| Norris Dewar McWhirter | |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 August 1925 Winchmore Hill, London, England |
| Died | 19 April 2004 (aged 78) Kington Langley, Wiltshire, England |
| Education | Marlborough College Trinity College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Writer, political activist, television presenter |
| Family | William McWhirter, father; Margaret Williamson, mother |
| Spouse(s) | Carole Eckert (1957–1987, her death) Tessa von Weichardt (1990–2004, his death) |
| Notable relatives | Ross McWhirter |
| Notable credit(s) | Guinness Book of Records, co-founder of the National Association for Freedom, Record Breakers |
Norris Dewar McWhirter, CBE (12 August 1925 – 19 April 2004) was a writer, political activist, co-founder of the Freedom Association, and a television presenter. He and his twin brother, Ross, were known internationally for the Guinness Book of Records,[1] a book they wrote and annually updated together between 1955 and 1975. After Ross McWhirter's assassination by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Norris McWhirter carried on alone as editor.[2]
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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", in Broad Walk, Winchmore Hill.[3] 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. Between 1943 and 1946 Norris served with the Royal Navy on escort duty in Atlantic and on board a minesweeper in the Pacific.[4]
McWhirter was an all-round athlete and represented Scotland at running during the 1950s.[5] He and his brother 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 McWhirter's words: "to supply facts and figures to newspapers, yearbooks, encyclopedias, and advertisers". At the same time he became a founding member of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians.
McWhirter came to public attention while working for the BBC as a sports commentator. On 6 May 1954, he kept the time when Roger Bannister ran the first sub four minute mile.[5] After the race, he began his announcement:
....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 became The Guinness Book of Records in 1954. In August 1955 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.
In 1954, the McWhirter brothers sued Daily Mail sports writer J. L. Manning for his critical piece about non-journalist (i.e. not members of the National Union of Journalists) sports writers. The McWhirters were awarded £300 in damages.
McWhirter was also part of the BBC commentary team for their Olympic Games coverage between 1960 and 1976.
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.[6]
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 he was an active supporter of UKIP.[7]
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 Irish Republican Army 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.
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.[5]
After Ross's death, Norris McWhirter continued to appear on the show, eventually making him one of the most recognisable people on children's television in the 1970s and 1980s. 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 other presenters.
He retired from the Guinness Book of Records in 1985, though he continued in an advisory role until 1996. 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.[6]
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.
McWhirter died from a heart attack following a tennis match at his home in Kington Langley, Wiltshire, on 19 April 2004, aged 78. His memorial service—attended by, among others, Margaret Thatcher, Jeffrey Archer, John Gouriet and Roger Bannister – who read the lesson—was held in St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London, on Thursday 7 October 2004.