The oldest woman in the world

Welcome to the curiosity of a child episode 19. Yeah, so how you doing mate?

I'm good, happy to be on holiday, but going back to school soon.

Yes, your last week isn't it. Yeah, so you are kind of on holiday this episode. It's mainly Daddy episode this time. Yeah yeah. But you've been asking me to another games you great long time yes, and I finally done one and you went on a fishing trip didn't yeah.

I've been fishing. I went on the fastest fishing boat in Guernsey, cool.

And I caught 6 fish. I think I caught a massive dream sort of cause I got my.

Fishing line tangled in my friends fishing line so we kind of joint portal Abbott.

If that's good, so that's working together.

I caught a few macro and a couple of blue mackerel too and we brought some home.

Oh yeah, my other other friends. He named some of his fish name.

That reminds me, actually, when I come back, who organised it, but there's a campaign to rename fish, see Kittens, Twitter appear cuter so people would maybe give them more love and respect then they get, yeah?

Voice to be not just a few other things. So if you feel awesome Twitter you might have seen a photo of Ant and holding World War 2 pistol with a rather large grin on his face.

And it was taken at the Vintage Agricultural Show.

Yeah, so how Old World War 2 pistol? So that's what the officers would use. I think it was a rebel miniweb or something. I hold a rifle, quite a big rifle heavy wasn't it? Yeah, and kind of submachine gun sort of thing wasn't it?

Um, yeah.

It had begun on the mag on the side or magazine on the side and even told that it's really uncomfortable that you.

Said was it yes, awkward to hold? Yeah I'm not sure what sort of farming people used to do and to require such powerful weaponry.

Yeah.

So did you enjoy the shade generally, yeah.

I love ducks are lots of different stools and I got some yummy Gonzi Golden goat milk fudge and there are lots of World War Two vehicles there as well. Lots of willies jeeps and stuff and few motorbikes. I'm not sure if I was a sidecar.

Santa, what colourful curved thing that you see in the Sky is being used to represent Guernsey together rainbows, yeah, and then I had this quote the other day about rainbows and have not always been such a positive sign. Yeah, so there was a by 17 mungkin chronicler called Theophanes the Confessor. Now do you know who the boys engines were?

Empire.

Yeah, where they come from.

They were the Raymond's birthday. Really the continuation of empire.

Yeah, anyway, here's his quite so in this year of March, eh? Rainbow appeared in the Sky and all mankind shuddered. Everyone said it was the end of the world.

A little bit different to how we perceive them today, isn't it? Yeah, there's a picture of him with his Halo.

It's like a giant.

Ring around as it will help.

We also had a really great review of the podcast on Pod Chaser by Ned Donovan. So thank you very much and you're going to be out until.

What a podcast. Sometimes ideas hit the perfect connexion between intent and execution, and this is one of those shows a must listen.

Thank you very much. Now look set.

Up, my accents are better than yours.

Yeah, maybe you'll be doing.

All of the quotes from now on.

Yes, I looked it up and he's an actor and producer, so we have a link to his showreel in the show unites. So thank you mad and why don't you follow in his footsteps and review us on Apple Podcasts or Pod Chaser?

And now with all the pressure on us, should we get on with the show?

Over the show.

Now, the cold, desolate conditions of this Siberian tundra are perfect for preserving bodies. The ground can be apparently phrase, and the population is sparse, and there are few scavengers able to survive in such harsh conditions. So do you know where Siberia is?

Show my code.

Read it.

It's kind of the northern.

Part of Russia particularly going over to the East.

So that you got a map for you here so some Peters Berg is.

Here, yeah, there's a lot of it is.

Apparently snowy and freezing and icy there, yeah?

Now back in 2013, eh? 40,000 year old mammoth.

Uncovered there, and it was nicknamed Buttercup.

It's found in the permafrost.

Now, what was remarkable about this mammoth was the body actually still contained liquid blood. It was actually late.

Liquid, it wasn't frozen. No, it was free at the time, but when they recovered it.

Thought out they.

Could kind of international bleed.

I ask and.

