Margaret Fish, the oldest person in Britain, has passed away less than a week after turning 112.
Mrs Fish died last Saturday, at Danecroft Residential Home, in Wilstead, near Bedford, five days after celebrating her birthday.
The former dress-maker lived through three centuries and became the oldest person in the country after the death of Elsie Steele in October last year.
The new title holder is now Violet Wood of Whitstable, Kent, who is 111.
When Mrs Fish was asked how she felt about becoming Britain’s oldest person then, she said: “There’s not a scrap of difference. It just happened.” Mrs Fish, who was a supercentenarian, has two daughters – Barbara and Elsie, both in their 70s.
She met her husband Frank, who was in the army during the First World War, and they married in 1928.
They moved to Bedfordshire during the Second World War bombings and after her husband died, Mrs Fish lived independently at her home in Cople until she was 104.
The oldest recorded living person in the UK was former school teacher Charlotte Hughes, who was born in 1877 and died in 1993, aged 115.
