The Brum Connection Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alec Issigonis

Sir Alexander (Alec) Issigonis was born in Smyrna (now Izmir) Turkey in 1906. His grandfather, Demosthenis, was an engineer who had been granted the status of a British subject for his work for British companies. Issigonis and his parents were evacuated from Smyrna to Malta in 1922, when the Turks re-possessed the city at the end of the Greco-Turkish war. Alec's father died shortly thereafter, and Issigonis and his mother moved to the UK, where he studied engineering. He is certainly most famous for designing the Austin Mini, but prior to working for Austin he worked for Morris and was the designer of the Morris Minor, which he regarded as his proudest achievement. Issigonis was knighted in 1969. He died in Edgbaston in 1988.

Alfred Bird is very popular at my house because I use Bird's Custard Powder to make - what else? - custard. Bird was born in Digbeth, Birmingham in 1811 and died in 1878. F.W. Lanchester was a British pioneer of aeronautics and automobiles, but he was a Londoner and not a Brummie. Herbert Austin (later Lord Austin) was the Yorkshire-born founder of the Austin Motor Company, which is headquartered in Longbridge near Coventry.

Answer: Neville Chamberlain

Poor old Neville. The only thing anyone remembers about him is that he was the British Prime Minister who met with Adolf Hitler in 1938 and signed the infamous Munich Pact. One would have thought that all Neville's political experience would have enabled him to spot a charlatan when he met one.

Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) was the second son of Joseph Chamberlain, a successful businessman who also served as Lord Mayor of Birmingham and as a Member of Parliament. Neville followed in his father's footsteps, as a successful businessman, as Lord Mayor of Birmingham and eventually as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood. As Lord Mayor of Birmingham he carried on the social reform work of his father (Joseph had initiated slum clearance, developed beautiful parks and recreation areas, and generally enhanced the lives of the citizens of Brum). Neville also furthered the cultural life of the city by assisting in the establishment of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. As a Member of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Minister of Health in the Baldwin government, and was responsible for some landmark pieces of legislation in both capacities: as Chancellor of the Exchequer he radically altered the means by which local governments were financed by enacting the Rating and Valuation Act of 1925. In 1925 he eliminated workhouses and in that same year brought in the Widows, Orphans and Old Age Pensions Act which did much to alleviate poverty in the UK. He became Prime Minister in 1937, after Stanley Baldwin stepped down, and it was in this capacity that he had that infamous meeting with Hitler for which he will always be remembered. As Mark Anthony comments in Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar': "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." Whatever the rest of the world thinks of Neville, the Chamberlains are fondly remembered in Brum and there are any number of statues, squares, streets and buildings honouring the contributions of the Chamberlain family to the life of the city.

Answer: First MP for Birmingham

Thomas Attwood was born in Halesowen, Birmingham in 1783. An economist by profession, he founded the Birmingham Political Union in 1830. The Union's chief purpose was to seek direct representation in parliament for Birmingham and other West Midlands cities and due to its lobbying a Reform Bill was passed to achieve this goal. In December 1832, Attwood was elected as the MP for Birmingham, an office he held until 1839. He died in 1859 and there is a charming statue of him, erected in 1993, depicting him seated on the steps of Chamberlain Square surrounded by documents, with his empty plinth above him. The Attwood Award was established in 2002 and is given to those who have contributed significantly to life in the city of Birmingham.

I could not find any information about the designer of New Street Station, but I can tell you that it was built between 1846 and 1854 by Messrs. Fox, Henderson and Co. It opened on June 1, 1854 and was notable for the largest glass and iron roof in the world. It spanned 212 metres (655 feet). I don't know how many football fields that would contain.

