Fast window cleaner breaks pane barrier (From News Shopper)

Fast window cleaner breaks pane barrier

9:39am Tuesday 25th November 2008 in

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LEGENDS died and a phenomenon was born in 1977, with Elvis Presley, Charlie Chaplin and Groucho Marx passing away and the release of the first Star Wars film creating a legion of over-zealous fans.

Another legend was born in 1977, with Welling’s Dick Baterip becoming the world’s fastest window cleaner. He washed all the dirt away from three panes of glass in 48 seconds, shattering the previous record by 10 seconds.

Whatever the dirt on a window, Dick could clean it: dust, mud, bird poo, graffiti saying “you’re wasting your life” — he could do it all.

The record is currently held by Terry ‘Turbo’ Burrows, who set a time of 9.24 seconds in 2005. If any of our readers can beat that time, I’ll clean their windows. I’ll even wear overalls and whistle out of tune.

It seems many local people were inspired by Star Wars’ combination of action and weird sci-fi characters, condensing the films’ action and weirdness into simply acting weird.

One example was the woman who appeared in Sidcup’s B and C Modern Windows’ adverts for patio doors, which appeared in News Shopper in 1977.

She decided to play football, ride a bike and wear a massive hat at the same time as lounging on her patio.

I suspect this was a male advertising executive’s attempt at connecting with the all-action modern woman, which he had suddenly noticed existed when watching Princess Leia in Star Wars.

It seems the concept of active women was also alien to a scribe at News Shopper in 1977, as a report on Shirley Cooper getting a management role at the Greater London Council was accompanied with the incredulous headline of Top Position Assigned To A Woman.

Another example of local people acting weird in 1977 was theatre group St George’s Players of Beckenham deciding to perform a play titled Rape of the Belt.