Cumbria's Favorites Trivia Quiz

Answer: Fletcher Christian

Fletcher Christian was born in 1764 in the village of Eaglesfield, just southwest of Cockermouth in what is now west-central Cumberia. He first went to sea as an 18-year old ship's boy aboard the Royal Navy's HMS Cambridge. By the time he first boarded the small merchant vessel designated HM Armed Vessel Bounty in September 1787, he had advanced to the rank of Masters's Mate. He was invited to join the crew by Captain William Bligh for the 2-year voyage carrying breadfruit from Tahiti to the Caribbean. Six months into the trip, Bligh promoted Christian to acting Lieutenant, his second-in-command.

The Bounty arrived in Tahiti in October 1788 and spent five months in port. Departing in April 1789, the crew were in the region of Tonga, some 1,300 miles into their journey, when Christian led the crew in a mutiny. Blight and 18 of the 22 crew who remained loyal to him (about half of the crew) were set set afloat in a small boat. They would eventually reach Coupang in what is now Indonesia, from where they returned to England to report the mutiny.

Meanwhile, Christian and the other mutineers returned to Tahiti, where they picked up a number of women, before continuing on to Pitcairn Island in the southern Pacific. Fletcher died there at the age of 28 in 1793 and, by the time the Royal Navy ship Topaz arrived in 1808 only one of the original mutineers remained alive, along with nine of the Tahiti women they had brought to the island with them.

Answer: Christine McVie

Christine Anne Perfect was born in 1943 in the village of Bouth, historically in northern Lancashire but now in southwestern Cumbria. In 1968, she married Fleetwood Mac bass player John McVie and two years later joined hleim in the band. She remained in Fleetwood Mac until 1998, and after a period of semi-retirement returned to the band in 2014.

Many of Fleetwood Mac's most famous hits were written by Christine McVie, including "Don't Stop", "Little Lies" and "Hold Me". The hit "Songbird", which has been covered by numerous artists including the late Eva Cassidy, who took it to number one in the UK singles chart in 2001.

Answer: Dave Myers

Dave Myers was born in 1957 in the town of Barrow-in-Furness, historically in northern Lancashire but now on the southern end of Cumbria's Irish Sea coastline. Myers and Simon "Si" King (born across the Pennines in County Durham in 1966) are "The Hairy Bikers". The pair debuted on the BBC in 2004 and have since been involved in numerous series including "The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook", "The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain" and " The Hairy Bikers' Asian Adventure". Their 2012 book, "The Hairy Dieters" won the National Book Award's "Food & Drink Book of the Year".

Answer: Emlyn Hughes

Emlyn Walter Hughes OBE was born in 1947 in Barrow-in-Furness. He signed for Blackpool in 1964 and moved to Liverpool three years later. In his twelve seasons at Anfield, Hughes won the league title in 1973, 1976, 1977 and 1979, the FA Cup in 1974, the European Cup in 1977 and 1978, and the EUFA Cup in 1973 and 1976. In the twilight of his career, Hughes moved to Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1979 before spending two years as player-manager of Rotherham United.

In his post-playing days, Emlyn Hughes brought his particular brand of humour to punditry, most notably in two stints as a team captain on the BBC's "A Question of Sport". Between 1979 and 1981, Hughes' opponent was the former Welsh rugby legend Gareth Edwards. By the time Hughes returned to the show for 4-year run in 1984, Edwards had been replaced by another rugby great, former England captain Bill Beaumont.

Emlyn Hughes was awarded the OBE in 1981 and in 2008 was inducted posthumously into the National Football Museum's Hall of Fame in Preston. Hughes had died of a brain tumour aged 57 in 2004.

Answer: Thomas Henry Ismay

Thomas Henry Ismay was born in 1837 in the town of Maryport at the northern end of the Cumbrian coastline. His father founded Ismay, Imrie and Co., which Thomas would later rename the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, aka known as the White Star Line of Boston Packers. The company would eventually merge with its chief rival, in 1934, to form the Cunard-White Star Line. Cunard is now part of the Carnival Corporation.