There is enough kind of DNA kind of preserved in that blood that should be able to clean the creatures they wanted to. That is very cool. Yeah amazing isn't it. Yeah, it was a truly remarkable find and to quit Doctor Herridge.

Hello Isa palaeontologist you normally have to imagine the extinct animals you work on.

So actually coming face to face with the mammoth.

In the flesh and.

Being up to my elbows in slippery, wet and frankly rather smelly mammoth liver count as one of the most remarkable incredible experiences of my life. Lovely, yeah.

So yeah, chemistry and amazing fine day for somebody who their life is kind of investigating these animals and defined yet Lakey.

Well, pretty much living.

Yeah, like it would just been recently killed. Yeah yeah.

Now, how would you describe a woolly mammoth to someone?

An elephant with Brown.

Fur I think, or some sort of an.

Elephant then yeah, with almost like a hat.

Now, if you had a rhinoceros that was hairy, like a mammoth, what would you call it?

A hairy rhinoceros, say, do you want to see what one would look like, okay?

I see okay, this is actually just a little square of fairies and flesh from a woolly rhinoceros, and this is actually found in the stomach.

Affrays and ugh.

Which is also found in the tundra. So it's amazing how scientists can tell from such a small scrap of flesh found inside an animal that's.

Frozen thousands of.

Years ago, what it was.

Yeah, and let's have a proper fighting now of what a fairy.

Slough yeah kind of does this map yeah or something like Jim Henson.

Would do, or The Muppets? Yeah, ohh, that looks like it's a horse with some lots and lots of hair stuck in it, yeah, or a giant horsey thing, yeah, so the photo here which were put into the show mates actually have a baby Willy rhinoceros and discovered in Siberia.

And this guy is amazing. Horn on them I love megaphone, are you?

And it looks stuck on. Yeah, it does. Now the animal which the woolly rhino was found was.

The first

fully mummified dog ever discovered, nicknamed to Matt after the village near where it is on Earth by two brothers in 2011.

Now that they think the dog is about 12,500 years old and it's really, really well preserved so you can see here on a map that I've got you, that too much is really up in the North of Russia, isn't it? Yeah, that's.

Very, very high and quite far to the East. Tomatoes in the soccer Republic.

And in 2010 is population.

Was only 533 people wow.

From 8:00 AM, Tony yeah must be another place to live now. Doctor Derry maghoma Eva.

I think I got that right professor of the Ndefu Medical Institute said.

What is the real interest is in fact the animal has a completely reserved carcass which is unique by itself, with nothing like it in the world. Although their tissues are mummified, they have no post mortem decomposition. Ann, as it usually happens with biological material. Yeah, so the perma thrust thrust, the.

Perma Frost preserved it really well.

Now the dog herself. She was actually just a little puppy.

Probably about 3 months.

Old.

It says that by studying, her body will be able to get a better understanding of the development of modern day dogs and kind of where they came from so.

I've got a.

Photo for you here. It's just the photo of.

The puppy undergoing its autopsy? That's well.

Preserved it looks like crisps because the autopsy, but I'm thinking leaf litter or something. Yeah, giant Papa John's or something.

Now, dogs were domesticated probably somewhere between 18,000 and 32,000 years ago, maybe in Europe or Siberia. Yeah, but I can find any evidence that too much was some of these pets or not.

Got another quote here from a doctor. German pray and.

She says there are two main theories. The first is that dogs arrived near sites where humans.

Lived and picked up scraps and gradually they coexisted.

The second version talks about active involvement of Man, where the people.

Themselves were the.

Initiator of their relationship and brought the puppies to.

Their home and trains them. Yeah, you want to.

Get them when their.

Small otherwise they gonna get angry. Yeah, funny. There's actually a dog barking outside as we speak about them. We've now got a photo is another puppy which is found in this similar area couple years later. You can understand why. Maybe humans would want to domesticate dogs.

Ohh yeah yeah yeah big teeth.

Yeah, exactly great for protecting you from predators and hunting enough. It's just like the mouth banner looks pretty old too, so it looks a bit like platypus lips and stuff with the giant teeth.

Yes, so tomatoes and they need a guy to being found in the permafrost, not far from where she was found. There was a second dog discovered a couple of years later.

