When Violet Mosse-Brown was born, Queen Victoria ruled the British Empire, the Wright brothers had yet to take to the air and telegrams were the state of the art in global communication..

On Saturday (AEST), the news flashed around the world on in seconds that the world’s oldest person had died at the age of 117 years and 38 days in her Jamaica home .

“This is what God has given me, so I have to take it – long life,” Ms Mosse-Brown said in an April interview in her hometown of Duanvale in western Jamaica.

Ms Mosse-Brown said she spent much of her life cutting sugarcane in the fields around her home and attended church regularly.

After celebrating her 110th birthday, Ms Mosse-Brown told a local paper: “Really and truly, when people ask me what [to] eat and drink to live so long, I say to them I eat everything, except pork and chicken, and I don’t drink rum and them things.”

Ms Mosse-Brown had two caregivers and spent most of her days resting in the home she shared with her 97-year-old son.

The secret to long life is hard work, she said.

“I was a cane farmer. I would do every work myself. I worked, me and my husband, over that hill,” Ms Mosse-Brown said.

She also credited her Christian faith for her long life.

“I’ve done nearly everything at the church. I spent all my time in the church. I like to sing. I spent all my time in the church from a child to right up [to today].”

Japanese woman becomes world’s oldest person

Nabi Tajima, aged 117 and born in August 1900 is now the world’s oldest verified living person.

She lives in the small town of Kikai in the Kagoshima Prefecture in south-western Japan.

As of 2016, Japan was home to over 65,000 centenarians according to its Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Ms Tajima told the Japan Times, the key to longevity is “eating delicious things”.
These included ramen noodles and beef stew, as well as hashed beef and rice mackerel sushi.

“Eat and sleep and you will live a long time,” she said, adding: “You have to learn to relax.”

–AP and ABC