Ethel Caterham turned 117 on 21 August. She was born in 1909, at a time when Edward VII sat on the British throne - and she is the last living person born while he reigned.

That is a sentence that asks to be read twice. Edward VII's reign lasted nine years and ended more than a century ago. Everyone else who saw those years is gone. What remains is one woman in a care home in Surrey.

Guinness lists her as the oldest living person in the world, and as the first Briton verified to have reached 117. She was one of eight children. She has three granddaughters and five great-grandchildren. She has lived through two world wars and a global pandemic - a standard formulation in pieces like this, but here it means she was an adult woman when the Second World War began.

Last year, on her 116th birthday, Charles III visited her. She brought up something he probably mentions rather less often - his investiture as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle, when he was 21. From her perspective, that is an episode from the middle of the story.

"I had a wonderful day celebrating with family and friends, and I can't wait to see what the next year brings," Caterham said after her birthday.

The record is not hers yet. The longest-lived person in history remains Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122. A five-year gap - which for other people is nothing, and here is an entire era.

What is missing from every article of this kind is the recipe, because there is no recipe. There is only one woman who simply kept going, while kings, wars and centuries passed around her.