The World's Biggest Liar

We all know someone who spins famously tall tales down at the pub and has an audience engrossed or in stitches every time. The kind of person who will tell you about the time they saw an alien, outran a wild buffalo or dated someone famous. These characters play an invaluable role in every friendship circle, by supplying a bottomless well of arbitrary questions that can be debated until cows come home.

The time has come to pay homage to the story-tellers in every group. The Bridge Inn Santon Bridge, in the Western Lake District is hosting the World's Biggest Liar competition on 15 November. Competitors are given 5 minutes to tell the biggest and most convincing lie they can muster, without the use of props or scripts, to a pub full of listeners. After many successful years, the contest has grown substantially and now attracts liars from around the world, as well as sponsorship from Cumbrian brewery, Jennings Brewery. They only people barred from entering are lawyers and politicians, who are seen as having an unfair advantage. “They are deemed to be too skilled at telling porkies.”

Greg Stephenson from Cumbria Tourism sent us the lowdown, and explained that the competition is held in memory of Will Ritson (1808–1890), a pub landlord from the Wasdale Valley in the Western Lake District , who was well known for telling tall tales. “Will always kept his customers enthralled with stories of the folk heritage of this beautiful area. The valley was already well-known for having England's deepest lake (Wastwater), the highest mountain (Scafell Pike), the smallest Church (Wasdale Head Church) and Will Ritson achieved its fourth superlative when he became - The World's Biggest Liar.”

“Will insisted that all his tales were true, he claimed that the turnips in Wasdale were so big that after the folk had quarried into them for their Sunday lunch, they could be used as sheds for the Herdwick Sheep from the high fells.” So with this in mind the title of The Biggest Liar is only awarded to the person who is worthy of following in the footsteps of ‘Auld Will’.

Recent Winners:Paul Burrows from Essex won the competition in 2010, by explaining how the lakes and mountains of the Cumbrian countryside had been stolen from the county of Essex, leaving it as flat as it is today. The 2011 winner, Glen Boylan, told a story that involved betting on a snail race with Prince Charles (who advised him to remove the shell to make it more aerodynamic) and lost because his opponents cheated with battery-operated snails.

Tickets are now on sale at Whitehaven Civic Hall, Lowther Street, Whitehaven or by telephone 01946 514960. Price: £8 including a Tattie Pot supper (tickets are limited, so hurry). Entry forms will be available from Whitehaven Civic Hall or Jennings Brewery shop in Cockermouth.