And you might wonder why it took so long for them to discover the.

Next time and you'll see it's quite hard to see them. Yeah, it's pretty camouflaged. You can sort of see and how I kind of so. This is a photo.

Here of basically a big power thick.

Gloopy mud it looks like snow on top of.

That and the dogs just.

Chated yeah, I can see a sort of face there. Can you not a dogs face a human face? Ohh yeah yeah I'm getting spotting faces I mean humans are yes called para golia that you see faces in things.

And I did find a more recent Storey of another doggy discovery which is another puppy found in 2017. This will probably 18,000 years old.

I'm not sure if this was a.

Dog or a Wolf, but it looks kind of cute.

So you imagine that being somebody's pet.

That looks like a teddy. It doesn't, it does. I think it's probably been done up for the photo shoot. As you can see, like really well preserved, fluffy, fair their whiskers currently on the ice at the eyelashes. Yeah, and I think the first doggy team attache G from other photos makes the body was probably destroyed during the scientific investigation in the autopsy. But you can see this from becoming like the poster boy of ancient canines, yeah?

I mean, you can sort of see it some.

Ribs a bit, bones that on one side, but it still looks really.

Looks a bit like a fluffy piglet to me that face actually, yeah, that's true. The face is definitely changed and dogs now. People that sees water cannons to breakthrough the permafrost be searching for different treasures hidden there.

Like mammoth tusks.

Then you could.

Imagine kind of as the like. The climate warms up. There's going to be more and more freezing animals starting to be uncovered under the ice and the Frost. So we're going to be really fast to find them before.

They rot away or maybe get eaten by modern dogs.

Yeah, and that reminds you of a Storey.

I heard recently of you know they've got body farms in America where they put maybe a corpse or possibly a pig or something out in different conditions. And then.

They might wrap them up and to see how they decompose. So yeah, forensics people can understand the decomposition of bodies.

There is a Storey of a cat.

Visiting one of these body farms and having a little nibble on the bodies.

60 mountain little mittens coming home yet sprightly, bright eyed, licking its lips and he drags her dead body.

Through the door handle something yeah he's.

Gonna drag it through the cat flap, yeah?

So we're going to move on to some other doggies. Now these rushes are very long history with canines, and I want to take a moment to remember 2 amazing ones from 1960. Now the two in question, our Belka.

And Strelka so ******.

And little arrow.

Yes, I have got their names.

Right, and they're both female dogs in about 2.5 years old or 2 1/2 years old.

And here's a picture of.

Them, but I think it looks like taxidermy. It does that. I used to have been like.

Why? But their eyes are glinting?

And said both of their mouths are open and they look too. Still too, actually.

Were they cute and that one looks like it's just ahead of a dog? Yeah, but we're going to do a feature on something like that one day.

Now, do you know anything about these dogs?

Where they were selected, they were sent into.

Space that's right. Yeah, both dogs did really well in their doggy training and they were selectors canine cosmonauts.

For the Sputnik 5 mission.

And this would be a one day flight and space. Just having a quick trip to space, you know, yeah, and usual.

So a couple of weeks ago on August the 19th to the 20th, that's the 60th anniversary of their.

Flight into and.

Safe return from space and they were actually the first animals to safely come.

Home from orbit, so the first living things yeah but came back, yeah.

Yeah, but let's not forget my stick insects. Plants, es, fungi, an micro cultures that went with them, yeah.

And they were at a 25 hour flight and they went on their 17 times and travelled 700,000 kilometres. Wow.

Dogs can run a very long way.

And I think one of the dogs as they had a video feed and they could see that she got distressed.

A little bit.

Just some of the flights they actually reduced the.

Length of Eureka Garren's flight into space based on information they found the first man in space. Yes, yeah.

Officially the first one.

Is there's some interesting storeys around that? Anyway, so who knows? These freezing dogs were speaking about?

Before it could be there, if they fill out the M rocket.

Ancient ancient space cosmonaut dogs. So who knows? These freezing dogs found in the permafrost?

They might be the ancient ancestors of Belkin Stroker and people who help domesticate them are a forgotten.

Part of the space race, yeah?

