THE younger generation — often attacked — can take a bow for a change. In fact, one section — the children who appear in Granada’s Junior Criss Cross Quiz — can take several bows.

They have established a reputation for politeness, good manners and, above all, sportsmanship.

About 500 children have been in the programme since it began more than two years ago. What have the people who work on this noughts and crosses game general knowledge learned?

Pam Marsden, head of the contestants’ department at the Manchester studios, said: “Mainly that children are better at taking disappointment than adults.

“In the grown-up quiz programmes, competitors are keyed up all the time. They will retire winning a fairly large sum of money rather than risk losing it on another question or another game.

“But usually the children, who have a large number of points at stake, representing several prizes, press on to the end. They don’t mind a risk. And they are sporting when they lose.

“That characteristic shows in the early stages of the preliminary test. They are set a paper of 25 general knowledge questions.

“The producer interviews them while the papers are being marked. They are given the verdict straight away. It is amazing how matter-of-fact they are.

“I think they are philosophical because they are used to examinations at school and feel that it is not a matter of life and death; just a game.

“We find many adults who see the programme write and say when they think they have seen a particularly well-mannered child in the show.

“This sort of letter usually comes from older viewers conscious of the behaviour of the younger generation.”

Bill Grundy, quizmaster for five months, spoke of a boy in a programme who had won almost 350 points. This entitled him to a canoe or a stereophonic record player.

Said Grundy: “The lad was playing well and wanted a canoe. He accepted a further challenge, played two drawn games.

“On the third, he lost; not only the points he wanted, but those he had piled up. Instead of the canoe he went home with a book token.

“I sympathised. His reply: ‘Oh, that’s all right, Mr Grundy. It was very enjoyable.’ I was most impressed.

“People think girls are bad losers at games. But this is not true in Junior Criss Cross Quiz. I have yet to see a defeated contestant — boy or girl — be unsportsmanlike.”

Over to programme researcher Yvonne Levy. “The children seem to have a leaning towards certain interests.

“‘Pets,’ ‘Is It True?’ ‘Odd Man Out,’ and ‘Nicknames’ are firm favourites with boys and girls. Girls steer clear of engineering, fearing technical subjects. Boys shy off fairy tales. They are keen on science.

“We like letters from children suggesting new subjects, but they must cover a wide field. Pets, say, include all animals, not just one type.

“The contestants like coming to the studio. They enjoy getting stars’ autographs at tea time as much as being in the programme.

“The children, too, get fan mail after the shows. Other youngsters write to I them, and this produces pen friendships.”

The post 500 good sports appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

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.

OLD Harrovian Jeremy Hawk sipped a glass of white wine in the Public Schools’ Club overlooking London’s Green Park and said: “Frankly, old boy, this is something quite new for me.

We were discussing Jeremy’s appearance on ITV as a quizmaster. For actor Hawk is now seen regularly as compere of Granada’s highly successful Criss Cross Quiz.

As the programme is screened on three evenings a week — Monday, Wednesday and Friday — Jeremy has become the most frequently televised compere on ITV.

His selection came after weeks of secret tests, before studio audiences, for which many of TV’s top personalities entered. Students from Manchester University appeared as contestants — at two guineas a show. Each try-out was studied by Granada executives.

After watching five programmes, Eddie Pola, Granada’s variety chief, announced himself satisfied, and signed up Hawk.

How does TV’s latest quizmaster like the series? “For one thing,” he says, “it doesn’t insult the public’s intelligence. Yet it still has excitement and entertainment. The contestants have a choice of nine subjects in each game, and there is no limit to the amount a contestant can win.”

After Harrow, 39-year-old Jeremy, who was born in South Africa, had a short spell in his step-father’s wool business in Yorkshire. “I hated it,” he said. “I used to stand on the bales and sing Any Old Iron. The workers loved it — but it held up production.”

