A father and son broke the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to hang up ten items of clothing in a team of two last month, raising more than £2,600 for the British Heart Foundation.
Edward Draper and his son Rowan recorded a time of 56.87 seconds at the Turk’s Head pub in Twickenham on the 6th March, which was also Edward’s birthday.
The pair had originally set a fundraising target of £1,000 but so far have raised more than £2,600 which placed them in the top 5% of fundraising on the JustGiving site.
Edward said: “Rowan lives in a different city to me at university, so this has given us an opportunity to spend a lot more time than we’ve been able to for a long, long time.
“Covid obviously didn’t help but it’s been the most important thing, it’s improved our relationship significantly and it’s great fun to have a world record.”
They wanted to fundraise for the British Heart Foundation as Rowan tends to go into atrial fibrillation, a heredity heart condition from his mother’s side.
Atrial fibrillation (A-fib) is a heart condition that causes an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rate, in some cases it can be considerably higher than 100 beats per minute.
The duo attempted the record three times on the day, all faster than the previous record which stood at a minute and 8.69 seconds, but it was their final attempt that broke the one minute barrier.
They had planned to break a world record for over five years before finally deciding last September to attempt this record and they trained hard together to do so.
To make sure they smashed the record they had bought dozens of different hangers ranging from wooden to plastic with different sizes and bars across.
They also made sure they selected the best clothes that would be easiest to hang up while still adhering to the rules set by Guinness World Records.
Edward said that he had become a local charity shop celebrity, going in and trawling through all the clothes on offer making sure that the zips ran smoothly for example.
The pair finally settled down with 10 types of clothing that were a mixture of brand new and second-hand clothes and divided the tasks into two.
Edward oversaw the unfolding and handling of the clothing while Rowan hung up the clothes.
The Mayor of Richmond, Councillor Geoff Acton attended the event and was an independent timekeeper.
To support the Draper duo and donate to the British Heart Foundation please check out their JustGiving page.
