Lockdown Quizzes

There was such an outcry when we said Lockdown Quizzes would end in May that we have decided to restart them in the Autumn, with a new name.

Lockdown quizzes came about by chance when the 2020 Annual Quiz had to be moved online by the organisers, Ann and Andrew. “We did not dream it would be so successful or become a monthly event.” said Ann. “The emphasis was on breaking down social isolation. Only text questions were used, no pictures, so people could join by phone if they weren’t online.”

That first quiz had an amazing 53 teams submitting answers, plus many others not submitting. Ann said: “We were overjoyed by this, but also rather horrified as we had to mark them all! Lesson learned, we asked teams to mark their own in later quizzes.”

Quizzers have been scattered far and wide. The furthest away was in New Zealand; another team was in Aberdeen. Someone even joined from his hospital bed. The youngest was 6 weeks old and there was at least one quizzer in their nineties.

The quiz hosts enjoyed the teams’ entertaining efforts when they couldn’t guess the answer, although no bonus points were awarded (not even to the team that suggested Ann was the poet laureate).

The quizzes’ success has been due to the effort, time and imagination contributed by the quiz hosts and of course the quizzers themselves. Thank you all. We look forward to getting together again on Saturday 25 September.