DUANVALE, Trelawny – When former People’s National Party (PNP) councillor for the Sherwood Content Division David Hubert Brown, affectionately called Blue Boots, celebrated his 100th birthday earlier this month, he became the latest centenarian emerging from the Duanvale community in recent years.

Duanvale has produced the late supercentenarian Violet Mosse Brown, affectionately called “Aunt V”, who became the world’s oldest living person following the death of Emma Morano on April 15, 2017.

She later died at the age of 117 years, 189 days on September 15, 2017.

According to the former PNP councillor, at 107-year-old, June Scott presently holds the record as being the oldest person living in the community, which boasts at least three men who are currently over the 90-year-old mark.

“There are other old people here, a woman, June Scott, she is the oldest woman in Duanvale, 107, she is living in Faith Avenue and there are a couple of old men because there is one in his 90s. Alfred Thomas, Stanley Brown, my church brother, he is in his 90s too, and Manual Dawkins, he is in his 90s as well. We used to live together, we served at church,” the affable centenarian said.

He was impressed with Mosse Brown’s remarkable memory even up to the point of her passing.

“…I think that she was another God bless because at her age what she remembered …only God knows. Believe you me, at 117 years if you heard that woman talk and remember things from pickney days come straight up…is another God bless. Oh Lord, she is very well missed,” he expressed.

The retired political representative, who still reads without the assistance of eyeglasses, attributes his longevity to, among other things, his regular consumption of honey.

“That’s one of the best things that God has provided for us. When you think of it, it is an insect that provides one of the greatest medications for human beings because bees have six legs and everything that has six legs is an insect and bees provide food for you,” he cited.

His strong faith in the Almighty God and rendering community service were among the other factors that he claimed have contributed to his long life.

“Believe it or not, I live free with myself, I live love, I live happy, I live to serve people. I love children, I share what I have with the children and if I am even hungry, it doesn’t matter to me,” the senior citizen shared.

“I am happy I live to this old age, young ones are dying…give God thanks and praise. I believe in God.”

Brown, who said he has been celibate for the past 15 years, noted that he also quit the drinking of alcoholic beverages and smoking.

“Several years now I stopped smoking. I don’t drink no hard stuff for quite a few years now. And, no…this is a serious one..it’s going 15 years now I am indifferent to women — no woman. I have had enough,” said Brown, who has fathered 10 children, as he laughed uncontrollably.

Disclosing that it was only two years ago he quit being a representative for sugar cane farmers, Brown reflected that after he returned to Jamaica in 1974, following a stint in England, he served as councillor for the Sherwood Content Division from 1977 to 1980, but decided to exit the representational political arena because of its partisan demand.

“I served [from] 1977 until 1980 when I retired from it, because I couldn’t take it anymore. I went on the People’s National Party (PNP’s) banner, but after I won, I became the people’s representative. Please don’t dictate to me. If an individual approaches you in the division that you represent and needs something of importance don’t tell me him a Labourite me mustn’t give him, so when 1980 came and I told them I don’t want no more of Jamaica politics they said, ‘Blue Boot, what you saying and you have a sure seat?’ I said, ‘No, a sure seat is at my yard’,” the no-nonsense Brown recalled.

He also recounted that he went into farming and was blessed with bounteous yields.

“I went into farming and God blessed what I planted until I turned fool. The result that I get on the farm… it must be a blessing from the Lord. And I just put down politics and don’t bother with it,” he told the Observer West.

Notoya Jones, one of Brown’s granddaughters, noted that her grandfather does not have any other health concerns beside a hearing impairment and niggling pains.

She, however, quipped that he can be irritable at times.

“I like everything about him, it’s just sometimes him miserable, you have to just understand him and me understand him and he understands me,” Jones argued.

The elderly man expressed his appreciation for the assistance he gets from his grandchildren and friends, especially Nadia Codner.

“Some of the times you and them don’t have such good grace because some of the times what you tell them they don’t want to do it that way, but after that, whatever it is, you have to give them thanks because you can’t do it for yourself. So sometimes when you analyse it, four good, six bad, that is 10. But the four good cover the six bad that’s how I look at it, and whatever it is I say thanks — that’s the English word that the average Jamaicans don’t use,” he reasoned.

Codner describes Brown as a close friend to her two children.

“He is a friend of the children, he is like a grandfather to them. Mr Brown doesn’t have to look in any book to dial my number, he has retained it in his head,” Codner noted.