You been asking for a wife and other.

Games you great have any. Yep and I've kind of been putting it off because trying to find the right person got one for you here.

And it's not as long as the two.

Parter, we did done Sir Isaac Brock an there rather less bar.

Name, but I did find one website. It's rated her as.

Women who **** *** number 83.

Yeah okay. Energy saying Margaret and Niamh.

Bowling guarantee in 17.

92 Do you know what else is alive today is she?

Say do.

You know what else happened in 1792?

1792 is also the year the 1st.

Regularly flushing toilet was invented so that probably.

Helped.

Margaret was the first ever recorded Super Sentai.

Erian, now do you know what that means?

Anybody who lives like a century.

Or older 110 years. Wow, so there's one man recorded before this and he was a Dutch chap called Gert Andres Boom. Guards should definitely pronounced wrong.

Seems to have every single.

Name he's got a double. A double letter is like GE.

AA and AA again. Although there are some Chinese records which supposedly tell storeys.

Of Amanda's over 250 years.

I hate, I told that to the teacher she didn't listen now Margaret. She was also the first person proving to live in three different centuries. So she is born 18th of May 1792 and past ways aged 110 years.

And 321 days.

On the 4th of April 1983.

I gotta fight over her but she is.

110 I think.

I love that Lady. Yeah, this is good for you too.

I think she would be a good character. She looks good fun.

He looks like I am not amused.

Say, Can you imagine how much kind of?

Things must have changed during.

Her lifetime, yeah, it's like an especially in the Victorian. And so.

Many things were invented. Yeah, it's time a lot of change, wasn't it. Yeah, so I'm going to show you some photos of the English monarchs who Reigns during her lifetime. OK, so we start with George the.

3rd, and he reigned from 17.

60 to 18. Twenty 1760 sounds so long ago.

Yeah, and so here's.

A painting of him now just like a real.

Picture to you.

No, that that actually looks like a photograph with a good camera. Okay, yes and amazing painting, but I mean the style of the dress and everything.

Yeah, yeah that he's it looks pretty heavy. What he's wearing is wearing a lot. He's got like gold and like Roy, the Royal sort of capes where you've got white and black dots that's.

Yeah, but you could. That looks like a very old painting. See, yeah doesn't it amazing painting even alight under step?

That he's standing on reflecting, so Next up is George the fourth. Now the monarchy was going through a bit of a naming crisis at the time, I think.

Yep, there's just many, many Georges, and he ruled from 1820, eighteen, 30.

Please change this got redder still got that white and black dots yeah theme but again it still looks like a long time ago doesn't it? So she was alive during this time so the Next up is William the 4th and hears from.

18 thirty 1837.

And change the colours have changed again. He's got a sword this time you might recognise the next Monarch Queen Victoria, yes, Queen Victoria now. She had a very long reign, didn't she? From 1837 to 1901 it's actually a photo and starting to feel a little bit more contemporary now. And I think you're fine with Edward the 7th. Now here's King from 1981 to 1910.

That's not very modern.

Ann Margaret just missed out on George.

#5 by a few weeks.

But if you look at the difference there so.

How is he dressed he's.

Wearing like kind.

Of work clothes you would have, he's got a.

Suit with a tie and everything. Yeah, so big transformations that during her lifetime and overall of these pictures in the show notes before we get into her life, we're going to cover a further changes that happened during our lifetime. Okay, so the world population roughly doubled from about 980,000,000 to 1.7 billion people. Yeah, she is alive then. The amazing photo that I showed you earlier.

Margaret, she was aged 110 then, but she could not find any photos of her childhood because cameras weren't invented until she was 34, yeah.

Then in 1783, just nine years before she was born.

There is the first ever on tethered.

Hot air balloon flight.

Then when she was aged 111 years, the Wright.

Brothers stick to their.

Hacking Devil Hills and recorded the first ever heavier than air flight, so she encompassed the entire early period of flight. Yeah, obviously like that when the witnesses of the.

Wright

Brothers Flight was a boy from the village. Yeah, imagine him running up there so they came to school or something.

He Sai I've had a bad day at school I'm leaving.