Thomas's son, Joseph Bruce Ismay, was aboard the RMS Titanic when it set off across the Atlantic on its ill-fated maiden voyage. The highest-ranking White Star official to survive, he was severely criticized. The official inquiry into the disaster, conducted by Lord Mersey, found that Ismay had helped numerous others before himself jumping aboard the last lifeboat launched from the starboard side of the vessel. Ismay was played by the English-Australian actor Jonathan Hyde in the 1997 James Cameron film "Titanic".

Answer: George MacDonald Fraser

Born in 1925 in Cumbria's county town, Carlisle, George MacDonald Fraser was a veteran of the Burma Campaign during WWII and also served in the Middle East and North Africa in the post-war years. It was not until the late 1960s that he began his writing career, taking the caddish Flashman character created by Thomas Hughes in his 1857 novel "Tom Brown's School Days", and turning him into a hero.

Fraser's first novel, simply called "Flashman", was published in 1969. In this and the subsequent series that followed the protagonist, by then in his 90s, looks back over his career in the British Army during the 19th century in a series of memoirs. Fraser began writing screednplays in the 1970s: his first became "The Three Musketeers", directed by Richard Lester and starring Oliver Reed, Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch, Faye Dunaway and Christopher Lee. Other screenplays written by Fraser include "Octopussy" with Roger Moore starring as '007' and "Red Sonja" starring Brigitte Nielsen.

Answer: William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was born in 1770 in the ancient Lake District market town of Cockermouth in west-central Cumbria. The oldest of five children, William and his sister Dorothy, born on Christmas Day the year after him, became part of the group of distinguished writers known as the Lake Poets. Wordsworth and another of the group, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (born at the other end of he country, in Devon in 1772) were amongst the first of the Romantics in English literature.

Wordsworth began his magnum opus at the age of 28, and he continued writing this autobiographical poem in blank verse for the rest of his life. Although he never officially gave it a name and it is widely known today as "The Prelude", Wordsworth's working title was "Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem". This great work was publicly unknown until it was published by his widow (Mary) three months after his death in 1850.

Answer: Stan Laurel

Born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in 1890 in the market town of Ulverston, then in northern Lancashire and now in southwestern Cumbria, Stan Laurel began his acting career in music hall and pantomime. He arrived in the US aboard the same ship as Charlie Chaplin, who he would understudy in English impresario Fred Karno's 'Army'.

Laurel's screen career began in 1917. Eleven years later, he began his now-legendary partnership with Oliver Hardy (born in Georgia in 1892), and from that point on Laurel appeared only in tandem with Hardy. Laurel retired when Hardy died in 1957.

Widely acknowledged as one of the greatest of all comedic duos, a statue of the inseparable Laurel and Hardy today stands outside the Coronation Hall Theatre in Ulverston. A measure of the esteem in which they are held is their appearance on the front cover of The Beatles' most iconic album, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".

Answer: John Dalton

John Dalton FRS was born in 1766 in the village of Eaglesfield, located just southwest of Cockermouth in west-central Cumbria. Dalton was a prodigy: he was teaching at his local school at the age of 12 and by 27 he was lecturing in mathematics and natural philosophy at Manchester's "New College".

Colour blindness (sometimes referred to as 'Daltonism') was an affliction from which both Dalton and his brother suffered, which led to his assumption that it was hereditary. His work in the field of meteorology enabled Dalton to map the heights of mountains in the Lake District (using a barometer) long before the Ordnance Survey came along. In physics, his work on "the Absorption of Gases by Water and other Liquids" (published in 1803) led to what are now known as Dalton's Law. In chemistry, Dalton worked extensively in what scholars today recognize as the early stages of modern atomic theory.

Answer: Melvyn Bragg

Melvyn Bragg (now Baron Bragg of Wigton in the County of Cumbria) FRSL, FBA, FRS was born in 1939 in Carlisle. After graduating in Modern History from Wadham College, Oxford, Bragg began his broadcasting career with the BBC in 1961. After a spall on radio, Bragg graduated to TV and in 1978 began moved to ITV to produce their new arts magazine programme, "The South Bank Show".

Bragg's early guests included such luminaries as Sir Paul McCartney, Arthur Miller and Sir Laurence Olivier, and 32 years later he was still interviewing at the cutting edge, welcoming the likes of Nick Park and Coldplay. Between 1978 and 2010, the show garnered more than 100 awards including 12 BAFTAs.