Norris McWhirter

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Norris Dewar McWhirter, CBE (August 12, 1925 – April 19, 2004) was a writer, political activist, co-founder of the Freedom Association, and a television presenter. He and his identical twin brother, Ross, were known internationally for the Guinness Book of Records, a book they wrote and annually updated together between 1955 and 1975. After Ross McWhirter's assassination by the PIRA, Norris McWhirter carried on alone as editor.

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[edit] Early life

Norris and Ross McWhirter were the twin sons of William McWhirter, editor of the Sunday Pictorial newspaper, and Margaret Williamson. In 1929, as William McWhirter was working on the founding of the Northcliffe Newspapers chain of provincial newspapers, the family moved to Aberfoyle. Like their elder brother, Kennedy (born 1923), Ross and Norris were educated at Marlborough College and Trinity College, Oxford, where, at his choice, he completed his law degree in two years rather than the usual three.

[edit] Sports

The brothers both became sports journalists in 1950. In 1951 they published Get to Your Marks and later in 1951 they founded an agency to provide facts and figures to Fleet Street, setting out, in Norris' words: "to supply facts and figures to newspapers, yearbooks, encyclopedias, and advertisers". At the same time Norris became a founding member of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians.

Norris came to particular public attention while working for the BBC as a sports commentator. On May 6, 1954, Norris McWhirter kept the time when Roger Bannister ran the first four minute mile. After the race, McWhirter began his announcement:

As a result of Event Four, the one mile, the winner was R.G. Bannister of Exeter and Merton Colleges, in a time which, subject to ratification, is a track record, an English native record, a United Kingdom record, a European record, in a time of three minutes...

....at which the rest of McWhirter's announcement was drowned out in the enthusiastic uproar.

One of the athletes covered was runner Christopher Chataway, the employee at Guinness who recommended them to Sir Hugh Beaver. After an interview in which the Guinness directors enjoyed testing the twins' knowledge of records and unusual facts, the brothers agreed to start work on the book that would become The Guinness Book of Records in 1954. In August 1954 the first slim green volume - 198 pages long - was at the bookstalls, and in four more months it was England's No. 1 nonfiction best-seller.

Norris was also part of the BBC commentary team for their Olympic Games coverage between 1960 and 1976.

[edit] Political activity

He was an active member of the Conservative Party in the early 1960s and fought, unsuccessfully, to recapture Orpington in the 1964 and 1966 UK general elections after its loss to the Liberals in the 1962 by-election.

Together with his brother Ross, he founded the "National Association for Freedom", later "The Freedom Association", in the 1970s. This organisation initiated legal challenges against the trade union movement in the UK, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the European Economic Community (EEC) in Brussels, and continues its political activities to this day.

Ross McWhirter was a constant critic of British government policy in Northern Ireland, and called for a "tougher" response by the British army against Irish republicans. Ross McWhirter was shot dead by the Provisional IRA in 1975 at his home after offering a reward for information leading to the apprehension of those carrying out a bombing campaign in London at the time.

Norris McWhirter was a member of the Secretariat of the anti-communist European Freedom Campaign, established in London at an Inaugural Rally at Westminster Central Hall on 10 December 1988. This group's co-ordinating committee consisted almost exclusively of representatives from countries behind the Iron Curtain.

[edit] Record Breakers

Both brothers were regulars on the BBC show Record Breakers. They were noted for their photographic memory, enabling them to provide detailed answers to any questions from the audience about entries in the Guinness Book of Records.

After Ross' death, Norris continued to appear on the show, eventually making him one of the most recognisable people on children's television in the 1970s and 1980s. Norris McWhirter was made a CBE in 1980. He left Record Breakers in 1994 after the death of Roy Castle - although the show continued until 2001 with various other presenters.

[edit] Personal life and death

He retired from the Guinness Book of Records in 1985. He continued to write, editing a new reference book, the Book of Millennium Records, in 1999.

In 1985 he launched an unsuccessful defamation case against the Independent Broadcasting Authority for the TV programme Spitting Image which had inserted a subliminal image of McWhirter's face imposed on the body of a naked woman.

In 1957 Norris McWhirter married Carole Eckert, who died in 1987; they had a son and a daughter. In 1990 he married Tessa von Weichardt, née Pocock. Norris McWhirter died from a heart attack following a tennis match, at his home in Wiltshire, on 19 April 2004, aged 78.

[edit] Selected bibliography

Sports and general encyclopædia
  • Dunlop Illustrated Encyclopedia of Facts
  • Get To Your Marks (1951, with Ross McWhirter)
  • Guinness Book of Records (1955-1975, with Ross McWhirter)
  • Guinness Book of Records (1976-1985)
  • Guinness Sports Record Book (1977-1978)
  • Book of Millennium Records ISBN 1-85227-805-6
Personal
Political

[edit] External links