The Squeegee of Champions

Seconds separate shame and glory in the wild world of competitive window cleaning.

There’s an electricity that courses through a man before he’s put to the test. It’s the look of a sprinter waiting for the starting gun, a warrior before his final stand, a skydiver ready to leap at 30,000 feet. Intensely focused, it represents a lifetime of preparation converging on a single moment. Of all the places I’d expect to see that look, a cleaning convention at London’s ExCeL Centre was not it.

Yet from a far corner of The Cleaning Show 2023 conference hall, I could see Terry ‘Turbo’ Burrows had that look about him. All around, salespeople in button-ups stood beneath long rows of gazebos, hawking infused wet wipes and vapour-based air fresheners. Business reps patrolled the aisles, weighed down by branded tote bags filled with freebies. High-tech hoovers zipping around a Robot Wars-style arena drew in crowds tired of talking shop. Passers-by would stop and gawk at them; then they’d come to see Terry.

Our special corner of the room was dedicated to the Window Cleaning World Cup. I was told that competitors from all over the world were soon arriving, eager to prove their skills and win the £1,000 prize. Terry had competed in similar competitions in mainland Europe, the USA and all across the UK, but those events paled in comparison to today. This was the big one. It was the Olympics, if the Olympics was orbited by over-enthusiastic people selling urinal drain cleaners and pressure washers the size of small garden sheds.

Every detail of the competition was defined by strict standards. Regulations—yes, regulations—dictated that each of the three windows must measure 45 by 45 inches, with a sill running the entire length. Competitors were allowed 9 litres of water and an 11.75-inch-long squeegee with which to apply it. Terry worked with The Federation of Window Cleaners to set the standard back in 1995, and it has remained unchanged ever since.

The Champion

In this sea of business casual, Terry was pacing back and forth wearing an all-blue tracksuit and running shoes. He was carrying the extra pounds that came with middle age but moved like someone twenty years younger. Looming over him was a trio of identical square windows. Where some have their race track, others their battlefield or their soaring aeroplane, Terry has his windows. For the last 28 years, he’s been the world champion of window cleaning, setting the record in 1995 and twice breaking it, once in 2005 and again in 2009. At 8.14 seconds (9.14 including penalties for mistakes), nobody, not even Terry, has been able to beat such a lightning fast time since. That all stood to change: Terry was determined to finally break his record.

“The most important thing to me is that world record. My thinking is that you can win all the world cups you want and raise them in the air, but you’re still not the fastest in the world,” he said.

With a regulation-standard dummy window in his back garden, Terry trains every single day: “I don’t believe there’s anybody out there in the world that trains like I train… I’m on autopilot. My body takes over. I don’t have to think about what I’m doing”.

Boxing and karate were the foundation of Terry’s skills. With a black belt and years of teaching experience behind him, he regarded window cleaning as a discipline of its own. There was a science behind the perfect technique: “I started to look at the three windows and the moves of it all, so I know it’s five moves per window…can’t be six, got to be five. You can do it in four, but it’s not good because it [the window] is 45 by 45 inches and your blade is 12.”

The Showman

On top of being skilled, the Clacton-on-Sea local is a natural showman, peppering conversations with made-for-TV soundbites and delivering anecdotes with theatrical flourish. Speaking with him, I became aware that he’d transformed our conversation into a kind of pre-game interview. 

“We’ve got Brazilian people coming over; we’ve got French coming over, Scandinavians,” he told me. Playing into my newfound sports interviewer role, I asked what he made of the arriving challengers. “They don’t worry me. They’re very robotic, whereas I consider myself more freestyle.” He demonstrated, drawing an ‘S’ in the air with both hands, as if wielding some invisible sword. 

Today, a crew from The One Show had set up to cover the event. “It’s just light-hearted, a bit of fun. I had no idea this even existed. People at the office are so excited about it,” one producer said. Terry appeared happy to oblige as the camera crew asked him to pose like James Bond with his squeegee. I heard someone make a joke about a “licence to clean”. Later, they were going to have him run up the stairs of the conference centre like Rocky Balboa. 

I asked how he felt training for so many years only to be treated as a figure of fun. “With all this war stuff that’s going on, the media want light news. They don’t want all drib and drab, do they?” Terry said. Still, watching him play to the cameras, I could only think of Terry confiding how he’d been kept up with anticipation until 3AM the previous night. “This is really, really zooming in on me and what I’m doing because I’m representing Britain,” he had said. Comedy is no laughing matter for a clown, and window cleaning is definitely no joke for Terry.

