World’s oldest residing particular person, Britain’s Ethel Caterham, celebrates 116th birthday “at her personal tempo”

London — The world’s oldest residing particular person, British lady Ethel Caterham, turned 116 on Thursday, simply months after the title handed to her following the loss of life of Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas.

Caterham was marking the event quietly together with her household, taking the day “at her personal tempo,” the care residence the place she lives in Surrey, simply south of London, instructed CBS Information in an announcement.

“Ethel and her household are so grateful for all the form messages and curiosity proven to her as she celebrates her 116th birthday this yr,” Hallmark Care Properties mentioned within the assertion, including that whereas she was not giving any interviews to mark the event, a dialog with King Charles III “could also be her one concession, understandably!”

The British monarch usually extends a private greeting to Britons after they mark one centesimal birthdays, often within the type of a written letter. There was no instant affirmation by Buckingham Palace that Charles had plans to talk with Caterham.

She celebrated her a hundred and fifteenth birthday final yr with a letter from Charles who congratulated her on a “actually outstanding milestone.”

The good-grandmother is the final residing topic of King Edward VII.

The title of the oldest particular person ever is held by French lady Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122 years and 164 days earlier than her loss of life in 1997, in line with Guinness World Information.  

Caterham was born on Aug. 21, 1909, within the village of Shipton Bellinger in southwest England, 5 years earlier than the beginning of World Battle I.

She is now the oldest particular person on this planet in line with Guinness, the U.S.-based Gerontological Analysis Group and the LongeviQuest database, after the loss of life of 116-year-old Canabarro in April.

Her secret to longevity? “By no means arguing with anybody! I pay attention and I do what I like,” she has mentioned beforehand.

She has three grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren, having outlived each her two daughters and her husband Norman who died in 1976.

She solely stopped driving when she was simply shy of 100, and performed bridge effectively into her outdated age.

She even survived a bout of COVID-19 on the age of 110 in 2020, in line with the Every day Telegraph newspaper. The identical yr, she instructed the BBC that in her life, she had “taken every little thing in my stride, the highs and lows.”