Centenarian John credits God, kindness, diet for longevity

After recently overcoming COVID-19 and a broken hip eight years ago, Barbados’ newest centenarian John Phillips Durant is feeling blessed to be alive to celebrate the milestone.

Following a conversation via zoom with President Dame Sandra Mason on Thursday when he observed his 100th birthday, Phillips Durant told members of the media at the St Michael District Hospital where he has been a resident for the past eight years, that a kind heart and maintaining a healthy diet throughout his life, were the contributing factors to his longevity.

The former agriculture worker who is from Cliff Land, St John, recalled that working hard in the fields left him nursing bruises in the palm of his hands over the years.

“I worked hard in life, but praise God. You got to eat too. I like cou cou, green bananas, and all kind of foods that good for you, I like. But I love cou cou and flying fish, or cou cou with a good red herring.

‘I used to cook too you know. I was a bad cook man. When I turn a cou cou, you see a mellow cou cou,” Phillips Durant said.

The centenarian spends most of his days playing cards and dominoes. He said that while he is currently battling a cold, he is enjoying relatively good health at his golden age. He still reads without glasses.

Phillips Durant’s daughter Jacqueline Tull, who came from New York with her daughter Nicole Tull to celebrate their loved one’s special milestone, declared that it was through God’s grace that her dad reached 100.

“And he is in excellent health too. He could read and he still has his hearing.

“He broke his hip and he survived that, and recently he had COVID and he survived that too, that did not take him down either. As he would say, God is good,” Tull said. (AH)