The Protégé

Ever in the background of his boisterous TV appearances has been Terry’s daughter Alyssia. In her early thirties with a child of her own, Alyssia appeared confident but reserved: sceptical of the camera rather than scared. “He beat his first record when I was about 5 or 6, so I’ve always been around the media,” she said. Today, where Terry spent his time hopping from person to person, chatting with anyone in sight, Alyssia stuck to the corners with mother Iris. This was her father’s realm, and she was happy to let him lead.

But there was to be no avoiding the spotlight this time around. Unlike previous years, Alyssia had been convinced to compete in the World Cup’s newly-formed women’s category. Up for grabs was the title of women’s world record holder and a further £1,000 prize. Although she’d grown up in a window cleaning household and benefitted from one-to-one training from the champ, Alyssia didn’t glow with the same enthusiasm as her father. When I asked why she had chosen to enter, she said, “If I’m truthful, just the money prize to be honest”. Then, as if covering herself, adding, “and also it’d be nice to win the record to have the ‘father-daughter’ thing”.

The Showdown

As morning turned to noon, other Competitors started to trickle in. I set out to find some of the much-hyped overseas contestants. Terry was instrumental in the founding of the competitive window cleaning scene. It was his baby, so I was curious to learn the attitude of a relative outsider.

I met Grasiela Vincent, the Brazilian competitor Terry mentioned. Having heard about Terry’s rigorous preparations, I was excited to hear about how Brazil’s top window cleaners train. In short, they don’t. “I took this just for fun, thinking ‘well let’s see how good I am on my cleaning’,” she said. “To be honest, I didn’t know the guy was a world champion.” It seemed Terry’s title was in very little danger, even if his ego was.

Soon, a chattering crowd formed around the three windows. The competition was about to begin, and the atmosphere buzzed. “It’s hot in here. Ain’t it hot in here?,” I heard Alyssia say. Paul Thrupp, representative for the Federation of Window Cleaners and official adjudicator, acted as host. His booming voice commanded attention like the roar of a Ford Mustang. In all the excitement, I forgot I was at a window cleaning competition and not Wrestlemania. 

The first contestant came, an older, grey-haired man in a black polo. When the timer started he began wiping up and down, drawing a sort of “W” shape with his squeegee. “Amateur,” I thought. Then came a bespectacled German contestant in skinny jeans. He was serious, aping Terry’s record-setting technique—and he was fast too. A stout Welsh lad came next. He’d started strong but left several streaks on window two. Stopping and taking a slight step back, he composed himself and restarted, forfeiting any hope of victory but salvaging his honour. One after another, we watched challengers take to the windows, applauding and cheering all the time. 

Then it was Alyssia’s turn. “Slowly, slowly. Get it right,” Terry said as his daughter took to her feet. The timer began: she had her father’s technique, and to the naked eye she had the speed too. In seconds she was done. Her entire body relaxed as she released the squeegee and retreated back into the safety of the crowd. “It looked clean, honest. You got time to spare,” Terry said. Having admitted being more concerned for Alyssia’s performance than his own, I wondered who he was really trying to reassure.

Eventually, only one contestant remained to perform. Terry was up. A reverent silence descended upon the crowd. As the stopwatch beeped Terry sprang to action; he was like a wind-up toy, moving his body with a repetitive consistency that seemed almost superhuman. I’d looked down to scratch my nose and missed half the performance. It was that fast.

The Payoff?

Paul stood in front of the audience to announce the winners. Terry had won the men’s competition—no surprise—but what about his record? He had taken over 10 seconds, slightly short of his 9.14 record. He gave a wry smile despite the failure: “I’m still the fastest window cleaner in the world, and that’s all that matters.”

But he went stiff when it was time for Alyssia’s results. She was zen in comparison. Ultimately, at 12.8 seconds Alyssia had won the women’s competition but was still 0.8 seconds off the world record. Terry was distraught. Alyssia? Not so much. She shrugged her shoulders and reflected, “I didn’t put enough soap on the foamy thing”. I asked what she thought of competing next year: “Yeah, why not. Might as well!” 

Caught out in the open, the camera crews descended on Alyssia for one last interview of the day. For once, she didn’t shy away from attention. Putting her skills to the test had awakened something in her; there was an element of Terry’s ease in front of the camera. Terry looked on with pride.They may not have walked away with window cleaning records in tow, but with Alyssia’s newly-forged confidence, the day had opened an all-new chapter for the father-daughter duo from Clacton.

Walking home, I realised that, at some point during the day, Terry had won me over. I had walked into his world armed with a superior smirk, all-too ready to poke fun at what I found. Instead, I’d met a man who’d found his calling and lived to be the best at it. They say ‘do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life’. With that in mind, I believe Terry hasn’t done a day of work since he picked up a squeegee.

Feature image by Jamies Davies.