-Agence France -Presse
Mr Fredie Blom sharing memories on his 116th birthday at his home in Delft, near Cape Town.
South African, Fredie Blom celebrated his 116th birthday on Friday amid the coronavirus crisis, more than 100 years after the Spanish flu killed his sister.
“I have lived this long because of God’s grace,” said Mr Blom, possibly one of the oldest men in the world.
Lighting a cigarette, he recalled the 1918 pandemic that left tens of millions dead worldwide.
Mr Blom was born in 1904 in the rural town of Adelaide, near the Great Winterberg mountain range of South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.
He is older than a 112-year-old British resident named the world’s oldest living man by the Guinness World Records in March.
Mr Blom’s age has not yet been verified by the body.
Grandchildren whizzed around as Mr Blom sat on the front yard of his home. Neighbours arrived soon after to sing happy birthday.
Mr Blom has spent most of his life working on farms around Cape Town. He met his 86-year-old wife Jeanette at a dance and won her heart with his jive moves.
The couple have been married for almost 50 years. They moved to the Cape Town suburb of Delft three decades ago.
At his great age, however, he said he would not let the coronavirus pandemic panic him.
However, he did not mince his words about South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, complaining about a nationwide ban on cigarette sales that was part of a series of lockdown measures.
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Mr Blom grumbled, adding that cigarettes were his only birthday wish this year.
He stopped visiting doctors more than two years ago, claiming he was tired of being pricked and prodded.