NORTH Wiltshire MP James Gray will today attend a memorial service in London for Norris McWhirter, co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records.

The service will be held at St Martin in the Fields at 11am.

Mr Gray said Mr McWhirter was a friend who he deeply admired for his work with the Freedom Association, an organisation he co-founded in 1975 to fight for a free society and free market economy.

Mr Gray said: "He stood up for the freedom of the individual, and the freedom of people to live their lives without interference from the state and the European Union. All of these things are important to me.

"Norris was a wonderful person. He was always very charming and he used to visit schools and do a lot of worthy activities on a low-key basis, despite the fact he was a very important and influential person. I expect a lot of local people will attend the memorial service as well as many Parliamentary colleagues."

Mr McWhirter, 78, died following a heart attack at his home in Kington Langley, near Chippenham, last April.

He set up the Guinness Book of Records in 1955 with his twin brother Ross, and during the 1970s he appeared regularly on the BBC1 children's show Record Breakers, hosted by Roy Castle.

Each week he would answer from memory any question about records that the audience chose to ask and the exchanges were never rehearsed.

He continued to edit the book until 1986, remaining as advisory editor until 1996.

Mr McWhirter and his brother both enjoyed successful careers in athletics before joining the BBC as sports commentators.

In November 1975 the IRA assassinated Ross after he offered £50,000 for information leading to the arrests of terrorists.

The loss of his brother was a tragedy that stayed with Mr McWhirter for the rest of his life.

Speaking about the murder in a television programme in 2002 he said: "I felt not so much bereaved but it was an amputation. You had sort of lost part of you it was difficult to describe."