His family compromised and sent him to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His first job was assistant stage manager with Bournemouth Repertory at £3 a week. Jobs with other repertory companies followed, until revue writer Eric Maschwitz saw him at Reading and picked him for the 1940 revue New Faces at the Comedy Theatre. Here, he sang and danced with Betty Ann Davies.

Other West End producers engaged him as a juvenile lead in the early years of the war. One of these productions was for the Arts Theatre in the John Jacques Bernard classic Springtime of Others.

Although Criss Cross Quiz gives him the first chance to appear on ITV in his own show, Jeremy has contributed to the success of other programmes. George and Alfred Black engaged him to direct the comedy sequences in Get Happy, the series which established comic Arthur Haynes as a TV star. He also appeared as a performer in its successor, The Arthur Haynes Show.

Before that, he partnered Benny Hill in two Sunday Night at the London Palladium programmes.

Jeremy’s partnership with Benny, however, isn’t the first time he has worked on stage with a comedian. For three years he appeared, with the late Sid Field, in the role of Dr. Sanderson in the comedy Harvey at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

While Jerry Desmonde was compering The 64,000 Question, Jeremy replaced him temporarily as “straight man” to comedian Norman Wisdom. Now, Jeremy follows Jerry and gives up comedy partnerships for quizmastering. From Jerry Desmonde’s success, it looks as though the best training for the specialised role of a TV quizmaster comes from that seldom acknowledged yet all-important occupation … a comedian’s “straight man”.

The post Jeremy Hawk – the quiet quizmaster 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 future shines bright for Criss Cross Quiz interrogator Jeremy Hawk. Next Friday he makes his 74th appearance in the game which he launched on television seven months ago. And both the senior and junior versions seem likely to last for a long time to come.

Criss Cross Quiz has raised Jeremy Hawk to the top ranks of TV personalities. This winter his services are eagerly sought to open new stores. And no doubt when summer is with us he will be asked to do something similar at garden parties.

Needless to say, Hawk is immensely enjoying his sudden rise to fame. He loves his work, the chance it gives him of continually meeting new and interesting people, the drama of a well-fought game, and the tension and excitement when the total in the winnings box passes the four-figure mark.

He told me in particular how delighted he is at the success of Junior Criss Cross Quiz.

“I’ve met all kinds of contestants in these two programmes,” he said. “But I can say quite confidently that the children taking part in the junior edition are far easier to work with — and I should think, from the expressions on their faces, they are often much more enjoyable to watch.

“They are not nearly so inhibited as their elders. They are bright, cheerful, confident. And they get a kick out of the game.”

Hawk himself is relieved to find there are no difficult tongue-twisters among the junior-sized questions prepared for the Wednesday game.

“I’ve had to contend with quite a few in the adult quiz,” he recalled. “The most difficult of all was when I asked a contestant to give me the common word for … sorry, but I still find the name absolutely unpronounceable. Fortunately the man was a scientist and when he saw me getting hopelessly tongue-tied with it he said, ‘Do you mean acetylsalicylic acid? The answer is aspirin.’

“Gilbert Harding, an old friend of mine, once ticked me off for mispronouncing the name of the French mixed fish dish — bouillabaisse. And mother told me off — and quite rightly, too — for not pronouncing Haydn correctly.

“In both cases I was conscious I had said it wrong, but was too late to correct myself. Of course, I never see the questions before a programme, so I have no means of checking these things.

“A number of the questions include foreign words, so it is perhaps just as well that I have a smattering of a few languages. But I still came unstuck when I had to read out Prokofiev. It is a wonderful Russian name, but I had so much trouble that in the end I had to spell it out!”

Judging by the size of his fan mail, however, viewers don’t mind these occasional slips. “Yes, I get lots of letters,” he agreed, “and they have taught me that I have to be careful what I say during the programme.”

An important part of Hawk’s work is putting contestants at their ease. “It starts when I meet them for the first time at supper,” he said.