Ohh fly, maybe you named them. Yeah he had a plane day.

Now staying with America for a.

Moment just.

Born not long after the American Revolution, another famous George. This when Washington became the 1st President of the US and there are still a small power at the time.

But by her death, they're really becoming a major player.

On the world, this expanded lots too. So here in 1783 this is the original 13 colonies.

And then you can see in 1883 the Louisiana Purchase which brought.

From France, then Texas, and in 18.

45 in Mexico.

So you can see how much America yeah came over a major country during her lifetime, so she would have been probably hearing over this its proper shape.

Repeat this map as well in the on the website.

But let's get back to Margaret. Now put her life in a little bit more.

Context of what was going on in the world now there isn't.

That much information about her, but what we do have is really fascinating.

So it seems like she came from a pretty well off family and her father.

John Harvey was involved in merchant shipping and private earring. Yeah, he's been around a great deal of wealth through doing this, but he died aged 49 by Mum. Elizabeth seems to have given her the longevity genes and she lifted 99 wow.

Margaret was actually born Marguerite Ann Harvey, but she later anglicised her name. Now I reckon this is probably due to wars with France, yeah?

That sounds French.

French, yeah, now as a young child she fell down some stairs and she suffered kind of a serious concussion and she's actually out for three days so much in quite a serious football. Yeah, stone stairs.

And during her early life, the French Revolution was in full swing. Say France seems to lock during her lifetime. Acids say England's and consequently.

Guernsey's relationship with France.

Yeah, so you know there's we've got loads of towers around the coast.

Laser built these foot cases were built to protect the item from the French. Yeah like Castle cornet.

Exactly, so it must be really hard living on a small island of the coast of France. Master at wars. Napoleon yeah.

You're always like one is the greatest wartime leaders I ever. Yeah, exactly this. You got three castles or thoughts that are still standing today and.

To survive.

Then her father, he was actually in command of the local militia, and she remembered the turmoil that the Revolution brought to Guernsey.

Yeah I bought in 1887. She left the island with her dad and they set sail for Weymouth by storm. Blew them off course and they ended up landing on Chesil Beach and it's not that far off course is just seeing this map mushroom. Pretty terrifying but she was 15 uptime probably couldn't swim that well I imagine so here's Weymouth here. This funny stretch of land here is Chesil Beach.

And here's a photo of it.

Yes, let's go to Clarion *****.

Please, I don't think so. So a Barrow Beach is a small strip of land kind of running parallel with the coastline, with C each side of it and.

How many pebbles do you think?

Make that up that this is late just this little bit of the whole thing, the whole thing.

56 billion. How about 180 billion pebbles?

But must be in a scary place to land in. This storm shouldn't be in any electric light, something back then. Or yeah, probably not. Now the reason she moved to England was to study in Bristol and she gained a real interest in poetry and literature at that time.

And I'd like to actually know how much.

The English language change during.

Her lifetime, yes, I've seen the love.

Changes, then after that she moved to finishing school in Brussels and it seems she became a bit of a polyglot as she became fluent in French and Italian and also talk in German and Spanish. But that's not all. She is amazing really, because she could also read the Bible in Greek. Yeah, you would have heard the Battle of Waterloo. Yeah yeah. So she visited the battlefield a few years after the event with the Headmistress once with the corpses had been buried.

And she returned there on a honeymoon in 1823 with her husband John and her Diaries for my honeymoon can be found at the library. That's cool math to see if you can see those.

Now, during one of these visits, she found a belt buckle from an Imperial Guard soldier, but she later showed tools. Yeah, she later shade to Gebhard Lebrock Von Launcher, which I've totally pictured, which is really bad. She's probably is.

Very famous as he was, the Prussian field Marshall during the Battle of Waterloo.

So to be kind of meeting a man at him, she must be in pretty high circles at that time. Very important, and there's a photo of him there.

He looks cool. See the German cross that quite yeah he's got quite a good massage. She also met a general of the French Revolutionary Wars charged Francois Demarez, who nicknamed her Less Spirit Ale. So I'm not quite sure how that was meant, but suggests that they knew each other reasonably well. So again, she's kind of mixing with these high society seems.

