Terry Burrows completed the three windows in 9.14 seconds
A martial arts specialist used black belt moves to help him break his own record as the world’s fastest window cleaner. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8299917.stmfor video footage.
Terry “Turbo” Burrows, 54, left three windows gleaming in just 9.14 seconds at the 2009 window cleaning competition in Blackpool, Lancashire.
Mr Burrows from Romford, Essex, a black belt in karate, said his success was due “to moving the body in sequence”.
Andrew Lee, of the Federation of Window Cleaners, confirmed the record.
He said: “He left just two water marks on them, so we had to add a second to his original time of 8.14 seconds, to make 9.14 seconds – a brilliant achievement.”
‘Too fast’
Mr Burrows said: “I clean the windows in just 16 moves, and it’s pretty intense,” he said.
He has been cleaning windows for the past 30 years and has taken part in competitions across the country.
Competitors have to clean three 4ft (1.2m) high windows in the quickest time possible.
The regulation surrounding their tools is strict – they are only allowed to have a soap applicator and a “squeegee”, a special wiper that removes the soap.
| I was just too fast for them and I kept on winning and taking home the cash, they call me Terry ‘Turbo’ Burrows. |
He set his last record of 9.24 seconds in 2005, which stayed unbroken until he beat it earlier in front of crowds of people by Blackpool Zoo.
“Many people try to break my record, but they’re just not fast enough. Some of them are still trying to clean the windows after 10 seconds, well I’m finished by then,” Mr Burrows said.
He said he had now opted out of one of the UK’s main window cleaning competitions, at the NEC in Birmingham.
“I was just too fast for them and I kept on winning and taking home the cash, they call me Terry Turbo Burrows.
“I bowed out so people would still keep on competing so they had a chance of winning.”
The father-of-two has appeared on Record Breakers.
In the early 1990s, he and a friend, aptly named John McLean, cleaned the inside of camera screens for Carlton TV between programmes.
