President: Charles Key, B.Sc.

Vol. 1 No. 1

I»m delighted to he offered this opportunity of hanselling the firs'? Mastermind Club magazine. It’s a remarkable fraternity (and sorority), the Mastermind Club; when we started Mastermind all those years ago, we had no idea what we were starting. What has emerged is not just a ’ cult "as the newspapers used to call it, but a very real friendship based on shared ordeal - rather like ex-servicemen!It’s also an elite club, in the very best sense of the term, because those who were chosen as contenders from 3,500 applicants a year had to satisfy certain (admittedly subjective) criteria; of knowledgs, of course,,. but also of personality and sportsmanship. When Bill Wright auditions., I don’t think he’s looking for winners so much as. players. And I’m sure that all of us on Mastermind realise that it’s just a bloody game!I hope the Club flourishes like mad, and that I shall be invited to attend local as well as national meetings. I also hope there will be second thoughts about the tie, which I think is horrible right now. A blue tic-with a single lego would be much better - or a white tie. with a black chair on it?I’’re told Charles Key what I think about the present one, sc I’m not being disloyal!We’ve also had a lot of correspondence about the alleged chauv­inism of the tie; what are the women to wear? I have sugges­ted that the most suitable thing would be Mastermind-monogrammed knickers; but the staider members of the club feel that a head or neck scarf would be more suitable.What a pity! Just imagine the nuances that could be applied to the age-old phrase, ’More than just a pretty face!’’’Anyway - to all my friends from Mastermind, to all my friends who put up with my bad judgements without complaining, to all my friends who ha"~e found new friends through the Club, I send my best wishes, and look forward to seeing you all again at some gathering, as soon as possible.

Warmest regards,

Magnus Magnusson.

First issue of BASS April 1979

GREETINGS»

This is the first issue of PASS, the magazine of the Mastermind Club. Hopefully, it will appear bi-monthly, and although this first copy ie duplicated, I sincerely hope that the magazine will go from strength to strength, eventually taking on a more attractive, professional and interesting appearance, rightly becoming a fitting showpiece to represent our membership.

t r i / kJIIaT XXX {\-t J

The prime editorial policy of PASS will be that of entertainment. No publication can hope or deserve to survive if its content is continually boring, mediocre and repetitive. Whilst I person­ally feel quite confident that the editorial team of PASS will have no problem whatsoever in producing an interesting bi­monthly publication, at the end of the day themagazine, and in fact the, Mastermind Club itself can only be as good as the' members who support it* Please therefore,do not sit back nonchalantly. Let me hrar your views. Criticise by all means, but please take up the pen and write.Apart from having entertainment value, the magazine will be publishing items of news, future events planned by the Club and like information. Advertisements may be placed by Club members, free of -charge.’. All items for inclusion in future issues of PASS should be sent to the editor, whose address appears on the back page of this issue:Finally, I would like to thank Charles Key, our President, 'for his efforts in getting the Club formed and also the BBC for their assistance, and I look forward to hearing your views and comments no matter how controversial.

Editor.* ? !• A • ••

r. . ? • *$<-•*** . -- -• **- ..v7 U O' ’ »

M A S T E R Q U I Z : ; 1 ’’

... -Each issue of PASS will contain a general knowledge quiz. . The questions are designed to test the ingenuity of Club members, and each is worded in such a manner that it will be difficult to ’look it up’ readily. Members wishing to enter the quiz should send theri completed answers to the editor. All answersK must be received by the editor on or before the 14th day of the- month of issue. Each quiz will contain 12 questions.; The names of the contestants answering the questions most accurately will appear in the following issue of PASS. Only'thikse members will be eligible to enter the next round, although it is hoped the quiz will continue to tax the brains of those who have citherbeen knocked-oiit or haven ’ t2taken part in-the actual comp-

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etition. The quiz will take on the form of a knock-out comp­etition and hy gradual elimination a final quiz will he set, leading to. the outright winner of the series, who will he awarded a prize, yet to he decided upon.

MASTERQUIZ 1

'( -1- • ■ •• . ( - -."l ff *>i ; f ■ 'if ■ c -o .. - -1. Which of the states of the U.S.A. are known as the Tri-

States?2. What is Eauxburden?5. In which subject would you encounter the terms lateral

pocket, central pocket and composite?4-. Which English composer was imprisoned for heresy?5. Who wrote the Comparative Anatomy of Trunks in 1675?6. Which disaster occurred on December 28th, 1879?7. The current G.P.O. 10ip postage stamp is coloured grey-

blue. What colour was the previous 1O^p postage stamp?8. What is the Hope device?9. Which British construction was opened in 1864?10. What is the unusual feature of a Hamilton hottie?11. Who.was the first man to hold a British pilots licence?12. ’If the British Communists were ordered to take over a

railway station, they would buy platform tickets first’. Who is reputed to have said this?

