At 5:55 p.m. on a Friday evening in Gloucester, England, David Purchase was still singing — 41 hours and 55 minutes after he had begun.
His voice was hoarse, his legs felt unsteady, and his eyes ached from fatigue. Yet he was fueled by adrenaline as a small crowd gathered to witness him break a world record for the longest marathon singing Christmas songs. Purchase reached 42 hours — straight.
“I know, I’m bonkers,” Purchase, 63, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “The excitement of something being done that had never been done before was an amazing feeling.”
Purchase owns On Toast, a small sandwich shop on the Gloucester Docks, a historic port in Britain. His mother was a singer, and Purchase learned to sing at a young age.
About a year ago, Purchase began brainstorming ideas for a community Christmas event — something that would draw attention to the Gloucester Docks and bring people together.
“I thought about singing,” he said. “I wondered, is there a world record for continually singing?”
He discovered that the current Guinness World Record for the longest singing marathon was 105 hours.
“That was way out of my reach,” he said. “I thought, is there a Christmas version of this?”
There was, and the Guinness World Record at the time was 32 hours. Purchase decided he could beat it.
“I thought, well, that’s manageable, because as a child I used to sing constantly,” he said. “It was probably a bit of self-indulgence where I thought I want to get back to singing and feel what it feels like to be back onstage.”
A few months later, though, he noticed someone in Nigeria became the new record holder, singing Christmas songs for 40 hours straight.
He decided he could beat it.
Purchase — who ran the London Marathon in 2022 — said he trained to claim the world record in much the same way. He wanted to reach 42 hours to have a significant edge over the current record holder.
“I was running five kilometers every day to make sure my lung capacity was up, so I was able to control my breathing and my singing,” he said. “Being fit was important … even though it was a massive vocal challenge, it was also a physical challenge.”
Guinness World Records sent him a list of rules to claim the title. He could take a five-minute break every hour, and there could be only 30 seconds between each song.
“You were allowed to save up that break so you could have a 20-minute break as long as you saved it up for four hours,” Purchase said, noting that going to the bathroom, eating or resting had to be done during those breaks.
Purchase set up for the event — which was held at a local brewery — on Dec. 10 and started singing at midnight on Dec. 11. He didn’t stop until 6 p.m. on Dec. 12.
He sang “Once in Royal David’s City,” “White Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland.” He also sang Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and Ed Sheeran and Elton John’s “Merry Christmas.” He sang to instrumental tracks.
The rules stipulate that the singer can’t repeat the same song within an hour. Purchase chose 38 songs in total — a combination of classic carols and well-known British and American Christmas songs — which took 2½ hours to sing. He sang each song 18 times, totaling 684 songs.
Although Purchase knew most of the songs by heart, he kept the lyrics in front of him.
“The more tired I got, the more I needed the lyrics,” he said.
As part of the rules, Purchase had to have two witnesses. Friends and community members volunteered to play various roles — including keeping time, coordinating the music and ensuring Purchase stayed on track. Someone had to film the whole event.
Liz Tonkin, a friend of Purchase’s, spent 33 hours at the event. She helped organize the witnesses — who rotated roughly every four hours — and ensured Purchase was fed and hydrated.
“It was a community get-together, and it worked really well,” Tonkin said.
Purchase partnered with the Gloucester Academy of Music to have a children’s choir and a dementia choir join him at certain points during the event. For the most part, though, he sang solo. It was exhausting, he said.
Around the 32-hour mark, Purchase thought about quitting. The sleep deprivation took over.
“I started to really hallucinate,” Purchase said. “I was falling asleep on my feet.”
He stood most of the time he was singing, though he did have a chair and would sit down when he felt he needed to.
“The problem with the chair is that it brought on the tiredness even more,” he said. “I really did feel as though I was pushing myself as far as I could possibly go.”
Purchase stuck to small snacks rather than large meals, which, he believed, would make him even more tired.
“I had to be very careful in what I took in,” he said. “I was surviving on bananas and Jell-O.”
When Purchase felt he might be too tired to carry on, he took a four-minute power nap and gave himself a pep talk.
“You’ve got a lot of responsibility on your shoulders because you don’t want to let anyone down,” he told himself. “You can’t quit now.”
Just as he contemplated quitting, more people began to arrive — which helped revive him.
“The adrenaline in your body then takes over and cuts out your sleep deprivation,” he said, adding that there were always at least 15 people there, and at peak points, about 100.
Purchase’s two daughters and grandson came as he was nearing the finish, which also helped him keep going.
“You can’t beat it when your family is highly delighted in what you have done,” he said.
As he wrapped up the final song — “Jingle Bells” — Purchase said the room felt “electric.”
“Everybody came in because they wanted to be a part of something, a part of me getting past that line,” Purchase said. “It was a life memory. … I think people will be talking about it for weeks, months and maybe even years.”
After Christmas, Purchase said he will compile the evidence — including time sheets and 42 hours of video footage — and submit it.
“We look forward to receiving evidence to review from this attempt,” a Guinness World Records spokesperson said in an email to The Post.
Purchase believes the title is his.
“I think Guinness won’t have any issue giving me the world record,” he said. “The only thing that would fail us is someone out there who is trying to beat 42 hours, and they get it in before I do.”
In any case, Purchase said, he is proud of what he accomplished.
“I haven’t gone anywhere near a Christmas song since,” he quipped. “I think I’ve had too much.”
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