not shallow ones. That keeps my lungs nice and clear.
"And also, I walk every day, at least 2km.
"Without that ..."
