ALAN HINDLE grinned, and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s no secret, really,” he laughed.

“Just commonsense. Ignore the subjects and stick to plain, straightforward noughts-and-crosses … and you can’t fail.”

This kind of commonsense has meant the Junior Criss Cross Quiz championship of Great Britain to young Hindle.

Fourteen soon, Alan, a technical school boy from a terrace house in a suburb of Manchester, was 10 weeks on Junior Criss Cross Quiz collecting 1,650 points — an all-time record.

He won points, not pounds. Juniors cannot play Granada’s noughts-and-crosses game for money. They score points that are later converted into prizes such as radios, typewriters, cameras, and books.

Alan “spent” his points on a record-player, tape-recorder and collapsible canoe.

If he had been playing the senior game, where filled-in squares are worth £20 [£390 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] instead of 10 points, his 1,650 score would have been £3,300 [£64,000].

That is nearly £1,000 [£19,500] more than the game’s record champion, Glasgow journalist Rushworth Fogg, won in the last Criss Cross Quiz series.

Alan Hindle played Junior Criss Cross Quiz to an almost infallible system. Almost infallible? He was eventually knocked out by … a girl challenger. I asked him if he minded revealing his success secret. “Of course not,” he replied. “Just commonsense.”

Then he repeated: “It’s easy. Look. Ignore the subject categories on the board altogether. They only confuse the whole thing. Stick to noughts-and-crosses. Play the game that way, and you can’t fail.”

Can’t fail? What, I asked, if you give a wrong answer ? Alan said: “That’s your fault. They’re very easy questions, anyway. So long as your opponent fails one or two as well, it shouldn’t make all that difference.

“You could probably get away with one wrong answer. But fail two, and I reckon that would be fatal.”

Said Alan: “Let’s suppose, for a start, that you’re the challenger. You will be, because the champion is already in the ‘X’ box. The champion has his question, gets it right and puts his ‘X’ in the bottom left-hand-corner of the board.

“Now for the all-important move. The first one. Most challengers get their first question right and then make a terrible mistake. They put their ‘O’ in a corner box. That’s wrong. The challenger’s first ‘O’ should always go in the centre. I worked these theories out with a school pal. We both applied to go on the quiz, and were waiting a year for our turn to come round. So we spent the entire year swotting up on noughts-and-crosses.

“My pal went on before me, and was knocked-out first time because he didn’t put his first ‘O’ in the middle. He went to one of the corners.”

Isn’t the centre question always the hard one? “Yes,” smiled Alan. “That’s one of the risks you’ve got to take.

“Now you’re settled into the centre square, it doesn’t much matter where the champion puts his ‘X,’ He’ll never beat you. Every move he makes, you block him. It’s as easy as that.

“Assuming you both answer your questions correctly, you must draw the game. A few drawn games, and sooner or later your opponent makes a mistake … and you’ve beaten him.”

Right, Alan. Now let us take it from the champion’s position. Into the ‘X’ box we go.

“First thing to remember here,” said Alan, “is that you’ve got the advantage from the start. You have first go at the questions, and the challenger must follow you around the board.

“The way to win is to make for the corner boxes all the time with your ‘X’s, and you’ll never be beaten. The golden rule throughout is, make the subjects take second place on the board. Play noughts-and-crosses first and foremost. I shudder when I see grown men and women getting their answers right and then throwing the game away by not playing noughts-and-crosses properly.

“Of course, crises do crop up during the game. You’ve got to be careful, and not let too many questions slip by. It’s easy to become big-headed as your points mount up, and then you do tend to become careless with the answers.”

Alan went on: “Your opponent is probably nervous. But I found that the nervous ones were the toughest fighters.

“They seemed to be all keyed-up before they went on the air, and then they fought the hardest of all. The over-confident ones were easy. They soon fluffed their answers.

“When you’re knocking up a good total, you’re faced with the difficult decision of withdrawing or carrying on. If you drop out, you run the risk of being called a coward. If you carry on, they accuse you of grasping.”

What happens to noughts-and-crosses champions when they leave school? “I’ve not decided,” said Alan. “It depends on how things go at school. Chemistry is my best subject, and I expect there’ll be plenty of openings for scientific types in the future. Plenty of time yet to think about that.”

The post TV’s boy quiz wonder appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

NEW house … new car … even a new job. Six weeks in Criss Cross Quiz meant all these for schoolteacher Rodney Challis-Sowerby.