Sir Barry Jackson, another son of Brum, was the founder of the Birmingham Rep. It opened on February 15, 1913 and quickly earned a reputation as the finest Rep Company in the world. The careers of many luminaries of the British stage and screen were launched from the stage of the Rep., among them Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft, Edith Evans, Stewart Granger, Paul Scofield, Julie Christie and Derek Jacobi, as well as the distinguished career of director Peter Brook. Richard Chamberlain did a stint at Birmingham Rep., even after he was already an established TV star with his title role as Dr. Kildare.

Cannon Hill Park was known as Cannon Hill Fields Estate and it was owned by the wealthy Royland family of Birmingham until 1873 when Miss Louisa Royland donated it to the city of Birmingham for a park. The landscaper was J.T. Gibson, who was on the landscaping staff of Battersea Park in London. To this day, Cannon Hill Park is regarded as one of the most beautiful parks in the U.K. I spent part of my childhood in a house overlooking Cannon Hill Park, so I can attest to its beauty.

Answer: J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien (1892-1973) was a man of many parts - a writer, poet, philologist/etymologist and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford from 1945 to 1959. He's best known, of course, for the fantasy classics 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy. I wonder how many of his devoted fans know that he was also one of the translators who produced the Jerusalem Bible?

A devout Roman Catholic, Tolkien was not best pleased when his friend C.S. Lewis became a member of the Church of England, and even less so when Lewis married Joy Davidman, a divorcee. Lewis' fall from grace cooled their friendship for a period, although, when Lewis died in 1963, Tolkien wrote to his daughter Priscilla, "So far I have felt the normal feelings of a man my age - like an old tree that is losing its leaves one by one: this feels like an axe-blow near the roots."

Answer: Earth

John Michael Osbourne, better known to the world as Ozzy, was born in 1948 in Aston, Birmingham, into a working class family. Learning difficulties made school arduous for Ozzy (he was later diagnosed as dyslexic) and he left school at 15 and worked in several different jobs - as a labourer on construction sites, as an apprentice plumber, as a trainee toolmaker, and he even did a stint in a slaughterhouse (somehow that seems appropriate!). He formed his first band Earth with an old school friend, Tony Iommi, but when they learned that another band had beaten them to the punch with the name, they cast about for a new name for their group. The band's rehearsal hall was opposite a cinema and one day bassist Geezer Butler commented on the long line up to see a horror movie called 'Black Sabbath'. Shortly thereafter, Butler wrote the song 'Black Sabbath' and it became the band's signature tune, as well as its new name.

In May, 2007, Ozzy was the first person to be accorded a star on Birmingham's new Walk of Fame on Broad Street. At the induction ceremony, Ozzy said that this was the most important accolade he had ever received because it came from his home town.

Answer: John Cadbury

John Cadbury (1801-1889) was born in Birmingham, the scion of a wealthy Quaker family. As a Quaker he was barred from entering university, and also from becoming a doctor or a lawyer. As a pacifist, a military career was out of the question for him, so John turned his energies to business. After serving an apprenticeship as a tea dealer in Leeds, he went into business for himself in Birmingham. In 1831, he founded the company for which his name is now world-famous - Cadbury's. John retired in 1861 to devote more time to his social reform interests (he campaigned against the practice of sending small boys up into chimneys as sweeps and also formed the Animals Friend Society, which later morphed into the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).

Two of John's sons, Richard and George, took over the business and moved it to a small village near Birmingham called Bournbrook. They renamed it Bournville and the Cadbury factory is still there, in its beautiful park-like grounds. Bournville, meanwhile, has been wholly absorbed by Birmingham and is now one of its major suburbs. Richard and George expanded the Cadbury product line to include chocolate bars and boxed chocolates. They also established day care on site for its workers and also built houses nearby for their employees. Evidently, Cadbury employees can eat all the chocolate they want on the job. I gather that the feeding frenzy for each new employee lasts for two or three days at most and diminishes rapidly after that.

