Ethel Caterham, the world’s oldest British woman, celebrated her 117th birthday on Friday.
Caterham, who lives in a care home in Surrey, about 40 miles from London, is the first British person to live to be 117 years old, according to Guinness World Records (GWR).
“I had a wonderful day celebrating with family and friends and I’m looking forward to what next year will bring,” Caterham told Britain’s PA media news agency.
GWR reports that the world’s oldest player, João Marinho Neto, also came to celebrate Caterham’s birthday from his native Brazil.
Caterham was visited by King Charles in September last year, just after his 116th birthday.
During their meeting, she recalled that when Charles was made Prince of Wales in 1969 at the age of 21, “all the girls were crazy about you and wanted to marry you.”
Caterham’s 117 years have seen him through two world wars, the sinking of the Titanic, the Russian Revolution and the coronavirus pandemic. According to GWR, she contracted the virus in 2020 at the age of 110 and is one of the oldest people to survive the virus.
Born on 21 August 1909 in Shipton Beringer, Hampshire, southern England, the youngest of eight children, Caterham was the last surviving child born during the reign of King Edward VII.
At age 18, she traveled alone to India, where she worked as a nanny for a military family. She then met British Army Major Norman Caterham at a dinner party in 1931, and they married two years later.
They lived in Salisbury but moved overseas, including in Hong Kong, where Caterham established a kindergarten. She then returned to England and raised two daughters, both of whom died. Her husband died in 1976.
Caterham has three granddaughters and five great-grandchildren.
Despite Caterham’s glorious years, he still falls short of the longest verified human lifespan.
That title belongs to Jeanne Calment, a French woman who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days.
