London: Congratultions to Minnie Smith who celebrates her 110th birthday today.

Miss Smith who never married or had children has been alive during three centuries, seen six monarchs and twenty-one prime ministers, and was a teenager when the Titanic sank.

Miss Smith, who is now blind and almost deaf, attributes her longevity to regular consumption of whisky and boiled onions.

She is still not the oldest living Briton. Henry Allingham, of Eastbourne, aged 111, is the oldest man in Europe and one of two known survivors in Britain of the Battle of the Somme. The oldest living woman was Eva Morris, who died in 2000 six days before her 115th birthday.

Miss Smith who worked in domestic service from the age of 14 is now living in a Salvation Army nursing home in South London.