The world’s oldest living man has turned 112 at his care home in Merseyside.
John Alfred Tinniswood, who lives in Southport, put his long life down to “just luck”, and said he did not follow a special diet, except for eating fish and chips every Friday.
Tinniswood was born in 1912 – the same year the Titanic sunk. He became the world’s oldest living man earlier this year, inheriting the title from 114-year-old Juan Vicente Pérez, of Venezuela, who died in April.
Tinniswood already held the title of the UK’s oldest man, which he gained in 2020.
A lifelong Liverpool football fan, Tinniswood was born in the city only 20 years after the club was founded. He has lived through almost all of the club’s highs and lows, including all eight of the Reds’ FA Cup wins and most of their league victories.
He met his wife, Blodwen, at a dance in the city, and the couple were together for 44 years before she died in 1986. Their daughter, Susan, was born in 1943, and he is now a great-grandfather.
Having worked in an administrative role for the Army Pay Corps, Tinniswood is the world’s oldest surviving male veteran of the second world war. He later worked as an accountant for Shell and BP, before retiring in 1972.
Tinniswood still lives his life mostly unassisted – he manages his own finances, keeps up with the news on the radio, and gets out of bed each morning by himself.
He cannot put his good health and longevity down to much more than pure luck – and perhaps an active lifestyle in his younger days. “You either live long or you live short, and you can’t do much about it,” he said when he became the Guinness World Record holder earlier this year.
“I don’t feel that age, I don’t get excited over it. That’s probably why I’ve reached it,” he added. “I just take it in my stride like anything else, why I’ve lived that long I have no idea at all.
“I can’t think of any special secrets I have. I was quite active as a youngster, I did a lot of walking. Whether that had something to do with it, I don’t know. But to me, I’m no different [to anyone]. No different at all.”
Reflecting on his long life, he said that perhaps the key was to do everything in moderation. “I eat what they give me and so does everybody else. I don’t have a special diet,” he said.
“If you drink too much or you eat too much or you walk too much, if you do too much of anything, you’re going to suffer eventually.”
Tinniswood received a birthday card every year from the late queen since he turned 100 in 2012. He outlived her reign, even though she was born almost 14 years later. He has also lived through the tenure of 24 UK prime ministers.
When asked how he had seen the world change during his lifetime, he said: “The world, in its way, is always changing. It’s a sort of ongoing experience … It’s getting a little better but not all that much yet. It’s going the right way.”
When asked his advice for younger generations, he said: “Always do the best you can, whether you’re learning something or whether you’re teaching someone. Give it all you’ve got. Otherwise it’s not worth bothering with.”
The oldest man ever recorded was Jiroemon Kimura, of Japan, who died in 2013 at the age of 116 years and 54 days.
The world’s oldest living person is the Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka, who is 116. She only took over the title this month after Maria Branyas Morera, who died in her nursing home in Olot, north-eastern Spain, at the age of 117 years and 168 days.
The oldest verified person on record is the Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Calment, who died in 1997 aged 122 years and 164 days.
Also happening in 1912 …
In the UK, King George V was on the throne, and the British empire was estimated to cover one-fifth of the world. The Liberal Lord Asquith was the prime minister.
In the US, New Mexico and Arizona became the 47th and 48th states, and an act of Congress established the territory of Alaska as an organised incorporated territory of the US.
In January, the Republic of China was founded, bringing an end to more than 2,000 years of imperial rule.
Also in January , the British Antarctic Expedition, led by Capt Robert Falcon Scott, reached the geographic south pole only to find that a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had beaten them by 34 days.
In April, the Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and more than 1,600 people were killed.
The same month, Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, died in London at the age of 64.
In September, Blackpool’s famous illuminations were lit up for the first time, to commemorate the town’s first royal visit, from Princess Louise, the sixth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
