Norris and Ross McWhirter are well-known as the co-founders of the Guinness Book of Records, producing the first edition in 1955.
But did you know that they also memorized every record contained within the book?
They wrote the 1955 edition in just 13 and a half weeks and thereafter updated the book annually, gaining an encyclopaedic knowledge of its contents.
They displayed their amazing ability to recall records when appearing on American panel game show I’ve Got a Secret in 1965.
The show’s premise involved a celebrity panel trying to determine a contestant’s ‘secret’. In the case of Norris and Ross, their secret was that they’d memorized “everything in the book”.
After Bill Cullen, the famous radio personality, correctly guessed the twins’ secret, Norris and Ross proceeded to put their memories to the test by answering questions about world records.
The host, Steve Allen, first asked: “Who had the largest family in the world?"
Ross replied: “That’s quite easy, I think a Russian woman called Madam Feodor Vassilyev had 69 children in 27 confinements.”
The panel then quizzed the twins about records contained within the 1964 edition, using the book’s index to choose subjects at random.
Betsy Palmer chose “fire escapes, tallest.” Without missing a beat, Norris answered: “The tallest fire escape in the world is built by the Carl Metz Company of Germany and hasn’t been marketed outside that country.” He was correct, although he did stumble slightly as he was unable to say whom the fire escape was built for (it was the Moscow Fire Brigade). “I caught you a little bit,” Betsy joked.
Next up, Cullen asked about “pacing”, to which Norris promptly replied: “Adios Butler is the great pacing horse. The great thing there of course is to beat the mile in under two minutes. One minute 55 [seconds] and two fifths, I think you’ll find, is the record.”
Bess Myerson then chose “honorary degrees”, with Norris correctly stating: “The record for honorary degrees is held by a former president of the United States, Mr Hoover, with I think 84.”
Finally, Henry Morgan enquired about the world’s largest auditorium. Norris said: “The largest auditorium is Atlantic City, New Jersey, with a capacity of over 42,000 people.”
As the live studio audience applauded, Allen concluded: “We’re sure that your book can keep people interested as long as there are interesting facts in the world to record.” With the book still going strong six decades later, he wasn’t wrong.
Norris and Ross continued exhibiting their magnificent memories back home in the UK. Beginning in 1972, alongside entertainer Roy Castle, they presented the BBC children’s television programme Record Breakers, in which the twins oversaw record breaking attempts and chatted with Roy about various interesting world records.
The most notable part of each episode involved children in the studio audience testing the twins on their knowledge, with Norris and Ross able to provide detailed answers to all their questions.
Ross tragically died in 1975, but Norris continued to feature on the show, as can be seen in the above video of an episode which aired in 1981.
In the “Norris on the Spot” segment, one young girl named Hilary asked Norris: “Which language has the longest alphabet?”
He replied: “That’s a very obscure language from the caucuses in Russia, which has 80 letters in the alphabet. And there’s also another language in Southeast Asia, which is spoken by some of the Vietnamese, and it also has an immensely long one. If you count what are called the diacritical marks on the various vowels, you count them separately.”
Norris also fielded questions about which species of kangaroo can jump the highest, the youngest person to swim the English Channel, and the world’s longest earthworm.
Norris made his final Record Breakers appearance in 1985, aged 60. He also retired from working on the book in the same year, although he continued in an advisory role until 1996.
He passed away in 2004, aged 78, arguably possessing more niche knowledge than any other human in history.
Just as the McWhirters memorized every world record, Guinness World Records will always remember Norris and Ross.
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