Editor

BRAIN OE MENSA 1978I r, ’ ’ : ■ Jv . A- .1 1 v

f • . ’

Margery Elliott has won the title ’Brain of Mensa 1978’. The first woman to win in the four years of the competition, which is a general knowledge quiz. Unfortunately for her, the change from ’Supermini' to ’Internetional Mastermind’ has meant that, unlike her two immediate predecessors, she was not challenged by the BBC to appear on ’Supermind’.Margery was a semi-finalist in the 1973 ’Mastermind’ series, failing by only one point to reach the finals, after a tie and the first ever ’sudden-death’ play off in the competition. In 1976 she was a finalist in Radio four’s ’Brain of Britain’ in which she came third.

sX- rij • ill >j • • • • v j *rf •« -f + feftJWHAT IS _k MASTERMIND ?

Somewhere in any standard English dictionary, between masochism and matrimony one can find the ’possessor of an outstanding

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intellect1; ’a chief, or superior mind’; ’a predominant mind*;•a first class mind’;or ’a chief controlling power behind a scheme’. The word mastermind i.; I think, very aptly placed, for I am sure that many past contenders of this BBC TV quiz have been eyed up and down curiously by their friends and coll­eagues who had not suspected them of such tendencies, for there does appear to be an innate fear of the dreaded chair by most people who just watch the programme, let alone take part in it.The lexicographic position of the word appears- even more apt, for when a contender is informed that he or she has been ’lucky1 enough to be selected to appear on ’Mastermind’ the prospective contender quite oftenexperiences a feeling of being trapped with no escape. This, by way of pure coincidence gets us back Vo matrimony.Perhaps our members would, like to submit their own succinct definitions of the word, or may have some across an unusual or amusing definition of the word, worthy of publication in a future issue of PASS. Alternatively, it might be interesting to suggest the names of some likely historical characters who could rightly have been described as masterminds.

s’ • * . •SHERLOCK HOLMES AliP MAS TERMINB

by B. Martin Bakin

Holmes was the specialist subject I chose for my first round - the same choice as our esteemed President the previous year, although I blush to admit that on that occasion it was I who devised the questions hurled at him.But thinking it over I was struck by the idea that Holmes himself would have made an admirable contestant for Mastermind, and would scarcely have failed to carry off the trophy in any year he had entered for it. It is true that, when he had only known him a short time, Watson formed a very restricted idea of the limitations of his friend’s knowledge. He rated astronomy, philosophy and literature as nil; politics feeble; botany, geo­logy and anatomy very fair. He only gave top marks to chemistry and ’sentimental literature’ - ’He seems to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century* (Study in Scarlet).When Watson mentioned Carlyle, he naively inquired who Tie- was andwhat he had done; and he shocked him by professing complete ignorance of the solar system. He excused this by pleading that thebrain had limited capacity and he would only fill his with knowledge directly relevant to his professional work.But he contradicted this later -in The Valley of Fear, when he said: ’Breadth of view*...is one of tKe'essentials of our pro-, fession. The interplay of ideas and the oblique uses of know­ledge are often of extraordinary interest’. And as Watson came to know him better he must have-- realised how completely he had misjudged Holmes’s storehouse of information, which proved so encyclopedic that one can hardly avoid the suspicion that at the beginning he was indulging in a little leg pulling at the doctor’s expense - a thing he was not averse from doing.

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Politics - he knew enough to tell lord Bellingerthe name of the rash monarch who wrote the fatal letter (Second Stain) and reel off the names and titles of the King of BoKemia TScandal in Bohemia). As for philosophy, he constantly quoted ancient and modern,philosophers (including Carlyle himself whom he compared to Jean-Paul Richters Sigh of Pour), and frequently philosophizes himself on the problems of human life. The man who was supposed to he ignorant of literature quoted from the Bible, Horace, Tacitus, Alistain, Shakespeare, Bradford (mis- attributed), Thoreau, Meredith, Richter, Boileau, Plaubert (incorrectly) and Goethe (the last three in the original), had a pocket Petrach and compared Horace vzith the Persian poet Hafiz. In Th_e_ Greek Interpreter he discussed the causes of the changes in the obliquTty^ of "the ecliptic, which argues fairly advanced astronomy of the solar system,- and in The Sign of Pour he ..dis­coursed on ’Miracle plays, medieval pottery, Stradivarius violins, the Buddhism.of ceylon, the warships of the future - handling each as though he had made a special study of it I Besides the monographs he wrote on obvious professional subjects like foot­prints, influence of trades on the hand and distinction between ashes of tobacco, he wrote a booklet on medieval music ’said by experts to be the last word on the subject’ (Brucc-Partingt on Plans) ; he studied medieval English charters (Thr ee ^5tudeufsj and monastic documents; and his theory that the ancient Cornish language was derived from Chaldean roots (Devil*s Foot), if fantastic, shows an expert knowledge of botli.A Mastermind indeed! Had he entered for the contest I wonder what specialist subject he would have selected? The science of deduction, doubtless, for the first round, and probably the criminal history of the last century for the second, mid what for the third, which he couldn't have failed to reach? Any of the subjects mentioned above? Or might he have chosen the Life of the Bee, a hobby to which he devoted his time after retire­ment? Yet his dislike of notoriety, on which Watson so often insists, might well have dissuaded him from appearing before the public eye in the way we lesser mortals have been brazen enough to do. Therefore I hesitate to suggest that we approach him in the Sussex retreat where he presumably still lives at the advanced age of 124, and invite him to become an Honorary Member of the Mastermind Club.

