I recently helped my husband Douglas Smith with his fourth Guinness World Record attempt. Previously, I have stood around on the periphery of his attempts, making tea and ordering sandwiches for the witnesses, as I have been working, although I have helped source witnesses for him. This time I actually took part, which was fun.
Douglas grows giant vegetables. He holds three other Guinness World Records for growing tomatoes – two for the most tomatoes on a truss and one for the most tomatoes on a plant. He also holds the UK record for the heaviest tomato and famously grew a 22 ft sunflower during Lockdown, although this is not a record. That said, I didn’t have any hand in helping grow this particular plant – the tallest pea plant. But I helped hold the surveyor’s measuring stick and sourced two of the witnesses.
Most people think that Guinness turn up to all Guinness World Record Attempts for free, but you actually have to pay a lot of money for them to do so. In reality, what many people end up doing is organising it themselves, but you have to stick carefully to the rules. This involves documenting everything that happens by video and having expert and independent witnesses, who then give written and videoed statements verifying the result. So this time, we had a horticulturalist (Jason) – it has to be someone with a qualification in horticulture – a surveyor (Adam Cakebread), as you have to have an expert in measuring, and a doctor, Sally Bennett, who acted as the independent witness.
We have previously used parish councillors, police officers and the local vicar where we used to live in Hertfordshire, as it has to be someone of standing in the community. In the case of the most tomatoes on a plant, Doug had to find four qualified horticulturalists all available on the same day to help count them as there were nearly 6,000 and, even then, the count took three hours in very hot weather, in a stifling greenhouse.
Unfortunately, in this case we encountered some problems. We had to do the pea plant measuring session first thing in the morning on a sunny day but the surveyor’s measuring stick was white and the sun reflected off it in the video, meaning that we couldn’t see any of the measurements in it. Luckily, Doug was able to take another video with a tape measurement showing how tall the pea plant was – 4.7 metres.
He paid to expedite the ruling and, luckily, it all went through. What a relief! A big thank you to everyone who helped out us on the day! We really appreciate it! And well done Doug.
