A British man, who was born 10 years before the deadly Spanish flu swept across the world in 1918, has been named the world's oldest living man. He is currently in quarantine from the coronavirus in his assisted living home.
Bob Weighton, who turned 112 on Sunday, was recognized by Guinness World Records after residents sang "Happy Birthday" to him from a safe distance to adhere to the United Kingdom's social distancing guidelines.
"I never expected to be that," Weighton said in a video released by Guinness World Records. "When you're young you don't think about being old, but it's a new record for me. The only other record I remember ever having was jumping 5 feet 2 inches high in my school days on the final high jump."
The supercentenarian shared that one of his tips to longevity was a tranquil attitude toward life.
"I'm just happy to live for a long time," Weighton said. "I've never been someone who said I'm gonna climb Everest or sail around the world or do something (like that). I just take life as it comes along."
He also stays busy making miniature wooden windmills that he sells to raise money for charity.
"I'm basically an engineer, so making things is my natural element,'' he said.
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He became the latest man to earn the Guinness World Records designation after Japanese man Chitetsu Watanabe died on Feb. 23 at 112 years and 355 days old. Japanese woman Kane Tanaka is currently the world's oldest living person after turning 117 in January.
The oldest male in history is Japan's Jiroemon Kimura, who lived to be 116 years and 54 days old before dying in 2013, according to Guinness World Records.
Weighton was born on March 29, 1908, in Kingston-Upon-Hull in Yorkshire and grew up in a family of seven children.
After a marine engineering apprenticeship as a teen, he moved to Taiwan and learned Mandarin while teaching at a missionary school.
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He married his wife Agnes in 1937 while living in Taiwan after the two had first met while growing up in England. The couple had their first child in Taiwan and then two more while living in Toronto during World War II, before returning to the United Kingdom following the war.
He then worked as a teacher at City University in London.
Weighton, who has 10 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren, said he endured mumps, measles and whooping cough as a child, while surviving malaria and "two or three operations" as an adult.
"I sometimes look at the cards and think, 'Gosh am I that old?’" he joked.