Guinness World Record Day: Records broken by Swindon locals

Guinness World Records Day was first held in 2004 to mark Guinness World Records becoming the best-selling copyright book of all time.

Held this year on Thursday, November 21, 2024, the event celebrates the achievements of ordinary people doing impressive (and sometimes weird and wacky) things no one has ever done before.

But with six of these world records being broken in Swindon, we know there's certainly no shortage of impressive people and things in town.

Here are the Swindon residents who have broken and still hold Guinness World Records over the years:

Swindon Guinness World Record breakers

Fastest 4 x 100m relay by four siblings

The Byrne siblings (Image: Guinness World Records) The fastest 4 x 100 m relay by four siblings (male) is 50.84 seconds, and was achieved by Oliver, Adam, Simon and Luke Byrne in Swindon on March 24, 2019.

The brothers held a series of qualifying races in order to determine who would make the attempt.

Fifth brother Peter failed to make the team.

Longest running one-man radio soap opera

The radio soap Acrebury, created, written, produced and performed by Gerry Hughes, was aired as a weekly serial on Swindon Hospital Radio from 1974 - 1985.

It was then revised in 1994 by BBC Wiltshire Sound as five daily ten-minute episodes, and takes the record for longest running one-man radio soap opera.

Longest hospital trolley duration 

The Princess Margaret Hospital in Swindon (Image: Newsquest) Maybe not one to be proud of. According to Guinness World Records, Tony Collins spent 77 hours and 30 minutes on a hospital trolley in a corridor at Princess Margaret Hospital in Swindon.

This lasted from February 24 to February 27 in 2001 before he was admitted to a bed.

Tony was a diabetic and was suffering with a virus at the time.

Ice skating - most synchronised double toe loop jumps in a minute

On September 7, 2006, Zoe Wilkinson (from Swindon) and Christopher Boyadji (from France) broke the record for the most synchronized ice skating double toe loop jumps in a minute (as a team of two).

This record is 20 and was achieved in Swindon on series six of CBBC's Officially Amazing.

Zoe and Christopher are four-time national champions and the Swindon woman, known formerly as Zoe Jones, even qualified for the Winter Olympics in 1998 but could not compete due to an injury.

Longest career as a builder

Edward William Beard (1878–1982) was a builder in Swindon for a whopping 85 years - that's longer than some people live.

After founding the firm in 1896, he retired in 1981.

Oldest ring junction

Swindon's Magic Roundabout is the oldest of its kind (Image: Newsquest) Of course one of Swindon's record-breakers would be no other than the Magic Roundabout itself.

Ring junctions were first designed by the Road Research Laboratory in order to ease traffic congestion at busy junctions, and Swindon's Magic Roundabout was the very first.

First opening in 1972, it consists of five mini-roundabouts connected together in a circle, allowing traffic to move in both directions around the main central island.