{"id":444597,"date":"2026-05-25T16:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T16:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/444597\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T16:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T16:25:19","slug":"98-year-old-hailed-this-mornings-greatest-guest-after-record-breaking-wing-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/444597\/","title":{"rendered":"98-year-old hailed This Morning’s ‘greatest guest’ after record-breaking wing walk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Viewers of ITV’s This Morning were left in awe after 98-year-old Harry Heasman\"Harry<\/p>\n

Harry has captivated the nation with his wind walking skills(Image: ITV)<\/p>\n

This Morning <\/a>audiences hailed Harry a “legend” following his achievement as the world’s oldest wing-walker.<\/p>\n

Featured on the most recent instalment of ITV’<\/a>s This Morning, 98-year-old Harry Heasman left hosts Sian Welby and Craig Doyle, as well as home viewers, astounded by his remarkable courage.<\/p>\n

Merely days ahead of his 99th birthday, Harry ascended into the skies on Saturday (May 23) above the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, while balanced on a 1940s biplane to generate funds for youngsters battling cancer.<\/p>\n

Harry stayed airborne for approximately six minutes, reaching a height of 1,000 metres. Yet the new Guinness World Record holder confessed he had been unable to climb stairs a year earlier.<\/p>\n

\"Harry<\/p>\n

Harry is the world’s oldest wing-walker who raised money for charity(Image: ITV)<\/p>\n

Highlighting what an extraordinary feat wing-walking represents, host Craig stated: “Let’s bear in mind that a year ago you couldn’t walk up stairs, now you have the power and the core in order to do that,” reports the Mirror<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Harry, who was seated beside his physiotherapist, Reef, responded: “Reef, with his exercises, has done it and the other people. There are other people behind it.”<\/p>\n

Supporters of This Morning expressed their opinions about Harry on X (formerly Twitter<\/a>). One audience member commented, “Harry is quite possibly the greatest guest they’ve ever had on this show. Thank you and God bless, sir!”<\/p>\n

\"Harry<\/p>\n

Harry and Reefs appeared on the ITV show discussing how they made Harry’s dreams come true(Image: ITV)<\/p>\n

Another stated: “What a lovely soul, Harry is, bless him.” A third contributed: “Raising money for kids who have cancer, well done Harry, total legend.”<\/p>\n

As of Sunday, over \u00a33,700 had been raised for Lennox Children’s Cancer Fund, which supports families facing the challenges of childhood cancer.<\/p>\n

For Harry, the charity’s mission holds particular significance. He was widowed in 2013 following the loss of his wife of 60 years to cancer, and many years prior, in 1982, his 32-year-old stepson died from testicular cancer.<\/p>\n

\"Harry<\/p>\n

Harry left viewers impressed with his bravery(Image: ITV)<\/p>\n

He stated: “When you see old people, you think, well, they’ve had a life. But when young people die for no reason, there are children, babies being born with this terrible thing. They need all the help they can get.”<\/p>\n

Care home manager Karolyn Sisto had previously informed news outlets: “We did everything we could to support Harry to do this in a safe kind of way.<\/p>\n

“Every day we’ve been focusing on his nutrition, his fluid intake. I’ve been taking his blood pressure every day. We’ve been encouraging him to go up and down the stairs, which is something he couldn’t do a year ago.”<\/p>\n

This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Viewers of ITV’s This Morning were left in awe after 98-year-old Harry Heasman Harry has captivated the nation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,2898,437],"class_list":["post-444597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-this-morning","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}