LIASTERMINL INTERNATIONAL

I feel honoured to have received an invitation to writesomething for the ’Mastermind Club’ magazine, and it provides me with an opportunity to inform you of the latest development of the Mastermind format, which is ’Mastermind International’.It was recorded at the Guildhall, City of London, and was trans­mitted on Wednesday, February 18th at 8.10 pm on BBC 1.The programme came about vzhen I discovered that many other countries were interested in using the ’Mastermind’ format to

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establish their own champions, so I extended an invitation for their title holders to take part in an Internetional,No less than five ’Mastermind1 champions came forward, they were from Australia, New Zealand and Nigeria, plus our own ’mastermind1 of 1978 and the ’Jubilee Mastermind’.The Irish republic sent their television ‘Top Scors’ winner, and Canada was represented by the winner of the American *^128,000 i*.e stion* quiz.

The programme was a great success, but the ’Comedian’s Union’ were somewhat upset as with ’the gentleman from Cork’ winning5 the age old ’Irish joke’ died a death, but they needn’t have worries because the Irish put it right by inadvertently leaking the result before the programme was transmitted!, but, to be serious for a moment, it was a well deserved victory and all the contestants matched up well to the demands of ’Mastermind’.The International aspect of the competition, I find, most rewarding, and little did I think eight years ago that this would become a reality, providing, as I’m sure it will, many new recruits for perhaps one of the most exclusive clubs in the country. The formation of which being an extra incentive for the ’Mastermind* production team to keep the programme going for many, many years, indeed forever!Good luck to you all,Bill Wright.

HUGH. MERRICK^ UOYENJUS TERMING

\ When I first approached the ubiquitous Hugh Merrick with the ' Challenge of supplying me with a condensed account of his 81

years of hectic and diverse activity, I believed the request to be somewhat unfair, if not impossible. However, within a very short while, Hugh complied with my request and it was then that I was faced with the impossible. Just how does one condense such a full and active life into a handful of words? Quite often the boigrapher is faced with the problem of finding sufficient interesting material about his subject, but in the ease of Hugh Merrick it is quite to the contraru.Born in New York in 1898, Hugh was brought to London at the age of 20 months and has been a Londoner ever since. He received his education at Westminster School (King’s Scholar) and later at Christ Church, Oxford as a Classical Scholar reading Greats, and also gaining post-graduate honours in Modern Languages with Distinction.During the First World War he served with the </5th S. Lancs, mostly in India, from 1916-1919. It was during this period, whilst on sick leave at Darjeeling, that Hugh’s life-long love

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of mountains was kindled. To quote his own words he is ’mount­ain mad1’ .On his return to England in 1919 he went up to Oxford and made his mark on th running track, representing the University in the 100 yards and the 220 yard, relays against Cambridge, Later he took the Sussex 100 and 220 titles and won the A.A.A. ’gold’ as a member of the winning Achilles Relay team at the 1925 championships.in 1926 he married Myfanwy Jenkins and has a daughter and son who have provided him with three granddaughters.

of tho Stock Exchange (15 a Principal at the Admiralty

Aviation, finally business executive, no rorm of occupation was unattainable to the adept Hugh Merrick Luring the years of the Second World War he was totally steeped in intelligence activities in theadministration of Censorship where he became operational head in the Overseas Secretariat, visiting New York in 1944 on a liaisonmission to the U.S. Censorship. Finding himself still

Schoolmaster? bank clerk, member wasted years;, administrator, as and the Ministry of Civil

-p

unestablished ’ after 13 years in the service, he dived head'first into the world of commerce, the Rediffusion Group from 1952 - at the age of 65.