“Then we have a run through the programme – with dummy questions, of course — to get them used to the cameras.”

Hawk has received many letters from contestants after they have been on the programme thanking him for the considerate way he looked after them when they were facing the cameras.

But on only two occasions has he met them later. “Once, I was visiting my mother in a London hospital and I bumped into one of our winners there to see his father, who was also a patient.

“Then there was an out-of-work salesman we had on the programme. I mentioned this fact in the hope that it might help him get a job. The other day I was walking down a street and just by chance saw the young man in a showroom window and now he’s a car salesman.”

The post Answers are child’s play for the kids appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

PAT McHUGH, the vivacious, 22-year-old Concentration hostess, has had a variety of jobs since she left school a little more than six years ago.

She has worked as a dentist’s receptionist, in a cocktail bar, as a policewoman, nurse, shorthand typist (with a bus company, an undertaker and an aircraft firm) and model.

“All good experience,” she says. “But right now I’m concentrating on being my own boss. I hope to be able to go into business at the end of this year. It all depends on how much money I’ve saved by then.”

What sort of business? Pat thought for a moment, then said, slowly: “Well, I haven’t quite made up my mind yet. I feel that I’m pretty good at selling things to people, and I’d very much like to own a gown shop.

“On the other hand, I may just invest my money in some property and leave it at that.”

Pat’s good looks and trim figure have won her a string of beauty titles, appearances in TV’s Holiday Town Parade — and cash prizes, too.

“Twenty pounds here, twenty pounds there … it all helps,” says Pat, who has just won a preliminary heat in another national beauty contest — for “Miss England”—and will appear at the finals in London later this month.

“When I first started on the modelling course I used to wonder if I should ever make it. I used to get up at 7am to go to my job in Chester from my home near Mold, in North Wales.

“Then I went to the modelling school in the evening. After doing all the strenuous exercises, I was almost asleep on my feet as 1 walked the last two miles home—the bus service finished hours before I got anywhere near Mold.

“My mother wasn’t so sure that I had made the right decision, but my father backed me up and now everything’s fine — I’ve no regrets.”

She added: “Of course, there are some days when I wonder whether it’s all worth it … everybody gets a fit of the blues occasionally … but then a nice job comes along and every thing in the garden is lovely.

“I manage to keep busy, and I enjoy life. It’s exciting. A model’s job isn’t a steady one by any means. There’s no wage packet every Friday. But if you like meeting people — and I most certainly do — it is worthwhile.”

Pat’s busy life does not leave her much time for hobbies. But when she is at home in her own three-room flat in Liverpool she likes to read or listen to records.

“I’ve got a very wide selection, but I enjoy the slow and easy numbers most. Music helps to release the tension after a long day.”

Occasionally, Pat goes ice skating. “I’m afraid I’m not good at it. They say it’s excellent for the figure – but I’m not so sure. I suppose it all depends on whether you can stay on your feet or not!”

There was a mischievous twinkle in Pat’s grey-green eyes as she rubbed a recently-bruised elbow.

Then Pat announced that she had just made one of the biggest changes in her life. “My hair,” she said. “I’ve changed the colour from auburn to strawberry blonde — and I have been worried to death.

“It’s a big step for a girl to take, you know. The night before I came to the studios for the show I couldn’t sleep. I kept wondering what people would say.

“A new hair-do is as good as a tonic to a girl, but a change of colour is a bit drastic.”

And do people like it?

“The verdict seems to be about 90 per cent ‘Yes’ and 10 per cent ‘No,’ so I’m quite relieved. Most of those who said ‘Yes’ were men, and I’m very glad about that, because they tell the truth when they are talking about women.

“I think women tend to be dishonest when they are asked to give an opinion about another woman, though I must admit that a hairdresser girl friend of mine said it was marvellous, and that made me very happy.”

What about men and marriage? Pat drew herself up to her full height of 67 inches, looked at me and said: “I’m not interested in men. I’m much too busy working.”

