Age Care co-founder Charles Betty to receive posthumous distinction from Benalmádena town hall

Having been a driving force behind services that have helped his fellow Britons (and continue to help) along the Costa del Sol has earned the late Charles Betty a new distinction from Benalmádena, the town where he lived for more than 40 years.

The full council meeting of Benalmádena town hall on Monday unanimously approved, following a proposal from the PSOE, that his legacy will be forever recognised through a posthumous distinction, which will be framed within the honours and distinctions regulations of the municipality. With this, the council said Betty, who died at the age of 100 in November last year, “will become part of the history of Benalmádena”.

Betty, who received the medal of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) from Prince William in 2022, was born into a humble family in Fleetwood, a small coastal town in Lancashire: his father was a deep-sea fisherman, and his mother, a housewife, although his modest background did not encourage him to study, so he enlisted in the army.

This was a decision that marked his life, because Betty participated in one of the most tragic war battles in history: the Normandy Landings (June 1944), during World War II, for which he was awarded the French medal of the Legion of Honour.

On his return from the war, he decided to change his life for the better. He studied at the University of London and went on to work as a geography teacher and school inspector.

He married his wife Eileen (who died in 2019) and they had three children. After retiring, Betty decided to move to Benalmádena in search of a place that would favour the health of his wife, who had serious respiratory problems.

They arrived on the Costa del Sol in the 1980s and there he began his work for the British community that, like him, was settled in the area and that continued to grow. Among his many achievements on the coast, Betty, who worked in collaboration with the British consul and the town halls, helped set up the first interpreter service in the Benalmádena health clinic, and he was instrumental in the inception of the Age Care Association on the Costa. He also became the oldest person to be awarded a PhD by a British university after completing a 48,000-word thesis on the experiences of older British migrants who live in Spain.