Just a year ago, 34-year-old Rodney was the first champion to win £2,000 [about £40,000 in today’s money, allowing for retail inflation which doesn’t include house prices – Ed] in Granada’s noughts-and-crosses general knowledge quiz.

The show is back this week for another winter run. Already hundreds of applications from viewers who want to play the game are in the files.

I spoke to smiling Rodney Challis-Sowerby in the study of his new red-brick bungalow in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire.

Piled on the desk were 50 new books. They were for his school’s library. He was numbering them so they could go on the shelves next morning.

“I’m the head of the English Department in a new school in Warrington,” he explained. “And I’m a different man — thanks to six weeks on Criss Cross Quiz”

This is his story …

“I was born near Bolton, and went out to Africa when I was four. My father worked for Tanganyika Railways. When I was seven, we returned.

“I had a good school career, and then went on to a teachers’ training college. On initiation night we students were fooling around, and I had a bad accident. It laid me up for some time. But it did far worse for me than just that — it robbed me of my self-confidence.

“I had a teaching job, but nothing out-of-the-ordinary. I felt it was the best I could do.

“When I saw Criss Cross Quiz on TV, I wrote in, and passed the preliminary paper test.

“Why did I do it? I suppose I wanted to prove to myself that I could do something.

“I did. I went on the air, stayed in the game six weeks, and won £2,020 before I was eventually knocked out by a woman challenger.

“My experience in Criss Cross Quiz improved my morale and confidence, and everything seems to have gone smoothly for me since then. New house, new car and now this better job.

“I’m tackling things now I would never have dreamed of before. I’m doing a lot of writing. I’m producing and acting in amateur dramatics, and I travel around lecturing at evening classes.”

How does it feel to be a quiz contestant? What is it like to walk into a TV studio, a complete stranger, and be challenged on general knowledge in front of millions of viewers?

“I was fortunate in one way,” said Rodney. “I was called to the studio one week, and waited behind the cameras for my turn to come. It didn’t. I was not needed that week. The champion was still going strong.

“And I had a grand time. Everybody connected with the show — producer, quizmaster Jeremy Hawk, technicians, and the people behind the scenes — was very kind. My nervousness soon disappeared.

“The ice had been broken for me. When I went to the studio the following week, I felt completely at home. I went on the air, completely forgot the cameras, and concentrated on the game.

“Brainier men and women challenged me and lost. Not because they didn’t know the answers, but because the strain momentarily overcame them.

“They were camera-shy. One challenger was a post-graduate student of political science, a First Class Honours man. He was doing well against me until a camera moved in close to him. I saw him tremble and sway backwards away from the lens. He fluffed every question after that.”

Does knowing how to play noughts-and-crosses help? “Definitely,” said Rodney. “A Liverpool University man I know who entered for the quiz could get all the answers right, but he was no good at noughts-and-crosses. He lost.”

What about viewer-reaction? Is the champion a TV star overnight? Any fan letters?

“No begging letters, surprisingly enough. I expected a few when I reached the £2,000 mark about Christmas time, but I didn’t get one.

“I had two abusive letters telling me I had won enough and should withdraw to give somebody else a chance. I ignored them.

“I was recognised wherever I went. Shop assistants would hurry to serve me, and passers-by would stop me in the street to congratulate me. When I was on holiday at Oban, in Scotland, a woman approached and asked me if I was Rodney Sowerby. She had a 5s [25p in decimal, about £5 after inflation] bet with her husband that she was right.”

Has a schoolteacher any advantage as a contestant in Criss Cross Quiz?

“I think I had.” said Rodney, “because my special interests are history and geography. And so many of the categories in the quiz were from these subjects: kings, queens, mountains, rivers, capitals, countries, politicians.”

But isn’t it risky for a schoolteacher to chance his reputation before the eyes of the nation?

“The boys at school rarely mentioned it.” said Rodney. “One evening I failed a question on kings. I told Jeremy Hawk: ‘I’ll never hear the end of this at school.’ But not a word from anybody!

“I got into trouble one night, though. I didn’t know the name of one of Pat Smythe’s horses.

“When I got home, my daughters, 11-year-old Loraine and eight-year-old Karen, were disgusted with me. I don’t think they’ve ever really forgiven me for that!”

The post What it’s like to be… a £2,000 Criss Cross Quiz man appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IT is back to school again for Junior Criss Cross Quiz this week — after a fortnight’s “holiday” for Wimbledon.

Back to a new “teacher,” too. Quizzing quiz-kids in the junior version of this general knowledge noughts and crosses game will be Canadian TV personality Elaine Grand.