As Quakers, John Cadbury and his sons held strong temperance views, believing that alcohol was responsible for a wide range of social ills, especially poverty. They banned the use of alcohol in the district around their factory and the area has been 'dry' for well over 100 years, with no pubs, bars or liquor shops. In 2007, Tesco went down to defeat when the residents of Bournville launched a winning court case to prevent the supermarket giant from selling alcohol in its Bournville store.

Both Joseph Fry and Henry Rowntree founded chocolate companies (Joseph in Bristol and Henry in York) and like John Cadbury, they were both Quakers. George Fox was the founder of the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers), and there has been a Quaker meeting house on Bull Street in Birmingham since 1689 (the building that is there now is not the original, since it has been expanded and rebuilt several times. There are a lot of Quakers in Brum.)

Answer: Barbara Cartland

Dame Barbara Cartland (1901-2000) was something of a paradox. She began her writing career in the 1920s with racy novels, and yet she broke off her engagement to a young Guards officer after she learned the sordid (to her, anyway) details of sexual intercourse! She was a staunch defender of the institution of marriage (she was disgusted with her step-granddaughter Diana when she divorced the Prince of Wales) and yet had an affair with her husband's cousin (whom she married after her husband divorced her, naming his cousin as co-respondent).

She wrote reams of frothy romances, peopled with virginal heroines and tall-dark-and-handsome heroes (and some of the most outrageous historical gaffes and anachronisms!), yet made great contributions to the cause of aviation in Britain and also worked tirelessly on behalf of the St. John's Ambulance.

Her only child, Raine (a name right out of one her books!) was the second wife of Earl Spencer, father of Princess Diana.

Answer: Nigel Mansell

Although he wasn't born in Brum, Mansell spent most of his childhood and early adult life in Hall Green, Birmingham. He studied at Matthew Boulton College and worked as an aerospace engineer for Lucas Engineering before chucking it all up to become a full time racing driver.

Answer: Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, Roger Taylor

Duran Duran was formed in Birmingham in 1978 by John Taylor (a native of the Birmingham suburb of Hollywood) and Nick Rhodes (who hailed from Moseley, another Birmingham district). They took the band's name from Milo O'Shea's villainous character, Dr. Durand Durand, in Roger Vadim's spectacular fantasy/sci-fi movie 'Barbarella' (which also did a lot for the career of Jane Fonda and popularized latex catsuits!) Roger Taylor, who was born and grew up in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, joined John and Nick shortly after Duran Duran was formed.

Interestingly, none of Duran Duran's Taylors are related to one another.

Answer: Lenny Henry

There is absolutely no truth to the rumour that I am a huge fan of Lenny (full name Lenworth George) Henry because he's a huge fan of my favourite football team, West Bromwich Albion (Up the Baggies!).

Strictly speaking, Lenny isn't a Birmingham boy at all, but Dudley is only 11.87 km (7.38 miles) outside Brum and we quite count him as one of our own. Lenny was born there in 1958, the son of Jamaican immigrants. At 17, he made his first TV appearance on the 'New Faces' talent show and subsequently hosted 'Tiswas', a children's show. In 1981, he joined forces with Tracy Ullman and David Copperfield (the comedian, not the magician) to write and perform the show 'Three of a Kind'.

He moved into stand-up comedy at the urging of his then-girlfriend/now-wife Dawn French (they've been married since 1984) and created some of his most memorable characters, including his Barry White knock-off Theophilus P. Wildebeeste, and the pirate radio DJ Delbert Wilkins. His career has moved from strength to strength, and it was recently announced (October 2008) that Lenny will play Othello in the Northern Broadsides production of Shakespeare's classic tragedy. I hope someone thinks to film the production - I'd love to see Lenny play 'Othello'. In addition to working non-stop as a comedian/actor/writer, he is also tireless in his efforts on behalf of the British version of 'Comic Relief'.

Lenny Henry holds a BA (Hons) in English literature and is now working on his MA in screenwriting for television and film at the University of London. He and Dawn French are the parents of a daughter Billie.