‘I do what I like’: British girl, 115, claims international’s oldest residing individual identify

The secret of longevity is to do what you favor, consistent with the 115-year-old British girl named the sector’s oldest residing individual.

Ethel Caterham, born in 1909, is the primary Briton to assert the identify of global’s oldest individual since 1987, when 114-year-old Anna Williams was once the file holder.

Caterham, the remaining surviving topic of Edward VII, acceded to the identify after the former file holder, Inah Canabarro Lucas, a Brazilian nun, died on the age of 116 on 30 April.

Caterham, who lives in a care house in Lightwater, Surrey, places her longevity right down to her perspective to lifestyles. “I’ve taken everything in my stride, the highs and lows,” she advised BBC Radio Surrey in 2020, including she has a maxim of “never arguing with anyone”. She added: “I listen and I do what I like.”

The identify has been bestowed on Caterham by means of LongeviQuest and the Gerontology Research Group, analysis organisations that check ages for the Guinness World Records.

Born in Shipton Bellinger in Hampshire on 21 August 1909, Caterham was once raised in Tidworth, Wiltshire, the second one youngest of 8 kids. At the age of 18 she become an au pair to an army circle of relatives in British India ahead of returning to England 3 years later, the place in 1931 she met her husband, Lt Col Norman Caterham.

The couple married in 1933 at Salisbury Cathedral, the place Norman have been a choirboy. He served as a senior officer within the Royal Army Pay Corps and so they have been stationed in Gibraltar and Hong Kong, the place Caterham arrange a nursery.

The couple had two daughters and returned to Britain, the place her husband died in 1976.

Caterham has lived in Surrey for 50 years and has 3 granddaughters and 5 great-grandchildren. “I’ve been all over the world and I’ve ended up in this lovely home, where everyone is falling over themselves for me, giving me everything I want,” she mentioned.