But there was a smile on her face as she said it.

The post Concentrating on Pat McHugh appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A WELL-KNOWN phrase or saying, the name of a city or country, statesman or TV personality, the title of a popular song, a play or a book — each is a potential picture puzzle for Concentration.

No particular formula is applied in the choice of the puzzles. The only requirement is that they should lend themselves to presentation in words and pictures and that they should not be too easy, not too difficult, for contestants and viewers to solve.

George Cross, producer of Concentration, said: “It is necessary to keep a standard which reaches a general level, but you cannot put a measure on it. Some ideas are discarded because they involve long phrases which would be too unwieldy to present in the available space on the Concentration board.

“On the other hand, if the puzzles were too easy to solve, the show would be lacking in entertainment, for it depends on keen and quick competitors for its appeal.”

Cross finds that almost all his thinking is now in terms of picture puzzles. “The process is almost automatic and has become second nature to me,” he said, and added, “We aim at keeping the drawings uncomplicated so that the puzzles are not cluttered up with too much detail.”

The ideas which have been sketched out roughly as puzzles to be used in the programme are passed each week to Granada graphics artist Bert Harrop.

But the puzzles that Harrop works on are never used in the show the same week for the heavy curtain of security that shrouds the programme ensures that only one man — producer Cross — knows which will be used and when.

To ensure that this strict security is maintained, a carefully thought out routine takes effect from the moment the rough sketches arrive on Harrop’s drawing board.

He marks out the puzzle on the 30 separate pieces of cardboard bearing numbers corresponding to those on the Concentration board.

But there are never more than six pieces of the puzzle on his drawing board at any one time so that anyone looking over his shoulder would see only a small part of the complete picture.

“And that wouldn’t mean a thing to anyone,” said Harrop. “For instance, the vertical stroke of a letter T may coincide with the intersection of four parts of the puzzle and anyone seeing a mark on the corner of one section would have no clue even to the letter, let alone the word which it begins.”

When he has completed a puzzle the 30 sections go back to Cross and are locked away in his office safe … in sealed envelopes.

The steady stream of completed puzzles are stock piled so that if anyone had seen one it would still be impossible to find out when it would be used.

Two hours before the show is due to go on the air he unlocks the safe and takes out five or six puzzles.

The sections of the first puzzle to be used in the show are split into vertical columns and handed to the men who load the Concentration board, so that each has no possible chance of solving the completed puzzle.

The operation begins with only just enough time to complete it before the show is on the air.

At this stage, producer Cross is still the only man who knows the answer to the puzzle because the men work from the rear of the board and see the triangular sections — each carrying a part of the puzzle, a prize and a number — presenting to them the puzzle “face” in a series of back-to-front squares.

When the puzzle is rotated to its correct position for a last-minute check to ensure that it has been properly mounted and that no plus signs have been missed out only Cross and Harrop see it.

Cross makes the final check and Harrop does any necessary retouching.

And, as compere David Gell opens the show, Cross hands out another puzzle which is loaded into a second board. “I always have more puzzles than are needed, so there is never a chance of anyone finding out which one is being used,” he said.

Now concentrate

These four Concentration puzzles were specifically drawn for TV Times. If you can’t solve them, the answers are below.

1. Epilogue to Capricorn
2. Take Your Pick
3. Armchair Theatre
4. Concentration

The post Meet the Concentration puzzle man appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IF you are the kind of person who knows just when the Tolpuddle Martyrs were deported, and who wrote the book “John Barleycorn,” and how pumice is formed, then you are probably just the kind of person that Pat Lagone is looking for.

Because Pat is producer of Criss Cross Quiz, which returns on Wednesday. And according to her, it is the person with just this kind of flypaper memory who stands the best chance of success in this ever-popular quiz game.

