Last updated at 20:08, Thursday, 02 August 2012

Quiz time is here again!

A couple of my readers have told me how much they enjoy them – so here goes.

Let’s see just how much you can remember about my pieces in the past couple of years.

Answers will be given next week – so hang on to this week’s paper.

No prizes involved – just the reassuring knowledge that your memory does actually work.

1. An easy one to begin with. Who officially declared the West Cumberland Industrial Exhibition open in 1948?

2. Why would you hang strands of seaweed up in your house?

3. Peter the Great introduced a rather novel tax into Russia in 1705. What was it?

4. The Queen’s Jubilee Hall was opened in Workington in 1887.

It was built for the Workington & District Liberal Company Ltd.

After they disposed of it, what was it used for?

5. In 1960, a Jive Marathon was held in Workington Drill Hall. Which super-fit couple outstayed their opponents and won the competition?

6. An advert appeared in the 1889 local papers for Zokko.

What was Zokko?

7. What did the Maryport Gas Light Company do for their customers in October 1847?

8. He was responsible for compiling the Reliques of Ancient Poetry in 1765.

Who was he – and what was his connection with Cumberland?

9. What is the name of the patron saint for people with hangovers?

10. “Better a man had never been born – than …….” Complete this little rhyme.

11. Workington used to have its very own ballet company in 1954. What was it called?

Where was it based?

Who founded it?

12. WD Caffrey – a local man – was awarded the silver medal and bar in January 1899 for “service rendered in the Frontier Expedition War.”

His medal had the words Fenian Raid inscribed on its rim. What were the Fenian Raids?

13. What part did Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte play in the development of Cumbrian dialect literature in 1858 and 1859?

14. According to one old superstition, what’s likely to happen to you if you sing before breakfast?

15. Readers of this column will by now have realised that, as well as being a superstitious soul, I’m also a bit of a hypochondriac.

So, and I have mentioned this one a few times over the years – what would you do with an onion if you’re going down with a cold?

16. Gerald Gillett started it in April 1972. What was it?

17. Back in 1845, dialect poet John Rayson penned a poem, which was none too complimentary to the young, and possibly older, females of a particular Cumbrian town.

It began:

“The Deil’s i' the lasses o xxxxxxxxx, For navvies they’re aw ganan mad!”

So which town was he writing about?

18. He just happened to have knocked out a short poem – entitled To the Tea Makers – for a meal laid on for a group from West Cumberland, which visited Keswick in 1899.

Who was this poet?

19. “When fate hands us a lemon, let’s try to make lemonade!”

I’m quoting from a famous American millionaire.

Name him!

20. Which 19th century local MP wanted to abolish the House of Lords?

And there we have it. Twenty questions!

Now wasn’t that the name of an old radio quiz programme?

First published at 19:21, Thursday, 02 August 2012
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk