HE BROKE THE WORLD RECORD
12th November 2016
A Northern Ireland man has drummed his way into the Guinness World record books for the ‘World’s Longest Snare Drum Roll’ smashing the previous time by over TEN hours!
And, in doing so, Allistair Brown has raised money for two causes very close to his heart following the death of his young cousin in December 2015, 7-year-old Cariss Dempster.
We recorded Ali’s 22 hour journey to raise further awareness for his story the causes he is raising money for, check it out and please donate anything you can while the GoFundMe page is still live!
“Before Cariss died I promised her that I would do something to help the Children’s Cancer Fund NI and also help raise awareness,” said Ali.
Not only did Ali break the previous record of 12 hr 5 min 7 sec set by Jayson Brinkler from Dartford in May, he demolished it, drumming non stop for 22 hours.
“Having broken records in the past and the fact I play gigs every weekend I was fairly confident that I could do it and I knew I was strong enough mentally.”
“I decided to do it in conjunction with a charity ball, The Carnival of Life, which I organised along with a friend Glen Houston for both charities. When I decided to make an attempt on the record I had set a target of 15 hours but after talking to Glen, we decided to make a big event out of it I thought why not go for it and so I changed the target to 24 hours.”
“I did my best but after taking advice on health grounds I had to stop at 22 hours. My arms had been cramping up for the last three hours and it was hard to keep the momentum going, however, I broke the previous record by over ten hours.”
“I started at 6.30pm on Friday evening but it got tough around three in the morning. I had such enormous support from friends and family and that got me through the worst bits.”
Despite having broken world records in the past, this record breaking attempt was the most emotional for Ali.
“This meant so much to me,” he said. “I know Cariss would have been proud of me. All the family were down to support me and it was extremely emotional when I finished.”
“The support everyone gave me is beyond anything I ever expected. I am completely in awe of how incredibly generous and supportive everyone is and was.
“To do this was an emotional rollercoaster. All I wanted to do was raise awareness and in doing so hopefully raise a lot of money for two very worthy charities.
“When I first decided to do this I had no total in mind. I just wanted to raise as much as possible. If we could raise over £10,000 for the two charities that would be amazing, the work they do is invaluable to so many families.”
If you would like to help both the Children’s Cancer Fund and Children’s Heartbeat you can donate by following this link: https://www.gofundme.com/gwrdrumroll
Cheers,
Stephen