Says Elaine, whose mother was once a schoolmistress in Manchester: “I am thrilled and looking forward to working on the show.

“I love doing TV with youngsters. That is why I have always enjoyed myself as chairman of We Want An Answer.

“Children are far more at ease and unpretentious on TV. They are not as much affected by the cameras as adults.

“I always find with We Want An Answer that they ask far better, more searching, questions than any adults would have done. It is the freshness of the vision of youth, I suppose. Instead of asking the questions they feel they ought to ask a celebrity, they ask what they really want to know.

“They ask bluntly, and often boldly, for the facts.

“With a TV quiz like Junior Criss Cross Quiz youngsters react much better than adults. They play it as a game purely and simply, with nothing important at stake.

“When an adult is told his next question is worth £1,000 he is scared. All that money represents a new car or the down payment on a house.

“A child would not see it that way. A sum like £1,000 is beyond his comprehension — it is right outside his experience. So juniors play this as a straight game of noughts and crosses.”

Not that the youngsters get money, anyway — they play for points that are convertible into prizes.

Criss Cross producer Clement Cave likes working on the junior version.

“Youngsters are more telegenic than adults,” he says. “They are less inhibited. They react so much more naturally to things happening around them.

“Age is important, too. We restrict our contestants to the over 12 and under 15 group. And we usually find that the brightest are on the younger end of the scale. Our biggest prize-winner was a girl of 12½ years who built up 850 points. When they are coming up to 14 they are beginning to look at life almost like grown-ups. They are at that awkward between-age, and beginning to get self-conscious.

“Junior contestants seem to go into the game with a firm determination to win as much as they can. Adults tend to be more cautious. They win a few games and then withdraw. The youngsters will press on. Apart from their winnings, I think they want to make the most of being on TV.”

Cave insists on his junior contestants not being called children on the programme. “We call ourselves Junior Criss Cross Quiz. We never remind contestants or viewers that this is a show for children. We want to avoid any suggestions that we are talking down to children.”

Choosing contestants for the junior show is tougher than for the adult version. Contestant-organiser, Reg Marsh, explained: “Children from all over the country write asking to be on the programme. But we have to restrict contestants to those living in a 10 mile radius of the studios; it is important that they should not miss school to be on TV.

“We audition challengers about 20 at a time, and, by giving them a 25-question test paper, make sure they are the standard we need. Then we have to ask education authorities if they have any objection.

“We give contestants the VIP treatment at the studios. A member of the staff collects them from school in a taxi and sees them home after the show.”

Examples of the prizes that can be won: 50 points wins a pair of skates; 100 points a boy’s tool kit; 150 points a record-player; 200 points a cinecamera; 250 points and upwards a portable typewriter.

Biggest prize-winner in the programme so far is 12½-year-old Rosalind Hilson, a doctor’s daughter, from Ashton, near Manchester. Her 850 points won her two prizes — a radiogram and a bicycle. That’s Rosalind in action at the top of the page.

The post It’s fun being a quiz-kid appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The Army Game troops report back for duty this week.

Most of the regulars will be on parade: Sergeant-Major Snudge (Bill Fraser), Corporal Springer (Michael Medwin), “Cupcake” Cook (Norman Rossington) and “Excused Boots” (Alfie Bass).

But two newcomers are on the postings-in list on the guardroom notice board: A new CO, Major Geoffrey Gervaise Duckworth (C. B. Poultney), still living out his Army life as a cavalry subaltern, and Private BONE (Ted Lune) …

A TOP-SECRET signal was flashed from Whitehall to the Commanding Officer, Nether Hopping: “Am posting Private Bone to you forthwith. Documents revealing him to be a psychopathic scrounger and pathological liar to follow.”

I intercepted that short-wave message … and immediately chartered a helicopter to fly me to Nether Hopping to get Bone’s story.

Lancashire-born Bone is a brilliant old campaigner and strategist who has fought his way — single-handed — out of NAAFI queues all over the world. He is also an internationally-known authority on the game — he would call it The Art — of football.

Bone revealed to me a shattering now-it-can-be-told story that will shake Britain — the true story of how Bolton Wanderers really won the FA Cup last season.

Over to Private Bone, alias comedian Ted Lune …

“Ask any football fan who led t’Wanderers to victory in t’Cup game last season, and he’ll tell you: ‘Nat Lofthouse.’

“And he’ll be wrong. It wasn’t Nat at all.

“IT WAS ME — BONE.

“Only the 11 men of Bolton Wanderers knew the truth until today. Now I can reveal it.

