An extra-special birthday has been celebrated: A’Lona Lambert-Simons, now 105, is believed to be the oldest person in Bermuda.

“I’ve come a long way,” Mrs Lambert-Simons said as family and guests, including Michael Dunkley, gathered around to sing “Happy Birthday”.

She told the Premier how much she loved flowers as he brought her a birthday bouquet, and musician Tony Brannon strummed her a tune at Matilda Smith Williams seniors’ home.

Mrs Lambert-Simons was born on January 21, 1911 — a few months before the launch of the Titanic, in the era of silent film and horse-based transport.

According to remarks she gave on her 96th birthday, she credited her long life to “obeying her parents, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, drinking plenty of water and keeping busy and active”. Elwood Lambert, her nephew, said the family had searched all the records they could find and believed that she was the most senior person on the Island. A congratulatory birthday card from the Queen is said to be on its way to Bermuda.

Hailing from the Scaur neighbourhood of Somerset, Mrs Lambert-Simons, the daughter of Arthur and Susan Lambert, comes from a famously long-lived family.

Her sisters Linda and Agatha both lived to at least their 100th year, Mr Lambert said; her brothers Daniel, George, Everod and Borden all lived into their nineties.

“People walked everywhere in those days or they got around on a pedal bike; they were strong,” said her niece, Geraldine Francis, who felt “wonderful and encouraged” to mark yesterday’s occasion.

Her nephew, Goodwin Lambert, recalled Mrs Lambert-Simons’s father as “one of Bermuda’s best masons”, specialising in fireplaces. Mrs Lambert-Simons married Ralph Elliott Simons, also a mason and skilled at cricket, in 1947. Family recalled that she was also a cricketer, as well as a keen dancer.

There were no children from the marriage, but the couple raised three foster children. She was widowed in 1977. The flowers and vegetables from their garden were well known around Beacon Hill, and Mrs Lambert-Simons once took a top prize for a community garden.

Ms Francis recalled her as “very strict”, but with a sense of humour, adding: “She would bake all the time — there was always cake in her fridge.”

“She was very kind and would give you almost anything,” Mr Lambert added. “She liked giving children presents.”

Mrs Lambert-Simons attended the Southampton Glebe School, now Dalton E. Tucker, where she went on to teach for a few years.

A skilled seamstress, she made most of her own clothes throughout her life, and she worked as a housekeeper in various homes as well as Cambridge Beaches and Lantana.

She also saw much more of the world than most Bermudians of her day, when she travelled as a housekeeper around the United States for three years with an American family.

Mrs Lambert-Simons attended the Salvation Army church, and joined in at the St James’s Church stage group, as well as the women’s auxiliary of the Somerset Brigade Band.