Tragic death of an Eggheads winner

From ERIC SHACKLE, in Sydney, Australia,
<ericshackleATbigpond.com>

A dark cloud has cast a shadow over my favourite quiz show, BBC-2’s Eggheads.  We in Australia watch it daily at 5pm on ABC-1, but we see it more than a year after it’s broadcast in Britain.

 

“A pub quiz champion who appeared on the popular general knowledge show Eggheads has killed himself – less than 48 hours after the episode was aired on TV”, Suzannah Hills reported in the London Daily Mail on January 20, 2012.

 

“Council worker Max Thomson, 49, and his teammates successfully defeated the Eggheads on the daily BBC show, winning £5,000.

 

“The episode was aired on Monday night, but two days later he jumped from a multi-storey car park at Ocean Terminal in Edinburgh.”

 

His friend, Mr. Pendreich, said, “Max came to my house with his mum and sister to watch Eggheads and was his usual cheery self. It was the first time I had seen the show, and I had never seen him so happy as he was at the end, when he hugged David, one of the other guys in the team.

 

“Quizzes were Max’s passion. He was well known on the quiz circuit in north Edinburgh  because he was good and because he got on with everyone. We were shocked and devastated to hear the news.”

 

 

Eggheads is a BBC quiz show created by 12 Yard Productions, first broadcast in 2003, and co-presented by Dermot Murnaghan and Jeremy Vine. For the 2008 series, Jeremy Vine was brought in to present on nights when Murnaghan was hosting the spinoff series Are You an Egghead?. This happened again from October 2009 while Murnaghan presented the second series of the spinoff show.^[1] Since the spin-off show finished, Jeremy Vine has continued to host the second half of each series, which broadcasts 52 weeks a year. The show pits a team of five 'Eggheads' (made up from seven^[2] highly regarded quiz and game show champions, rotating each episode) against a series of teams of five 'challengers' who in each episode attempt to beat the Eggheads through a series of rounds. It is normally shown weekdays every week.

 

Daphne Fowler (née Bradshaw, also formerly known as Daphne Hudson, now 74, was born in Warwick, Warwickshire, England, is an English retired bank secretary and game show champion who currently resides in Weston-super-Mare.^[1] Since taking early retirement, she has taken part in many televised game shows. She has won many titles, including winning Fifteen to One (twice), Going for Gold and Brain of Britain. She is currently taking part in the game show Eggheads, where she is one of the team of seven game show champions challenged daily by a new quiz team. Daphne has been described as "Britain's best known female quiz cotestant".^[2]

	Arnold Keppel, 8th Earl of Albemarle (Daphne’s great-grandfather)Walter, 9th Earl of Albemarle (grandfather) Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (second cousin once removed)

Judith Cynthia Aline Keppel (born 18 August 1942) ^[1] was the first one million-pound winner on the television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in the United Kingdom.

Alice Keppel (born October 14, 1869, died November 22, 1947) was the most famous of the mistresses of King Edward VII. She was the great-grandmother of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

 

Pat Gibson (born 19 July 1961 Galway, Ireland) is an Irish quiz player. He is a multiple world champion in quizzing and one of the world's most successful quiz players. He is best known for winning several quiz shows and being a panellist on Eggheads. He was born and educated in Ireland but has lived in the United Kingdom for many years.

 

Christopher John Hughes (born 14 August 1947, in Enfield, Middlesex , U.K) is one of Britain's leading quizzers. Hughes was educated at Enfield Grammar School and is a retired train driver and railway worker. He has been a winner of Mastermind (1983), International Mastermind (1983), and Brain of Britain, 2005.^[1] He is one of only five people ever to have won both Mastermind and Brain of Britain.^[2]

He also appeared on The Weakest Link and was voted out in the final elimination round without answering one question incorrectly during the whole show, unique in that he was the only contestant in the gameshow's 13 series history to achieve such a feat.^{[citation needed]}

He currently competes alongside other quiz champions on the UK quiz show Eggheads, in which members of the public pit their wits against them in order to win a cash prize.^[3]

As of 2010, he lived in Crewe, Cheshire.^[4]



Connagh-Joseph "CJ" de Mooi (pronounced [də moːi̯]; born Joseph Connagh, 6 November 1969, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England^[1]), is a professional quizzer^{[clarification needed]} and until August 2012, was the youngest panellist on the BBC television show Eggheads. Born Joseph Connagh, he adopted the surname de Mooi when modelling; which he translates as Dutch for "the Handsome man", though a more literal translation would be "the beautiful". In December 2011 de Mooi announced he had left Eggheads permanently in order to pursue an acting career;^[2] he appeared in broadcast episodes until August 2012, and was replaced on the show by Dave Rainford http://millionaire.wikia.com/wiki/David_Rainford

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