With his portfolio tucked under his arm, Craig Glenday took a chance at his dream job by turning up at the Guinness World Records offices unannounced.
But his ballsy approach worked, and 20 years later, he’s at the helm of the book he looked forward to getting every Christmas as a child.
Craig is the Editor-in-Chief of Guinness World Records, who some fans will definitely recognize from his appearances in our social media videos and for the countless times he’s stood alongside record holders.
And now, he’s taking us Behind the Scenes of his work at GWR and sharing some of his favourite moments from the last two decades.
Whether he’s measuring the tallest and smallest people in the world, brushing shoulders with some of the biggest stars from around the globe, or sifting through our 60,000 records to put the latest book together, Craig absolutely loves what he does.
Beginning his career as the GWR website editor, Craig has always been able to spot a good story, and he’s certainly got plenty to tell!
“I got the job originally because I just turned up on the doorstep one day with my portfolio and asked to meet the Vice-President of Content,” Craig confessed.
“I was working in publishing and a friend had just got a job doing pictures for the book and I asked her to let me know if something ever came up because I thought it sounded like the coolest job in the world.”
Just a couple of months later, Craig got his chance, and he jumped at it. “The editor of the website resigned after coming second in a nationwide stand up comedy competition, so I knew there was a job going.
“You know, there have been times when people have turned up at our office because they want a record so bad, and I feel for them, because I essentially did the same thing,” Craig said.
“A French man once hitchhiked all the way from Paris and was standing outside of the office holding up a sign – in French – asking someone to go and talk to him.
“I went out, and my French isn’t great, but I knew enough to gather that he thought he had the prettiest face tattoo in the world.
“Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a pretty-o-meter so it’s not the kind of record we can actually monitor.”
There was talk of it once though, Craig tells us.
While spending time with Norris McWhirter, who originally edited the book alongside his twin brother Ross, the idea was considered.
Craig said: “I think Norris came up with the idea of a beauty metric based on Helen of Troy and the idea that she was so beautiful she had the face that launched a thousand ships.
“We said in the book years ago that ‘one millihelen’ was a measurement of beauty, but of course that’s not real and it was just a bit of fun.”
Craig says he was honoured to spend time with Norris, who died in 2004, when he first took over as Editor-in-Chief.
“It felt a bit like he was handing the reins over to me,” Craig said. “And I was honoured, because I wanted to make the book more like the one he and Ross made together – the book I grew up reading in the ‘80s.”
He added: “I had always pictured the offices of Guinness World Records as this fabled ivory tower, a sort of castle in the sky, and to be there with Norris was a surreal moment for me.”
Craig counts himself as “lucky” for being able to meet so many of our iconic record breakers face-to-face.
“I have measured the tallest and shortest people, and weighed the heaviest people, and it’s these fundamental human body records that I’ve always found the most fascinating,” Craig said.
“I love the fingernails records as well, I remember seeing those pictures as a kid and just being completely entranced by them, so being able to actually meet these people is so exciting.
“They aren’t ‘famous’ in the traditional sense, but they are in their own right, and you have this arresting moment when you meet them, there’s an intake of breath and you just think ‘wow’.
“The one thing that’s quite sad about the book is you only get a couple of sentences about some of these people, but their whole life story is just so fascinating – they have so many incredible stories behind them.”
And of course, when you’re talking about people who are famous in that traditional sense, Craig has met plenty of those too.
“Well, I like to think they’ve met me,” Craig joked.
“I do always get a bit starstruck because it’s just so fun to meet them. It’s not every day you get to hang out with Beyonce backstage at the World Music Awards or have a sword fight with Christopher Lee at a private hotel in Chelsea.”
Craig has even hidden in the bathroom while X-Men star Hugh Jackman was being interviewed so he could jump out and surprise him with a record for longest career as a live action Marvel superhero, been put through helicopter crash training with singer Katie Melua ahead of her record for deepest underwater concert, and got snowed in at a hotel in South America with rock band Fall Out Boy, where he spent the week signing autographs for fellow guests who thought he was in the band.
But far from the star power of celebrity, Craig says one of the most unforgettable moments of his career so far was hanging out with Sultan Kösen, the tallest living man, and Chandra Dangi, the shortest male ever.
The superlative duo from Türkiye and Nepal, respectively, travelled to London in 2014 for the 10th annual Guinness World Records Day, and created a brilliant image when they walked alongside one another, with Craig in between them.
Another memorable day at the office – and perhaps Craig’s strangest request as an Adjudicator - was counting the piercings of the most pierced man, John Lynch, aka Prince Albert. “John turned up at the office and dropped his underpants in the reception,” reveals Craig, “so I had to quickly usher him into the board room and conduct what was effectively an intimate medical exam. Luckily, we had a stash of rubber gloves on hand for just such occasions! He did end up having more than 240 piercings, so he got the record.”
While records like the tallest and shortest people – and even the most pierced – go unquestioned, Craig has fielded queries about our so-called silly records many times over the years.
But to critics, he has the perfect response: “We’ve always been silly.”
He said: “If you look at the very first edition, we had things like rocking chair marathons and pipe smoking and apple peeling and people collecting strange things.
“The point is, there’s no really right or wrong way, as long as it can be measured and counted, that was the whole point of the book and if there were things not accepted in the original years it was because there was no space for it and now there’s a lot more going on.”
He added: “It’s all about what people are doing. Our job is to reflect that and if people are doing these things then we’re sort of duty bound to research them and put them in the book.
“The news can be so grim and depressing, but the reality that we see every day is millions of people doing fun things.
“You’ve got to distract yourself between birth and death, so why not do stuff that’s fun and exciting and if it’s a bit quirky and daft then so what, you can’t judge anyone.
“We’re all going to be dead in the end and for these people it’s a bit of immortality isn’t it?
“I was thinking about Hemingway’s quote, ‘you die twice, once when you actually die and once when people stop talking about you’, and these people have got immortality by being in that book and being recognized by Guinness World Records.
“We’re bestowing immortality onto people who might not ever be recognized any other way.”
And Craig says that what’s “daft” to one person is “really important” to someone else, and we’re all about celebrating those things that make us unique.
So the next time you ponder why someone is pogo-sticking their way up the 1,899 steps of the CN Tower in Canada, growing their finger nails longer than anyone else’s, or seeing how long they can stretch a Curly Wurly, be a bit more like Craig, and just enjoy it!
Of all the amazing people Craig has met over the years, nobody impresses him quite as much as an astronaut will.
“Meeting Buzz Aldrin was something I’d always wanted to do,” Craig said. “He’s still so passionate about space travel and speaking to him about it was an absolute privilege.
“I think I’d probably say my most prized possession is my collection of astronaut selfies.”
Unfortunately for Craig, he doesn’t have enough to qualify for a collection record just yet… but he is working on it.
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Still not had enough? Follow the link here to buy our latest book, filled to the brim with stories about our amazing record breakers.
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