Why don't Schoolteachers win Mastermind any more? (Answers on a postcard please)

Yes, gentle reader, it’s time to return to a well trodden subject in these here parts, namely, teachers and Mastermind. Specifically schoolteachers and Mastermind.

I’ll tell you what brings this on. Yesterday I tipped Thomas Nelson to win tomorrow’s grand final. I never even stopped to think what his profession might be. A quick check on the iplayer this morning revealed that he is in fact a teacher. A schoolteacher. Thomas, if by any chance you ever read this, I apologise profusely for tipping you and I sincerely hope that you will strip me of the honour of being the last schoolteacher to win a series of Mastermind.

17 years ago, in 2007 (yeah, I know the records say that I won in 2008, but the final was filmed in June 2007) I never thought that I would be in the last year of my teaching career before another schoolteacher would win. Should Thomas not win tomorrow night then I will be retired before the next schoolteacher wins. Before the next anyone wins in 2005. I should point out that I am not the last educator to win a series -the great Ian Bayley and the great Clive Dunning, both MM and BOB double winners, come to mind immediately. But none of the champions since have been schoolteachers. Why should that be?

Well, of course, I do have my own ideas about that. If you know much about the history of Mastermind you’ll know that it’s first decade was pretty much dominated by schoolteachers and college lecturers. The first two years were won by college lecturers Nancy Wilkison and Patricia Owen, while the next two were won by schoolteachers Elizabeth Horrocks and John Hart. The next two years were won by civil servant Roger Pritchard and retired ambassador Sir David Hunt. Schoolteacher Rosemary James won in 78, student Philip Jenkins (who went on to become a university lecturer) in 79. The great Fred Housego won in 1980, but the following year schoolteacher Leslie Grout followed in 1981.

Even though the number of educator winners started to tail off in the 80s and 90s, we still saw schoolteacher Margaret Harris win in 1984, schoolteacher David Edwards win in 1990 and lecturer George Davidson win in 1994. Even after the first TV version ended, educators still kept winning with Robert Gibson and Stephen Fellows in 1998 and 2000 respectively. The first TV revival, 2001’s Discovery Mastermind was won by schoolteacher Michael Penrice.

The famine really came in with the revived BBC TV series, beginning in 2003. Retired lecturer Geoff Thomas won in 2006, schoolteacher me won in 2007/8, lecturers Ian Bayley in 2011 and Clive Dunning in 2014, then . . . well, I think that’s it.

Forgive me if I concentrate on schoolteachers now but that’s really my area of knowledge and experience. All of this begs the question – why don’t schoolteachers win Mastermind any more? As a body, are schoolteachers less intelligent than they were in the 70s/80s? Is everybody else smarter than they were back then? In both cases I don’t think so. I do think that more people have more access to university education now – it was between 10 and 20 percent through the 70s and 80s and something approaching forty percent by the 2020s.

Of course, you don’t need a university education to win Mastermind. So there’s probably other factors involved. Now, when I began my teaching career in 1987 a lot of the old guys and gals in the staffroom would often make the point that teaching had changed for the worst. Nowadays, when I’m not actually off school with depression and anxiety I often say the same thing. But in all honesty, I do not know how a schoolteacher now would find the time to prepare properly for a Mastermind campaign. Nor the energy. Then there’s the change in quizzing culture since the late 80s when I started, let alone the early 70s when Mastermind did. I don’t know how much of a quiz background any of tomorrow’s finalists have but I honestly believe that if you have at least a quiz league background then you have a big advantage over anyone who doesn’t. I would argue that there is far more opportunity to play regularly in high level quizzes now than there would have been in the 70s, for example. It’s not always the highest general knowledge scorer who wins the grand final, but it’s never the lowest.

Well, whatever the case, I wish all of our finalists the very best of luck, and especially I hope that Thomas can beat the curse of the Clark tip.