A centurion has set a new world record after becoming the oldest best man at a wedding – at the age of 102.
Farmer Dan Clement – who is only SEMI-retired – organised a stag do that involved drinking shots of whisky.
He also had wedding guests in stitches with a traditionally funny speech with a series of jokes about a ploughman and his cows.
Dan agreed to the honour for lifelong friend, Alex ‘Sandy’ Little, 73 and his bride Sue, 69, who got married on Wednesday.
The happy couple said there was no other choice for best man and age was never a consideration for them.
The previous record holder was Ronal Hornby who was 96 when he served as best man in 2014.
Dan, who has two children, four grandchildren and one great grandchild, was a best man once before in the 1940s – and was happy to take up the role again.
The widower, from Dumfries, Scotland, said: “I’ve known Sandy for a very long time.
“We don’t get to see each other often, but we see him when he comes to visit – which is roughly once a year.
“When he asked me to be his best man I said I would be delighted, and it went from there.
“I was quite happy to be asked.
“We had the stag do in the house here, and we all attended.
“We didn’t have entertainment; we just had a whisky or two.
“I didn’t think much about the record, but it was quite funny.
“I was just happy to be Sandy’s best man.
“The whole occasion was fantastic, I had a great time at the stag do, and doing the speech was great too.
“It was a great day.”
The traditional pre-wedding bash saw Dan drinking whisky around the kitchen table with the bride and groom and Dan’s long-standing friend and carer, Heather Dodds, 77.
For the best man’s speech Dan stuck to his farming roots, and told a witty anecdote about a novice farmer badly ploughing a field.
Alex and Sue live in St Austell, Cornwall but decided to get married in Scotland after meeting online.
Their wedding was attended by 14 guests with locals from the village in Bridge of Dee in Dumfries also filling the 50 capacity church.
Alex, a retired policeman, said: “The wedding was great, it was a proper Scottish wedding.
“Dan did a great job – he always does.
“I’ve known Dan for most of my life, there was no other choice for best man, it had to be Dan.
“It doesn’t matter if he was 120 or 102, it had to be Dan.
“We’re not bothered about the record, it was only pointed out to us at the wedding that he was the oldest best man. It doesn’t matter to us at all.”
Sue, a retired farmer from Falmouth, Cornwall, said: “It was a lovely ceremony, and the minister pulled out all the stops for the wedding, he did a great job.
“For the stag do we all stayed up drinking whisky, but I just had wine as I don’t like whisky.
“Dan is an ex-farmer, and his speech was about ploughing, it was very funny.
“I never really thought about having the world’s oldest best man, because my husband had known Dan all his life.
“We thought we were going to have a quite wedding, but it really caught people’s attention.
“There were TV camera crews at the church, it was a bit daunting, but we coped.
“For our honeymoon we will be in Dumfries, soaking up the Scottish atmosphere. It feels like home to me, despite being Cornish through and through.”
Guinness World Records said the current record had stood since 2014, when Mr Hornby was the best man at a wedding in Northern Ireland.
A spokesman said: “We would need to receive a record application from Dan Clement or his family so we can look into his claim and validate this as a record.”