“Specialists, we’ve found, don’t usually get very far,” explained Pat. “The brilliant schoolteacher, for instance, who knows his particular subject backwards, may well get annihilated by a taxi driver without a letter to his name, but with the time and the appetite for newspapers and reference books.”

The variety of occupations of the people already booked to compete in the new session certainly seems to bear out this theory. “We have everything from bank clerks to booksellers, from airline officials to housewives, from students to Customs and Excise officers,” she said.

Likely applicants for the programme are invited along to the studio to face a really stiff general knowledge test.

“But success in this isn’t enough,” said Pat. “They still have to have personality. They still have to be able to think quickly. And they still have to satisfy us that their nerves are strong enough to play this kind of noughts and crosses with cameras staring down their throats and a large section of the British public watching them.”

Also having to keep his wits about him, in the cut-and-thrust of the competition for the top prize of £1,000 [£17,000 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed], will be question master Bill Grundy.

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BENEATH that blonde champagne bubble exterior Barbara Kelly has more driving force than a Blue Streak rocket after countdown.

As well as hostessing Criss Cross Quiz, she finds time to cope with the large demanding Braden flat in Knightsbridge and the demanding Braden family. To put the seal on her capabilities. she successfully stepped in for her husband, Bernard Braden, on The Braden Beat when he was on holiday.

But after working-hours, when she gets home and kicks off her shoes, how does Barbara Kelly relax?

When she’s comfortably settled in a chair, putting on a cigarette she’ll probably reach for a science fiction novel. “I love them,” she said. “For their sheer escapism. When I sink into the fantasy world of, say, a Bradbury book, all the cares and concerns of the day seem a million miles away.”

But this Canadian bom actress who arrived in England 17 years ago doesn’t stay idle long.

She’s soon out of that chair, pursuing her latest hobby, painting. Not houses, but pictures. Recently two of her oils were shown in St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square.

Can anything stop this 5ft. 6in. blonde dynamo in her tracks? For a moment I thought so when I mentioned the prospect of her shortly becoming a grandmother. “It’s a bit shattering,” said Barbara, then she shrugged and finished. “But I’m sure I shall get used to it like anything else.”

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DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON defined the word “challenge,” in the first English dictionary more than 200 years ago, as “a summons to combat.”

If Dr. Johnson’s roiling and splendid definitions haven’t yet made any particular impact on the competitors in the Monday evening battle of Britain’s brightest wits, University Challenge, they certainly will over the next few weeks.

Because this week the programme launches its own knockout competition among the eight teams unbeaten so far in the show. And the prize for the winning university is a first edition of Dr. Johnson’s dictionary.

“It is the general knowledge equivalent of the F.A. cup.” said producer Patricia Owtram. “The sort of champion-of-champions competition that most viewers have wanted.”

The teams through to the final are: King’s College, London; Keble College, Oxford; Balliol College, Oxford; Keele College, North Staffs; Birbeck College, London; Leicester University; Leeds University and Nottingham University.

In each of the rounds they will play the best of three games.

Dr. Johnson’s feelings about such contests aren’t on record. But a glance through the dictionary – stowed away for the time being in Patricia Owtram’s safe — provides fascinating comment on many other things.

It is perhaps as well, for instance, that there are no Scottish teams involved in the final knockout.

Dr. Johnson sometimes let his feelings colour his definitions. He had a down on Scotsmen, and when he came to the word “oats” he wrote: “A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.” [This was a comment upon the poverty of Scotland vs the prosperity of England, not on the quality of the Scottish people – Ed]

He didn’t like paying his taxes either. So about the word “excise” he wrote: “A hateful tax, levied upon commodities and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.”

The Commissioners of Excise were so annoyed by this definition that they complained to the Attorney-General. But the definition stayed in.

The modern image of Dr Johnson is that of a pompous, self-assured man, but he had his occasions of great humility.

This was never illustrated more clearly than in his definition of the word “lexicographer,” which was “a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.”

