One of the things I’m missing during this enforced isolation is the pub quiz.

I have been involved but quizzes in many forms over the years but before the pub quiz as we know it today evolved quiz machines began to appear. My earliest recollection is a very primitive machine which was in The Gerston Hotel opposite the railway station Paignton. As I recall it was a simple machine with moving cards and with a limited number of questions. Eventually you knew what was coming and it was difficult to lose. The pub is no longer there having been replaced by shops – but a blue plaque on the side records the first performance of Pirates of Penzance in the Royal Bijou Theatre at the rear. The theatre may no longer exist but the Bijou Theatre Company still perform at the Palace Theatre in Paignton

There was a time when people would go around using the machines to actually earn a living due to the limited number of questions. I can recall that some places actually banned certain individuals from their quiz machines. Modern machines are too sophisticated to allow that kind of winning.

Then came the pub quiz. At some stage in the 1970s I joined a team which took part in the Torbay Quiz League. The league was very strong in those days with 4 leagues of 10 teams sponsored by the Herald Express. Teams came from all of Torbay. I played for the Torbay Inn in Fisher Street, Paignton having been invited by a work colleague.

The quiz was in two parts – general knowledge and sports – each having its own League. We had a reasonably strong general knowledge team but our sports knowledge was much less. I recall that we topped our league on a couple of occasions and got to the knockout rounds against other league winners but we never managed to win a title.

After a few years I left the Torbay Inn team to join a team playing for the Globe Inn Brixham as it was nearer home. Again we had a few wins. One year I took out from playing to set the questions for the General Knowledge Leagues. It was quite an arduous task as the questions had to be with the secretary by a deadline and you had to make sure as far as possible you have the right answers. I made a couple of mistakes during my year and my fellow team reminded me of this on numerous occasions. The Globe is now called ‘The Olde Coaching House’.

The Globe at the time was run by the same landlord for about 17 years – Ken Watts – and when he retired the team moved to the Manor Inn Galmpton where again we played for a few years.

Living in Kingswear and drinking in The Ship Inn we tried to enrol a team in the league from there. However the organising committee felt it was too far away and declined our application. With that we decided to form a new league for pubs both sides of the River Dart and not surprisingly called it the River Dart Quiz League. One of my co-founders and I set the questions between us for a number of years but I don’t think the league exists anymore.

The Torbay Quiz League still exists this is but because of the rise of the pub quiz where there are prizes of beer or money the number of participants is down to around 8 teams.

One of these new breed of quiz which we went to regularly visit was another Manor Inn – the one in Brixham. This was every Sunday night over the winter but unfortunately the availability of prize money made many people were very competitive. Although it was the day before Googling with mobile phones was prevalent we knew that one or two used to go out to the toilet to ‘phone a friend’

Apart from occasional quizzes in various places over the years I’ve not done anything serious in quizzes. I have taken part in on quizzes when I away on holiday. I remember one particular occasion in York where I won four pints of beer and had to go in the next night to drink it. Not a difficult decision.

Then the Queens Arms at Brixham started their own quiz once a month. This is a friendly quiz with no entry fee and no prizes (though the landlord occasionally gives a the winning team a bottle of wine). It is still has a competitive edge but it altogether a more pleasant evening. A year or so ago I volunteered to read the questions as they are written by a professional pub quiz supplier from the north of England. This is much easier than setting them yourself. We do have the occasional prize-winning quiz for various local charities. Last year I set one to raise funds towards the defibrillator installed in a phone box outside the pub.

I know that after this virus is gone we will be back at Queens for our regular quiz.

Long live the pub quiz!