aged 54, as an executive with1963, ■etiring compulsorily

Retirement is an experience unknown to Hugh. Throughout his active years he has teen, and still is, engaged in many ’spare­time’ activities, of which writing, music and mountaineering have taken prime position. He is a well published and prolific writer and has had five novels and numerous non-fiction volumeson mountains and travel

>een the traineerxng classics into factual, ’Comnanion to the Alp

output has?.g

English.

published. But since 1955 his nslation of a dozen or more mount-

His latest two works have beenand

J C;onnets to the Argentinea small cycli (of wiiioh 1 ai

collection the proudoi poems,

owner of a signed copy) both of which appeared in 1974. When asked where he ever found the time to produce these literary creations, ho simpljr replies. ’Search mel I really have no idea, for my real jobs were pretty exacting5.

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A violinist since the ago of 6, Hugh still spends time each day practising his double stoppings and vibrato,0 and on my visit to his London flat last year, 1 had the great pleasure of hearing his rendition of the sublimely poetic G major Sonata of Brahms, in partnership with that rising young professional pianist Geoffrey Osborn. I also had the pleasurable experience of hearing Hugh play my own composition ’Elegaic Melody’ for piano and violin. When it is realised that he played the piec< irem

mus-sight, reading from my untidy handwritten manuscript, his leal prowess can be fully appreciated.

Eis introduction to mountain scenery also came at the age of 6 whilst with his parents in Switzerland, and on his arrival in the Himalayas during the 1914 ~ 18 war his youthful enthus­iasm led to a life-long pre-occupation with mountains. Apart from the standard climbs in which he has been involved, Hugh has been an avid mountain walker and scrambler. His wife, who

7

died in.1969, was also a tireless walker and courageous clim­ber, and for twenty years shared the same rope as Hugh on numerous Alpine ascents. As a trained concert pianist she was also his perfect musical companion for more than forty years.Since her death, Hugh has found a new interest as an oil painter. Although self-taught he has now completed some 60 canvases, some, of which are adorning walls as far afield as Peru, Hugh considers this pastime a most marvellous activity for relax­ation end disposing of solitary hours when one lives alone, as he does.Although I competed against Hugh on the same programme I hear him no malice for heating me hy one mark. Those of you who may recall his TV appearance will no doubt remember the superb way in which he answered his questions. Although he expressed to me a certain natural apprehension before his ’ordeal’, I admired the aplomb with which a man of years attacked the chair fear­lessly.At a youthful 81 Hugh Merrick has just heard that he has qual­ified to appear on ’Brain of Britain’ this year and this further goes to show that old Paganini still relishes a mental challenge. When I visited Hugh, I was cooked an excellent Steak with garnish, finally convincing me that he- is definitely ’Jack of All Trades’ and ’Master of All’.

M. J. Leadbetter.

NEWS_ ITEMS

Our Lady members may rest assured that they have not been for­gotten. Scarves and brooches will soon be available, and I am informed by the Secretary that the designs of both are extremely tasteful. Although the pipeline seems somewhat long, those ladies who eventually purchase either or both of these items will be most delighted.

The much discussed reunion in Edinburgh prior to the 1978 Mastermind Final was a great success, Seven members and their guests joined with Magnus Magnussbn in wining, dining and conversing until very late into the night. Unfortunately, Bill Wright could not be there, but, it goes without saying, all had a wonderful time nevertheless.

Club ties, bearing the chair motif may be purchased from the Treasurer. The ties with the repeated logo on a blue or bronze background, woven in Terylene, are priced £5, inclusive of post and packing.

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A BATE EOR JOUR DIARY

^he Club will be holding a Grand Reunion on September 1st,1979 at the BBC TV Centre, Wood Lane, London W 12., as guestsof Cliff Morgan, Head of Outside Broadcasts. There will bean evening reception and buffet. Please book this date inyour diary, furtner details will follow.

COMMITTEE

President and Treasurer Vice PresidentREGIONAL COMMITTEE MEMBERSLondon & Hone Counties

Charles KeyJohn Palmer-Barnes

South East England MidlandsNorth of England ScotlandSouth West of EnglandUlsterWales

Margaret Garratt - Secretarylance HawardPatricia OwenSue JenkinsMargery ElliottRobert HeskethArmando MargiottaDr K. Gerald MackenzieMary GrummittJune Maggs

EllaCM Martin Leadbetter

INDEX

Magnus Magnusson.Editorial.Ma at erquiz 1 .Brain of Mensa 1978.What is a Mastermind?Sherlock Holmes & Mastermind.Mastermind International.Mugh Kerrick, Doyen Mastermind.Mens _terns.

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