"The Charity man" visits Downtown studios
By Tara McLaughlin
Local fundraising legend Willie Nugent visited the Downtown studios today.
The 68 year old Armagh man aka the "Charity man" has taken part in almost 600 weird and wonderful charity fundraising events here. Perhaps most notably, he broke the world record for standing still for 13 hours in a shop window in Piccadilly.
The former hospital porter said the Guinness Book of World records invited him to perform the stunt:
"They phoned me to work one day and I thought it was a wind up. The guys were always playing pranks on me saying they were calling from big news organisations and wanted to interview me so I didn't believe them at first."
"I was asked to stand in the window in Trocadero to try and beat the 12 hour 15 minute record as it was their tenth anniversary. I said I'd think about it and get back to them. As soon as I hung up the phone I dialled 1471 to make sure it was genuine."
Among some of his wacky stunts, he crawled for 16 miles, carried a water bucket on his head for 7 miles and pushed a pea with his nose for 2 and a half miles.
He was awarded an MBE in 1993 for his services to charity. Bob Monkhouse and Thora Hird were among the celebrities being knighted at the same time. Willie says they were well briefed on meeting the Queen:
"We were brought into a room and seperated into MBES on the right and OBES on the left. We were told when she shook our hand that was how we would know she was moving onto the next person. She was a lovely wee lady and asked me how I find the time to do all the fundraising while working full-time."
Willie says his father inspired one of his favourite events, walking backwards for 83 miles.
"My dad used to tell me never to look back in life and to keep moving forward so I thought why not walk backwards and try to break the record?"
"It's a funny story actually because I thought the record for walking backwards was 80.3 miles so I walked 81 to make sure I beat it. The Guinness book of records sent me a certificate to that effect. Then it transpired that another man had walked 83 miles and they had to write to me and apologise."
Willie's new book "A World of Good" is available on Amazon.