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Gone but not forgotten - Harry Beevers

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Harry Beevers - there really isn't much that can be said about Harry Beevers that would either contradict or surpass the sentiment that he was quite simply a legend of the Five Towns' Quiz League.  It was with Harry's inspiration and help that I conceived and set up the Five Towns' Quiz League in 1991 and that came about as a result of having got to know him through pub quizzes with my mates Shaun Flanagan and Steve 'the Dude' Scott.

Harry bemoaned, at one Wednesday night quiz, that there were now no quiz leagues to play in in the area as a John Smith's sponsored league had just gone defunct and so I piped up "Well tell you what then Harry, me and you, we'll start one shall we!".

Harry, to say that he had been blind since the 1950s, was never one to let his disability get in his way, a fact notably remarked upon by the local newspaper on his passing, and so setting and playing in quizzes was something he could easily turn his hand to.  When we started the league in 1991, Harry set the quizzes for the first four years and that was what helped to get the league established on such firm foundations as it is these days.

Harry was a top quality quizzer and also one for legendary comments and putdowns and the one which springs most surely to mind was at the Five Towns' Quiz League's first ever finals' night at the Bridge Inn in Whitwood when accosted by Bryan Milner, losing finalist, with the attack "Those questions Harry, they were rubbish...", to which, and this is the measure of the man and his quick wit, Harry immediately fired back with "Not as rubbish as your answers Bryan".  Harry was even known to occasionally get picture questions right, which makes him some boy and his greatest ever answer probably has to be "Bastinado".  Google it.

Harry retired from setting questions for us after four years, feeling that the league had got its feet under the table and he went on to play with more than one team in the league, making 53 league appearances, most notably with the Wright Place and the Junction and it was a sad day in February 2016 when we had to lay him to rest and I was honoured to be asked by his widow Joan to deliver a eulogy at the funeral service at the Methodist Church in Castleford.

Harry Beevers - Hero of the Five Towns Quiz League - died 2016

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