Dear LPG,   

I do love a quiz and during the past 10 or so years since I retired, my love for them has not waned.   I get involved in the one that happens weekly at my local club, and my early evenings and weekends have become the optimum time for tea with the telly because there are so many to choose from.  

Perhaps the reason is that they stretch the mind without reminding me of all the really depressing news that each new day brings to our world when we listen to the international news broadcasts.   If you are an addict like me, your mind will be consumed by the answers to the questions you read, watch or hear because trying to find the answers before the contestant does is often either immediate or a punishing exercise that I feel I have to get right if I possibly can.    

They are my ‘turn-to’ programmes and have been for so much of my life.  I can remember Michael Miles with take your pick and Hughie Green although I have to admit that Bamber Gascoigne’s University challenge and Adam Beckworth’s The Krypton Factor went right over my head.  Perhaps the golden age for me was the Bruce Forsyth era when I would find myself watching the mayhem that was The Generation Game.  Who can forget Play Your Cards Right and Jim Bowen will always be the Bullseye man for me.   I could Name That tune in two sometimes but though it was a children’s quiz game and I was a grown mum at the time, there was one particular game show that really caught my imagination.  

My fascination with the C I T V (Children’s ITV) series, Knightmare, would often force me to postpone the making of my children’s after-school snack on many an occasion.  I would find myself right in the middle of the action and, while with many other game shows, it was easy to follow the action by just listening, what was to be seen on the screen was often unmissable.  When it first aired, the young contestants were about the same age as my children and in a way I felt that we all had a sense of being the young person in the team who was actually on the quest.  The questions were riddles rather than posers of the usual general knowledge variety, and that was also very different.  I watched many a game show each week back then, and it was good to have one that held the interest of both the generations.  There were many really good shows at the time, and I often wonder what was so special about that one, but whatever it was, it kept me watching.  

Though the children of today would not be that impressed, the graphics were ground-breaking, and my family had only recently changed to a colour television (the difference in licence price had helped us to delay).  Until I saw that, I thought that the only viewers who really needed colour were snooker players because ball colour is quite important when following that sport, but watching Knightmare completely changed my mind.   

I came across the series on YouTube recently and thought that watching it might bring back a few memories for a few more septuagenarian game show addicts… enjoy.  

RL, Lewisham. 

 

RL shares the YouTube videos that might just take you right back to the action…

 

 

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