NO PANE, NO GAIN

Ralph Jones ventures into the strange and brilliant world of super-fast squeegee-ing at the Window Cleaning World Cup

- Ralph Jones

The Usain Bolt of window cleaning is a 69-year-old man from Clacton called Terry Burrows. What I’m doing, people half my age can’t do,” Burrows tells me over the phone. This squeegee samurai, who now has a stent in his heart following a heart attack nine years ago, is the Guinness World Record holder for the fastest window cleaning on the planet. You don’t just do this,” he says. You train to do this.” As he gears up for the 2025 Window Cleaning World Cup, Burrows is wondering if anyone will be able to take his shiny crown.

In the niche world of competitive cleaning, Burrows is something of a hero. He calls himself “Terry Turbo” and has appeared on TV consistently since the mid-Nineties, setting world records left, right and centre. A lifelong cheeky chappy, he is a gift to media broadcasters and has popped up on Heart Radio, This Morning and The One Show. (He was programmed with Usain Bolt, whose management, Burrows says, didn’t want him to go head-to-head in a window cleaning contest with Burrows.) He even wrote and released a song called “Bucket of Love”. “Terry’s a bit of a legend,” fellow cleaning professional Kevin Robson tells me.

At ExCel London, I wander around the enormous Cleaning Show, immersed in a world I never knew existed: stands and stands of scrubber dryers, sponges and telescopic water brushes, all manned by people showing off their wares to the anoraks of the sanitation universe. I’m told that there are “window cleaning influencers” here. “The future of hygiene is curved,” a mysterious message tells me in huge letters at the entrance. Not far from there are three 45in x 45in windows, where this year’s tournament will take place. This is the colosseum of the window cleaning world, and Burrows is donning his armour. Specifically, in fact, he’s being prepared for his imminent appearance on This Morning, where he’ll try to beat his world record before the World Cup begins.