The first edition copy of the greatest work of this particular “harmless drudge” is valued, at present market rating, at several hundred pounds.

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JULIE BISHOP, co-host with David Gell in Granada’s Concentration, can certainly claim to be the mostest hostess. This 20-year-old ash blonde — a dancer since she was nine — has been a hostess on and off since January, 1958, in Spot the Tune, Twenty-One and now Concentration.

Between times, she’s fully booked as a model — “It makes a nice change, and I find the work very interesting.”

When she does manage to snatch a breather, she takes to the water — either in it or on it.

“When I was dancing in a summer season show at Coventry, Jon Pertwee, who was one of the stars, taught me to water-ski.”

Julie’s green eyes sparkle as she recalls her days in variety at the London Hippodrome. “I used to dive into a pool on stage. Only one slip in 500 performances…. We had to dip under a bar, and that night I hit my head on it.

“There was real panic for a moment. AH the stage manager could see was my head floating just below the surface, and he yelled, frantically ‘Drop the curtain — she’s drowning.’ But I was only stunned, and my partner pulled me to safety.”

Born with the sound of the sea in her ears — on the island of Sheppey, at the mouth of the Thames — she loves nothing better than “just messing about in boats.” Mostly, it’s been plain sailing. “But one day the engine gave out on us,” she I laughed. “We were drifting helplessly. Then along came a tanker. One of the crew repaired our engine, and the skipper invited us on board for tea. It was a bit of luck they happened to be there.”

Julie’s real name is Jeanette. Julie is a nickname.

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THHERE are right times and wrong times for making admissions. David Jacobs, host and star of Granada’s Make Up Your Mind every Monday, just picked the wrong one.

We were on the premises of a London firm that specialises in hiring to the theatrical profession every kind of “prop,” from 17th century chintz curtains (if they had chintz in those days) to spindly-legged contemporary armchairs.

David was there at my invitation – to see just how good he is at valuing objects, which is the torture he puts contestants through. He’d just picked up a natty piece of antique china, worth something like £120. Balancing it on two fingers, he said:

“I’ve had to take out an insurance policy against breaking things. I’m always liable to bust something when I’m snooping around looking for objects for the programme.”

The silence that followed was broken by a swishing sound… the manager of the store breaking through the sound barrier in an effort to reach David before his insurance premium became due!

Happy David Jacobs. (Happier insurance company.) He didn’t break, smash, drop, knock over or even dislodge a single item during our get-together. And, take note: when our session was over, I had the impression that if David were to appear as a contestant in his own show, he’d walk off with all the prizes.

We started quizzing him with a German beer mug (empty). “Had one, not as old as this, on the programme,” said David. “I remember somebody from British European Airways winning it. I’d say this in worth £4.” The value turned out to be a fiver.

He picked up a piece of china with an “N” stamped underneath it. “Napoleon?” I asked, confidently showing off.

“Made in a Naples factory,” corrected David, who was rapidly beginning to emerge as an expert … especially on antiques. (Later I found they are his hobby… he fills his house with them.)

Here at Old Times Furnishing, a Chinese wall drape, containing every colour of the rainbow, was the next test. He classified it as “not worth a great deal really – say £20.” He was a fiver out. And that took us to a French workbox – and a catch question.

“Not worth a light,” claimed David, breezily. “This is not the original top. Instead of this flower motif there should be a Sevres plaque. The rest is genuine, but the funny top makes it worthless.”

My deep-laid trap had gone awry. The man knows his stuff.

On modern furniture – although he doesn’t particularly care for anything contemporary – he was right on the market. Within ten shillings on a mahogany sideboard. Within half-a-crown on an ordinary chair. Five bob out on an armchair. Bang on the mark for a mattress.

We tried antiques again… weapons this time. He picked a deadly looking sword from a batch of them, swished it through the air, tried the edge and complained: “It’s not very sharp.”

It wasn’t. But as a valuer, David Jacobs is.

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