Britain's Bob Weighton becomes world's oldest man aged 111

Britain's oldest man is now the world's oldest man after the death of 112-year-old Chitetsu Watanabe, from Japan.

Bob Weighton, who turns 112 next month, can now expect to receive a Guinness World Record certificate of his own.

’I don't really feel satisfied because it means someone else has died’

Born March 1908 in Hull, Mr Weighton becomes the world's oldest man, six months after he became Britain's oldest man in August 2019 following the death of Alfred Smith.

He told Press Association: "Well, I don't really feel satisfied because it means someone else has died. I just accept it as a fact, it's not something I ever intended, wanted or worked for but it's just one of those facts of life. You might find it amazing but it's just one of those things."

Bob lives independently in one of 46 apartments at Brendoncare Alton. He was born on 29 March 1908 in Hull, Yorkshire, where he lived and studied for a degree in mechanical engineering. After his studies, he worked in the shipping industry in Northumberland.

In 1933 he decided to volunteer to teach English in Taiwan. He spent six weeks on board a ship reaching Hong Kong and a further week getting to Taiwan. He initially spent two years learning Japanese, and then taught English in a school for four years, during which time he married his fiancée who came out from England in 1937.

When warnings of the Second World War were made in 1939, he decided to leave for England. However, on the way across the Pacific to Canada, war broke out and he lived in Canada and the USA until the end of the war.

During the war, he worked with the British Government, first inspecting aircraft engines for delivery to the RAF, and then translating enemy broadcasts and preparing programmes in Japanese to be broadcast to Japan under the title of the ‘Voice of Britain’.

He returned to England in 1946 with his wife and three children. He became a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the City University of London, where he continued working until his retirement in 1973.

In 2018, carehome.co.uk went to visit Mr Weighton where he took his first selfie.

Does this mean Bob Weighton becomes the oldest man in the world to take a selfie?

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