Swansea's longevity record

During the 1980s, Swansea boasted the oldest man and the oldest woman in Britain. Anna Williams lived to 114, and John Evans to 112, having become the oldest man ever to be fitted with a pacemaker and astounding the doctors by being fit to go home three days later.

I was lucky enough to interview John Evans, and a remarkable man he was. He had spent six decades as a coalminer, and complained that he only stopped working at 73 because they 'threw him out'.

His full story is my new book Secrets of the Centenarians (Reaktion). Below is the article the South Wales Evening Post wrote about Welsh centenarians based on the book.