The First Tall Club in the World	back to Articles
Written by Phil Heinricy· First published in 6ft+ magazine

All these years the California Tip Toppers have been proclaiming themselves to be the first Tall Club in the world - I'm sorry folks, 'cos it ain't necessarily so!

The 'California Tip Toppers' is, without doubt, the oldest Tall Club to still be in existence, but its claim to be the first is, unfortunately for the club, not accurate.

According to Dr Anderson of Lincoln College, Oxford, the author Sir Walter Scott mentioned in his journal being 'Umpire' of the 'Six Foot High Club' in Edinburgh, as early as 5th March 1829. He was 58 years old at the time, and we don't yet know how long the Club had been in existence.

Sir Walter Scott is most famous for his adventure stories, among which "Ivanhoe" is probably the most famous. He is also credited with "re-inventing" the kilt and Scottish Tartans. The information regarding his umpireship of the first recorded Tall Club in the world reached us from Dr Anderson, via the great-great-great granddaughter of the author himself, and then on to a Scottish journalist, who passed the information to us. A circuitous route, we grant you, but that's how it goes sometimes.

Walter Scott's descendant is now the custodian of the Walter Scott museum. The museum is in his house, Abbotsford, in Galashiels, in the Borders region of Scotland, and contains both his bed and some of his clothes. The custodian has told how a friend of the family stayed at the house a few years ago and, having slept in Walter Scott's bed, declared it to be the most comfortable he had ever used - the friend was 6ft 6in!

We are now attempting to find out more about the first Tall Club in the world, what it did, and who else might have been part of this illustrious society.

Needless to say, we Brits are now puffing up our chests, and being terribly proud about the whole thing. That's a uniquely British trait: when the Scots do something terrible, they're Scottish, but when they do something great, we proudly claim them as British. That's the British ego for you!

A final thought: perhaps Abbotsford should now become the place of pilgrimage for Tallies everywhere, somewhere we can pay homage to the very first recorded Tall Club leader.

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