Combining an obsessive interest in recondite details with prodigious memories, the two McWhirters were the editors, compilers and moving spirits of the enterprise. From 1972 they were familiar figures in Roy Castle’s
Record Breakers TV programme for children, in which they were regularly put on the spot to show instant recall of obscure facts and figures, and were almost never caught out. Ross McWhirter was shot dead by the IRA on his London doorstep in 1975 after offering a reward of £50,000 for the capture of terrorist bombers. Norris McWhirter continued as the book’s editor until 1986, and afterwards as assistant editor. He also busied himself with the Freedom Association and with attempts to rein back what he saw as the overweening power of governments and trade unions. He finally retired in 1996 and was seventy-eight when he died while playing a game of tennis in 2004.
