Malta’s oldest person, Grace Gatt, has celebrated her 109th birthday.

Born in 1916, she is the granddaughter of Malta’s first prime minister Sir Joseph Howard.

Staff at the Imperial nursing home in Sliema, where Grace lives, threw a birthday party in her honour last Thursday. Family members and fellow residents lined up to take photos with her.

Her son Edgar described her as "very alert and lucid" on the day. 

“When she saw her great-grandchildren, she immediately sat upright and her face lit up,” he said.

“She can’t do many things for herself anymore, but on most days she’s tranquil and most importantly, not in any pain,” he added.

Grace’s early years were spent in a spacious home opposite the Manoel Theatre in Valletta, where she lived with her parents and paternal grandparents.

Her grandfather became prime minister when she was five, and died when she was nine. In an interview with the Sunday Circle in 2022, her son said she had fond memories of travelling abroad with him, journeys that involved ships and trains and lasted up to six weeks.

In 1940, just as World War II came to Malta, Grace married Alfred Gatt, whom she had met through friends at a carnival event. The couple shared a love for carnival dance competitions throughout their courtship and early marriage.

Due to the wartime dangers in Valletta, they evacuated to Mosta and later settled in Sliema, where they raised their two sons, Edgar and John.

Edgar was born in an air-raid shelter in 1942, a testament to the challenging times.

Growing up near the national theatre, Grace developed a passion for opera, attending performances from the age of six.

Her favourite operas include Madama Butterfly and Tosca. She also formed a friendship with Princess Nathalie Poutiatine, a Russian aristocrat who settled in Malta after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

Edgar says she attributes her longevity to never eating heavy meals in the evening while enjoying a tot of whisky or two.

Correction: an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the date of the Bolshevik revolution as 1919.