when set against the raucous passions of traditional football supportership. His mollifying tactic on this occasion was to undertake to consult Bert Kingdon over any niceties lurking in future sports questions. And a P.S. from Kingdon’s follow-up letter (“I was pleased to be able to help you on some of your questions this week”) suggested that the belly-tickling had worked.
Of course, many of the questions Wynn posed couldn’t be answered in the same way now. In asking which of the bridges over the Thames was nearest to the mouth of that river, he was looking for the answer “Tower Bridge”. There was no elevated Dartford Crossing (Queen Elizabeth II Bridge) till 1991. But more telling are the questions that would be answered differently now because of changes in the social, rather than material, landscape. In the summer of 1964, there came the question: “How many Cathedrals has London?” The desired reply was three: “St Paul’s Cathedral, Southwark Cathedral and the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral.” But calls came in immediately from licence-payers who already lived, mentally, in a multicultural Britain. “Listeners point out that there are, in fact, two more – St Sophia’s (Greek Orthodox) and the Cathedral of the Holy Assumption of Our Lady (Russian Orthodox).” Joan Clark, whose assistant Sylvia Kirby signed this internal memo, was not inclined to accept the point. “However, we were obviously referring to the famous London Cathedrals, and did not expect our contestants to have any knowledge of the Russian or Greek churches.” Well, it is no longer “obvious” that only the “famous” cathedrals should be counted, so those expectations have irrevocably changed.
With retirement just a few years away now, Miss Clark was in commemorative mood. She suggested a ten-year Anniversary show, to be coupled with a 300th Programme celebration. But in the event, the unfindable Bernard Palmer was not needed, because George Campey, Head of Publicity, judged that nothing would be gained from such an exercise. Similarly in 1966, Miss Clark announced that the Final of What Do You Know? would also celebrate the 1000th Programme made for the BBC by John P. Wynn. She threw the matter open to all comers. “If you need any further information about Mr Wynn, perhaps you would ring him direct: FINchley 2333.” But seemingly all that came of the plan was the usual “small cocktail party” generally hosted by the Wynns after a Final, if necessary at their own expense.
Without their knowing it, the future of the Wynns’ programme had been in their midst since 1964, when Ian Gillies became Brain of Britain. He was destined also to win the Brain of Brains and the nine-year Top Brain titles, but even at the start of his career as a champion, he was giving evidence of a lively character. It leaps out of the 1964 press release drawn up by the BBC to celebrate his first win, which offers a fine anecdotal insight into the mind of a pure quizzer:
He attributed a bonus mark he earned to the fact that he was listening to the Home Service ‘Today’ programme on the morning of the Final when people in the street were being quizzed [sic] on the Bible. This, he said, set up a train of thought, and asking himself the same afternoon what he knew of the books of the Old Testament – which was the last, for instance? – Mr Gillies visited a reference library to find out. When the very same question turned up a few hours later in What Do You Know?, and Mrs Key failed to give the right answer, Mr Gillies knew.
The difference between Ian Gillies and the rest of us, in 1964 at least, was that the gap in his knowledge bothered him so much that he went to a reference library to find out. That kind of driven curiosity is much harder to spot nowadays, when most of us have the world encyclopaedia of the internet plugged into a handy socket at home. The press release, by the way, annoyingly fails to give us the name of the last book of the Old Testament, as correctly supplied by Mr Gillies. The answer is Malachi.
It was on 11th July 1967 – a year of much change in BBC Radio broadcasting – that the Controller, Light Programme, a name which itself was about to lapse, announced that What Do You Know? was no more:
To H[ead] L[ight] E[ntertainment] copy Miss J. Clark, Ch. Asst. L[ight] P[rogramme].
This is to confirm that I should like the next series to be titled “Brain of Britain 1968”.
Robin Scott.
And so the programme at last shared the name of the title it had been awarding for years. “It seems more indicative of the contest,” Joan Clark explained. With the Light and Home Services gone, and the new numbered networks bedding in, not always comfortably at first, Brain of Britain spent a couple of seasons on Radio Two, but moved over in 1970 to its obvious natural home, Radio Four. In doing so, it joined a company of familiar programmes that represented the BBC’s continuity: Desert Island Discs, The Archers, Woman’s Hour, From Our Own Correspondent, and the other show that occupied much of Franklin Engelmann’s time, Down Your Way.
It was a good moment for the Brain of Britain 1968, Ralph Raby, to attract some publicity by committing himself to a provokingly jocular article called “How To Be A Brain of Britain”:
The first essential is – don’t be too intelligent. Some of my friends at school had such penetrating minds that they were soon buried deep in one subject and lost sight of all others.
Do not waste time seeing a new play or film, or reading a new book – just read a good review to learn the theme and characters.
Thirdly, listen to BBC Radio, which pours out a torrent of information, much of it true. With a transistor set, all your waking hours can be filled with talks on everything from Racine to Racing, until your wife gets tired.
Unfortunately, the readers most likely to take this seriously – especially the part about reading reviews instead of experiencing the work itself – will have been those critics already inclined to believe that the “quiz-world” (which was beginning to emerge as a thing in itself) was the haunt of philistines who knew about things, but never engaged with the deeper truths within.
In February 1970, the 500th edition of the quiz was noted by Joan Clark in a routine memo. It was estimated that her husband had set 30,000 questions since 1953. And then, suddenly, the lady was gone, with one last request, dated 13th May that year:
Thank you for sending me the photographs taken after the Final of Brain of Britain 1970. I return them herewith duly captioned.
As I am retiring from the BBC in two weeks’ time, would you be kind enough to let me have a copy of the group (No. 10A) for my personal retention?
J.C.
She left not only Brain still running, but also Top of the Form, which continued until 1986 – a 38-year career, in which her work as the scorekeeper had incidentally made her voice familiar on the air. John P. Wynn did not retire, but continued to set the questions for Brain, and indeed compiled and copyrighted the 1972 quiz-book Brain of Britain, which appeared under the BBC’s own imprint. The format Wynn chose was strange. The book was divided into nine quizzes, each one with its questions further divided into subject categories – history, geography, people, literature, sport and so on. So, you get a pageful of questions on sport, followed by a pageful on history, and the glorious sense of miscellany and assortment on which the broadcast quiz relies is lost. Even more curiously, one of the nominated sub-categories was “General Knowledge”, as if that were a topic separable from the rest.
A brief introduction was supplied by Joan Clark’s successor in the producer’s chair, John Fawcett Wilson, the most melancholy part of whose task was to pay tribute to Franklin Engelmann. The popular question-master had died suddenly on 2nd March, just one day before he was due to record the 1000th edition of another of his favourites, Gardeners’ Question Time, and a couple of days before his 64th birthday. “His obvious enjoyment of the competition communicated itself to listener and contestant alike,” Wilson wrote.
Since Brain was in mid-run, a replacement for Engelmann was required instantly, and was found in the man who knew most about the quiz, apart from its begetters – the multiple champion Ian Gillies, who chaired the ten or so remaining programmes in the series. Did he feel that he had done enough to take over the job permanently? Some signs emerged later that it was so. Meantime, a letter from Martin Fisher,