Tallest man in Britain gets a made to measure bed
Paul is 7ft 7inch tall so is getting a bespoke 8ft bed!
THE TALLEST man in Britain will soon be able to sleep easy at night after a furniture store made an eight-foot-long bed for him.
Basketball player Paul Sturgess, from Loughborough, who is 7ft 7in tall, asked for the bed to be made after years of sleeping diagonally in his king-size bed.
Rafferty’s, in Hartlepool, built the bespoke £1,500 piece of fur- niture, which is 6ft wide, to replace his old bed, which is 6ft 6in long and 5ft wide.
Colin Rafferty, who began manufacturing furniture in 1986 and opened his first shop in 1989, said: “It was a pleasure to have Paul come down.
“He approached us because he had heard we made bespoke furniture and deliver nationally – that includes beds and couches. We can make anything to any size.
“He told us that he has always had to sleep diagonally in a king-size bed because he is so tall.
“So it’s fantastic he chose us to make his bed and it was great to welcome him down to the shop.”
Colin said the bed took a week to build, whereas it take just two hours to make a normal-sized bed.
He said: “We had to get large springs specially made. We enjoyed the challenge and hope Paul can finally get a good night’s sleep.
“He has tested the bed out and were are going to deliver it to his house in the next 10 days.”
Paul, 30, who wears size 18 shoes, is said to be the tallest basketball player in the world and played for the legendary Harlem Globetrotters.
Paul has said he met a lot of famous people touring with the basketball team and Hollywood actor Ben Stiller had come to watch him play.
Paul went to Burleigh Community College in Loughborough and said that he was not even the tallest in his class when he was younger.
He spent the five years studying sports science in West Virginia after winning a scholarship to the US.
He said: “I had a growth spurt when I was about 18 and I just shot right up but I never thought I would be this tall.”