Geoff Swanney
Some reminiscences by Andrew Hunter
I played in the same team, which was Rams
(except when we were called Gang of Elks), as Geoff for 20 years (1986-87 to
2005-06). Most of our matches were in the Grimsby & District Quiz League,
but we did visit exotic locations such as Hull and Luton. We won many times,
collecting an impressive number of trophies and cups; we would have won far
fewer without Geoff.
In any quiz we could count on there being
at least question to which only Geoff knew the answer. From time to time it
happened that only Geoff understood the question.
Geoff was always anxious to give
precisely the right answer, and was quite prepared to argue with his own team,
the opposition, the question-master, and anyone else who was present to do
this. He never allowed distractions to his efforts in this direction, least of
all that he had given the right answer and had been awarded the points.
When it came to setting questions, Geoff
will remembered for his ghetto-blaster, which was heard throughout the quiz
league (and the next room, the next building and the next street). He had a
distinctive practice of playing a long piece of music - so long, that by the
end you had forgotten the beginning - before giving any hint as to what
question he was going to ask about it.
Geoff, to me the story - more than once -
of how he had lived his early life in Hatfield, and how he was patted on the
head by the old gentleman who lived at the end of the road, and told what a
nice boy he was. That the old gentleman was George Bernard Shaw. Geoff did
admit that G.B.S. did this to many of the young boys that he met. It might have
been, however, that G.B.S. had a sense of humour, or that he was getting on a
bit by this time, and his judgment was not what it had been, or, possibly, that
G.B.S. had noticed some quality that remained unseen by the rest of us.
A.W.H. 23rd. Dec. 2010.
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