THE WORLD\u2019S OLDEST person is celebrating her 117th birthday after a year of \u201cmany firsts\u201d, including meeting the King and holding his hand.<\/p>\n
Ethel Caterham, who lives at Hallmark Lakeview Care Home in Lightwater, Surrey in the UK is spending the day with her family and friends to mark the occasion on Friday.<\/p>\n
In a statement, she said: \u201cThank-you for all of the kind birthday wishes. Even at 117, I\u2019ve had many firsts this year, from stroking a llama to holding hands with the King.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a lovely day celebrating with my family and friends, and I look forward to seeing what next year brings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caterham was visited by King Charles, who held her hand as he introduced himself, in September last year just after her 116th birthday.<\/p>\n
She became the oldest living person in April 2025 after the death of Brazilian nun Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas at 116.<\/p>\n
During the meeting with Charles, she recollected his 1969 investiture as the Prince of Wales when he was 21, adding: \u201cAll the girls were in love with you and wanted to marry you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caterham was born on 21 August 1909 in Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire, five years before the start of the First World War, as the second youngest of eight siblings.<\/p>\n
She is the last surviving subject of Edward VII, who died in May 1910.<\/p>\n
In 1927, aged 18 she travelled to India and worked as an au pair to a military family until she was 21.<\/p>\n
She met her husband Norman, who was a lieutenant colonel in the British Army and died in 1976, at a dinner party in the UK in 1931.<\/p>\n
They lived in Salisbury before being stationed in Gibraltar and Hong Kong. Caterham set up a nursery school while in Hong Kong and raised two daughters, both of whom died before her.<\/p>\n
One of her sisters, Gladys, lived to be 104.<\/p>\n
Caterham drove until she was 97 and enjoyed playing contract bridge in her centenarian years. She survived Covid in 2020 aged 110.<\/p>\n
The title of the oldest person ever is held by French woman Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122 years 164 days, according to Guinness World Records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE WORLD\u2019S OLDEST person is celebrating her 117th birthday after a year of \u201cmany firsts\u201d, including meeting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[274760,18,117,15419,19,17,8417,57120,274761,274762],"class_list":["post-650138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-274760","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ethel-caterham","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-king-charles","tag-surrey","tag-uninted-kingdom","tag-worlds-oldest-person"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117137167141414193","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}