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.

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.

PRESENTING a new face of Mike Sarne. Smeared with shaving lather as he is here, is not exactly the face mean.

I’m talking about Sarne the photographer. There is little difference between the new Sarne and Sarne the actor, author, journalist, quizmaster, pop singer, poetry enthusiast, and former student at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

Except, perhaps, that here he is a little more curious. Look at our pictures again. These were taken, believe it or not, by our specially commissioned photographer, Mike Sarne.

The portrait of the artist as a young man with a camera strung round his neck was accomplished by the grace of what is known in dark-room vernacular as a “mirror.”

The picture of Mike “through the looking glass” was a little more difficult. No mirror was used, but it required a delayed-action exposure, and a deft fleetness of foot to get round the other side of the lens and into position before the thing went off.

He is certainly a keen cameraman — with an eye for the colourful as well as the unusual. Mike helps control a fashion photography studio in Chiswick.

Apart from regularly compering Junior Criss Cross Quiz on Thursdays, he has recently finished making a film. “Everyday’s a Holiday” — which is now on release.

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