A British woman is thought to have become the oldest person in the country to get baptised, after a 101-year wait to be blessed at the baptismal font.
Ivy Smith, from Bishops Waltham, Hampshire, southern England, had always thought she was too old to undergo the blessing.
But she was made the offer one day after fellow worshippers at her church asked why she did not take communion.
“I was sitting there on my own while everyone else went up to receive, and someone asked me why I wasn’t going forward,” said the centenarian. “I said I’d never been confirmed or baptised, and they asked me if I’d like to be.
“I said, ‘At my age!’. I was very happy to go through the ceremony, because it did sometimes feel a bit funny not to take communion.
“And the service was really lovely. I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were two of us being baptised and 53 of us being confirmed.”
The service was held on Saturday at Portsmouth’s Anglican cathedral in a ceremony led by the Bishop of Basingstoke, Trevor Wilmott.
The seventh of 14 children, Smith grew up a Methodist family, but she and her siblings were not baptised, despite them attending chapel every day.
“Having watched it happen for so many years, to take communion really made me feel part of the service,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Portsmouth diocese said no records of baptisms are kept nationally but Smith is believed to be the oldest British worshipper to have been baptised. — AFP