Now, sadly her husband.

Died in 1849 and she never remarried or had any children.

Then her life after her husband's death was as long as many people would live there full life as well. He lived for so long. Yeah, she returned to Guernsey where she lived.

With her sister Elizabeth.

But her adventures were not over yet.

She and her sister they

enjoyed travelling and their last trip was in 1870. Two were aged 80. See visited crack off in Poland.

There's another fight over here.

Yeah, just got better for.

Cheeky smile, yeah, so you can see there.

Little photo.

Now it seems that age is no obstacle to her and.

In 1899 there's a gathering of over.

200 and.

50 kind of local Guernsey residents, kind of leading ones on the island to celebrate the 107th birthday, and she's even interviewed by The Times newspaper.

And she told the Reporter that she is funding making marmalade.

And the year she was born actually was the year that oranges were introduced into Hawaii, but I don't think she got her from there.

And she says she never got till until she was 105 years old when she got the flu. Wow, and she survived the flu as well. That always looks pretty good and Margaret also liked apples.

Particularly freshly picked ones.

She said were tastier. If they're straight from the tree, so.

Aged 110 she

climbed up an Apple tree to pick one really and she.

And her massive.

Dress and now I like to think of thing like a young child and they kind of sneak into the neighbours Orchard and still a tree. Stupid tree.

Not answering right to an Apple from the tree. Yeah, she pleaded that like Woo.

No one.

Did she send the teeth then? Yeah, I guess people didn't see me sweets and things back then their teeth coming survived.

Now a bit of a mythology started to grow around here, and there are a few reports in American newspapers of her becoming friends with Queen Victoria. That's not quite true, and there's actually some telegrams.

Between her family and Queen Victoria. Kind of.

Almost apologising for this confusion. The storeys in the American newspapers went that Queen Victoria would send her birthday telegram every year and had a photo of Miss Niamh.

In the Royal summer house.

But they're not true, but she did receive a signed photo of the Queen. That's nice.

Do you think the key to my long life was?

Climbing up Apple trees in the evening apples.

Staying fit younger heart I reckon.

Now the answer might be found in an article titled the Oldest Woman in the world from.

The Clarence and Raymond Examiner dated Tuesday the 19th February 1981. She is not an abstainer but takes a glass and a half of old Sherry at her midday dinner and a little weak whiskey and water at supper in diet. She does not greatly restrict herself, but she has always objected to eating or drinking between regular hours or meals and even afternoon tea has been rigidly excluded from her household programme.

She has always been an early riser and there's never permitted herself any cuddling or self indulgence by Shana somewhat.

Spartan strength of will in refusing them.

Ask.

And from that same article I really like the description of Guernsey in that charming little.

Island, renowned for its.

Natural beauties it's a file in the air and its remoteness from the storm and.

Stress of modern life? Yeah, that's true.

Still is today, yeah.

But that wasn't stone there.

For when he wasn't a terrible storm in her life.

Well, there was the one where she got shipwrecked. Ohh yeah.

I'm going to finish with a lovely and funny clipping from the Potter Enterprise newspaper. Now it's an American paper which shows.

How far her fame had spread?

I have lately seen.

A picture of a calmly.

Spray old lady who danced a minute and sang sweet songs of our youth at the age of 97. There is lying on.

My desk at pitch of King Edwards older subject a.

111 years of age. This 12th of May she is miss.

Margaret Ann Neave and she lives in the.

Pretty island, Guernsey. She is sweet faced gentle, an fair and looks a handsome old lady of 70.

Brave old girls.

Furry aged women need no longer look like hideous.

Old mummies.

Do you think that?

Um?

Kenzie and wherever it was in America would have existed then or not I think.

Yeah, yeah, I think it would. Yeah, when she was born.

Before or after.

I don't know my.

States well enough in America, actually.

Tonight, anybody knows they can tell us?

So pretty amazing woman. I think just had an amazing life. Yeah could be 3 add lots. Yeah I'm cleaning climbing up an Apple tree. Very intelligent too with the different languages she could learn. She's interesting. Characters may be less well known than some others. So what do you think? Cool, yeah.