Ethel Caterham is 115 years and 8 months old. She lives at Hallmark Lakeview Luxury Care Home in the United Kingdom and recently became the oldest living person in the world after the passing of Brazilian nun and teacher Inah Canabarro Lucas.
Mrs. Caterham’s age has been officially verified, putting her almost a year ahead of the second-oldest person on the list, Marie-Rose Tessier of France. What’s more, this Briton – unless someone else that old is found – is the last person on the planet to have been born in the first decade of the 20th century.
Ethel Caterham, 115, from the United Kingdom, has become the oldest living person in the world
Image credits: AP / Scanpix
Mrs. Caterham was born in 1909, five years before WWI, and is the last person on Earth born in the 1910s
Let’s just say that Mrs. Caterham probably won the genetic lottery. She was the seventh of eight children born to her parents, and at least one of her older sisters also lived to over the age of 100. The British woman was born on August 21, 1909, in Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire, England, and during her life, she managed to travel all over the world.
Image credits: Rene Terp / Pexels (not the actual photo)
At the age of eighteen, she went to British India, where she worked for several years as an au pair in a military family. Having married a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Army Pay Corps, she followed him first to Hong Kong, and then to Gibraltar, where their two daughters were born. Ethel’s husband passed away in 1976, after more than forty years of marriage, and his widow outlived him by almost half a century.
Image credits: Mikhail Nilov / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Mrs. Caterham also outlived both of her daughters. After the younger of them, Anne, passed away at the age of 82, her mother moved to live in a care home, where she has lived for more than five years now. In fact, the old lady keeps living her life to the fullest – until the age of 97, she drove a car, and she still enjoys playing contract bridge.
Image credits: cottonbro studio / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Ethel Caterham was the subject of six British monarchs – from Edward VII to Charles III
Queen Elizabeth II remains a world-renowned symbol of longevity in our minds, but just imagine – Mrs. Caterham was already a teenager when the future queen was born, and she already outlived her by at least two and a half years! Moreover, Ethel is the only person in the history of the United Kingdom who was a subject of six monarchs – from Edward VII to Charles III.
Image credits: Q. Hưng Phạm / Pexels (not the actual photo)
The world record of longevity belongs to Jeanne Calment of France, who managed to live over 122 years
However, Mrs. Caterham still has a long way to go before she can set the world record for longevity. For more than a quarter of a century, this record belonged to the Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who lived in this world for more than 122 years! Moreover, what is interesting is that Madame Calment had a lifestyle that was far from healthy, although she played sports even after reaching her centenary.
Every supercentenarian has their own secret and recipe for living a long life. Ethel Caterham has one too. Being interviewed by BBC Radio Surrey on the occasion of her 111th birthday, she said that the key is “taking everything in my stride, the highs and the lows.” She recently clarified this recipe: “Never arguing with anyone, I listen and I do what I like.”
In fact, this very much echoes Jeanne Calment’s life motto: “If you can’t do anything about it, don’t worry about it.” Who knows, maybe taking it easy is actually the key to a long life? Or at least to, well, just a happy life. So what do you, our dear readers, think about this? Please feel free to share your ideas in the comments below.