“It was me that led t’Wanderers on to the Wembley turf that historic Saturday in May, 1958.

“And this is how it happened … The Friday night before t’Final. I got a telegram from me Mam in Bolton.

“My hand shook as I tore it open. Perhaps she’d wangled me a Cup Final ticket after all. But, no. It was this message:

“‘Coome ome, lad, T’Wanderers need thee.’

“I knew what was expected of me. It had happened just this way before. Somebody had dropped out of the team at the last minute.

“A panic-stations conference in the plush Bolton board-room and the decision was made. Send for Bone.

“I talked it over with the lads in the billet. Should I go? I’d nothing else on that day. And it was a great chance.

“I’d played plenty of League games when they’d been short of first-team payers. But this — The Football Match of The Year.

“‘Take it, Bone,’ said the lads. ‘We’ll be cheering for you.’

“So I went home and collected my things. No 9 shirt … size 10 boots.

“Thousands of folk in that packed Wembley Stadium never guessed, millions of viewers watching on TV couldn’t have known—that the chap who went to Bolton Wanderers’ rescue in their Hour of Need was ME.

“For the first time, pictures tell the true story …”

Before I wrote this amazing story, I sought the approval of the highest-up brass-hats I could find in Whitehall.

This is their report: “Our records show that on May 3, 1958, the day of the FA Cup Final at Wembley, Private Bone was under close arrest in his unit’s guardroom.

“He was awaiting court martial, accused of being absent without leave the weekend before.

“Military Police picked him up in Bolton — trying to sell five-shilling Cup Final tickets at black market prices.”

Footnote: The Bolton Wanderers players who co-operated in this TV TIMES reconstruction of Bone’s story were: Nat Lofthouse, Roy Hartle, Ray Parry, Dennis Stevens, Brian Edwards, Tommy Banks, John Higgins and Eddie Hopkinson.

The post Private Bone (alias Ted Lune) reveals: how I won t’cup for Bolton appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IT is enough to make Stark raving mad! “It’s terrible,” groaned Graham. “Everybody I’m introduced to cracks the same old joke. They grin and say ‘Mr Stark, eh? Which branch of the family? Raving or staring?’

“I smile sweetly and mutter to myself, ‘5,924.’ ‘What do you mean?’ they ask.

“‘Oh, just keeping count,’ say I. After all, I’m the comedian.

“That’s another thing. Everybody expects me to behave like a comic all the time, but I’m not just a comic you know. Far from it. I’m a straight actor.

“The old yarn about the comic who wants to play Hamlet was never more true-to-life than it is today with TV. There’s no future for the chap who walks on to a stage in front of a camera to do four minutes of red-nosed comedy. Television humour is all sketches and situation comedy.”

Graham Stark — one of the stars of On the Air, goonster of ITV’s A Show Called Fred and Son of Fred — has been 24 years in show business. “And the goons didn’t come into my life until the last four years,” said Graham.

Before that he played Cinderella, with amateur operatic societies. Molière at the Edinburgh Festival, and Macbeth with repertory companies.

Stark — a lean-faced, boyish-looking 37 — was born near Liverpool, the son of a Scots marine engineer.

“I was 12 when I first went on the stage, as Buttons in an amateur pantomime.

“A theatrical-producer friend of my headmaster was in the audience one evening. He told my teacher ‘That boy’s a natural for the theatre.’

“My mother fixed me up with dancing lessons right away. A year later I was in pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre in London.

“At 16 I won the national youth dancing championship. I had an audition for Sadler’s Wells. They offered me a two-year scholarship, but I turned it down.

“I didn’t really want to be a dancer. I wanted to act. So I worked in a couple of plays in London and Glasgow.

“When I was 19 I went into the RAF. After two years as an ordinary airman, I had a stroke of luck. Ralph Reader was auditioning for a Services Gang Show. I joined it, and for three years we toured all over the world. What a bill! Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers, Reg Dixon, Cardew Robinson and Dick Emery.

“Things were sticky after the war. I tramped London’s West End in my demob suit looking for work, and living on sausage rolls. Then I went to the Coventry Arts Council company, to do one play … and stayed four years!

“I did a lot of radio after that, between variety dates and summer seaside seasons.

“After ITV’s goon series I had a spot in Granada’s Melody Ranch show, and now On the Air. Which just about brings us up to date…

One thing. That name Stark. “It’s my real name. It’s Scots. Should have a Mac in front of it, I suppose. Would sound odd, though, wouldn’t it — MacGraham Stark?”

The post The Stark truth! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.