Welcome to the quiz!…Here’s are 5 of the questions.
1] On 2nd October 1948 the RAC staged the country’s first ever grand prix at a recently decommissioned wartime RAF station in rural Northamptonshire. Today the course still hosts the British Grand Prix. Name it.
2] Alauda arvensis has been celebrated in an ode by Shelley and a musical composition by Vaughn Williams. By what common name do we know this bird?
3] The Meade family founded England’s leading organic dairy. The grounds around their Somerset creamery and farm have also become a tourist attraction, as the country’s biggest certified organic gardens. Name the geographical location that gives its name to both the product brand and gardens.
4] Which traditional countryside craft centres round the skill of ‘pleaching’?
5] Two of the 39 historic English counties contain English rivers in their name. Name both rivers. Clue: One is tidal, the other a freshwater tributary.
I recently gave the 2022 ‘England and the English Countryside’ table quiz to the Northumberland branch of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England – CPRE (est. 1926). The setting was the Badger Inn at Ponteland, near Newcastle. A large yet homely venue with great staff who helped us set up the function room for the evening’s entertainment. Delighted we had such a good turn out, despite the filthy weather, with all tables taken and teams sorted.
Best of all, once we’d got going and the scores started to come in, I was relieved that having a long lead in time, with chance to revise and re-balance, had properly paid off so I could now relax and enjoy the experience. The average score was an all round high across all five rounds, with questions covering history, geography, art and science, sport, entertainment, natural history and literature.
The picture round asked teams to identify 12 popular attractions in England – from the Jurassic Coast (pictured) to Kew Gardens – all of which are UNESCO world heritage sites. I like my quizzes to be challenging, accessible at best, guessable at worst, calling on teams to pool their collective knowledge. Best of all the participants seemed to enjoy the whole experience and were absorbed by it. There was a dead heat for first place and we left it at that, with the honours shared. Laughter, applause, conversations and new friends made. Perfect!
I’ve been a member of CPRE for some years now and on moving to Northumberland I wanted to do something that would help, other than being a member, so after attending a CPRE organised talk I offered my services as a quiz setter and presenter. The offer was gratefully accepted and I set to work, finding a venue and sorting the questions.
That first quiz was held in Hexham, at the County Hotel, just before the first Covid lockdown in February 2020 and proved very popular. After that they were reformed and held online during the pandemic. This then was the first real life pub quiz since and – like live performance – it proved a welcome return to good old social interaction. Team quizzes did not work half as well online when at a time when you could not socialise outside your own household and team numbers were lower, with less of wider shared knowledge to draw on.
Annie, the part time branch secretary, is a powerhouse who gets work actioned with charm and efficiency and is always a joy to work with. She and husband Steve alongside other committee members got everything sorted front of house, organised a raffle and prizes, and Annie also said a word or two about the charity and its work both nationally and locally.
Having Kim by my side to do the scores and help co-ordinate with our hosts made a big difference to the quality of the presentation. Everyone left the pub in the best of spirits and I’m already starting to devise and log more questions, on the same theme, for next years quiz.
Answers: Silverstone / Skylark / Yeo Valley / Hedgelaying (Partial cutting & laying of stems to promote growth) Northumberland (Humber) & Cambridgeshire (Cam).
STEPHEN TOMLIN 