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
