Comic Relief 2009

Watch the video of South Today's Tom Hepworth visiting the record-breaking red nose:

It's officially the world's biggest red nose and it's been designed by a Berkshire man.

But Andrew Beattie's red nose, which is actually an eight metre-wide kite shaped like a nose, nearly never made it off the ground when it ripped last night. Andrew says he'd almost blown it.

"We ripped it in the strong wind outside, just a small amount of unevenness in the pressure and it just made a huge rip. We've done about ten metres worth of damage."

Luckily it was stitched together in time and displayed outside Selway Moore Solutions on Basingstoke Road in Reading for its fundraising stint on Thursday 12 March.

Speaking to BBC Berkshire on Red Nose Day (March Friday 13 2009) Phil Reakes from the company says: "We raised well over 2000 pounds!"

Drivers and other passers-by stopped off at the red nose to make a donation.

"When people saw it they said 'wow that's fantastic', they were impressed because it's the size of our building."

On the morning of Red Nose Day it made an appearance at the Avenue School in Reading before being deflated until next year.

So why did Andrew decide to build this huge red nose? Phil says:

"A few years ago Comic Relief made an appeal where they wanted red noses that would be big enough for a house, so Andrew here decided he'd make a nose that was big enough for two-and-a-half houses - a block of flats you could almost say!"

And will they be building a bigger nose next year?

Phil laughs but also groans: "Please don't challenge us!"