{"id":452455,"date":"2025-09-26T09:15:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T09:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/452455\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T09:15:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T09:15:24","slug":"king-charles-iii-visits-116-year-old-ethel-caterham-in-lightwater-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/452455\/","title":{"rendered":"King Charles III visits 116-year-old Ethel Caterham in Lightwater"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758818896_811_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hagXkB hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4116d690-96b8-11f0-904d-590271132207.png.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"PA King Charles III meets the world's oldest person, 116-year-old Ethel Caterham, at Hallmark Lakeview Care Home in Lightwater, Surrey.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 bGQwLJ\"\/>PA<\/p>\n<p>King Charles III went to visit 116-year-old Ethel Caterham after saying goodbye to US president Donald Trump at the end of his state visit<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">King Charles III has made a special visit to the world&#8217;s oldest person, who told him she remembered &#8220;all the girls were in love with you and wanted to marry you&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Ethel Caterham, 116, lives in a care home in Lightwater, Surrey, and is the last surviving subject of Edward VII.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Mrs Caterham became the oldest living person in April following the death of Brazilian nun <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cr4nv0g15xyo\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 jZoZnB\" rel=\"noopener\">Sister Inah Canbarro Lucas<\/a> at the age of 116.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">After previously revealing she would have swapped her quiet <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cy5p7xv4zeyo\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 jZoZnB\" rel=\"noopener\">birthday <\/a>celebration to meet the King, the monarch duly obliged a few weeks later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Born on 21 August 1909, three years before the Titanic disaster, Mrs Caterham has lived through the Russian Revolution, the Great Depression, two world wars and the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">On her <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cwy0zxzpdd4o\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 jZoZnB\" rel=\"noopener\">115th birthday<\/a> she received a letter from King Charles congratulating her on a &#8220;truly remarkable milestone&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">She told the monarch on Thursday: &#8220;I remember when your mother crowned you in Caernarfon Castle.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The King expressed delight at her recollection of his 1969 investiture as the Prince of Wales when he was 21, laughing at Mrs Caterham&#8217;s comment about being the subject of many girls&#8217; affection.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758818896_811_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hagXkB hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/8e9ae080-96bf-11f0-b1e3-05ade1088c0e.png.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"PA The world's oldest person, 116-year-old Ethel Caterham, at Hallmark Lakeview Care Home in Lightwater, Surrey. \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 bGQwLJ\"\/>PA<\/p>\n<p>Ethel Caterham has spent the last 50 years living in Surrey and continued driving until she was 97<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">One of Mrs Caterham&#8217;s granddaughters, Kate Henderson, added: &#8220;You were saying that the other day, weren&#8217;t you?<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;You said &#8216;Prince Charles was so handsome. All the girls were in love with him&#8217;. A true prince \u2013 and now the King.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Charles, who responded with a playful grimace, quipped: &#8220;Yes well, all that&#8217;s left of him anyway.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Mrs Caterham was born in Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire, as the second youngest of eight siblings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">After growing up in Tidworth, Wiltshire, she travelled to India at the age of 18 where she worked as an au pair to a military family until she was 21.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">She met her husband Norman at a dinner party in the UK in 1931, with the pair going on to raise two daughters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Mrs Caterham has three granddaughters and five great grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PA King Charles III went to visit 116-year-old Ethel Caterham after saying goodbye to US president Donald Trump&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7730,7731,1760,7710,519],"class_list":{"0":"post-452455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-charles","10":"tag-charles-iii","11":"tag-king-charles","12":"tag-royal-families","13":"tag-royal-family"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115269843495643199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}