A 93-year-old quizmaster is hoping to raise thousands of pounds for charity with his annual cryptic quiz, despite the new lockdown.

Stephen Graham runs annual Christmas quizzes for quizzers based in and around Goodworth Clatford, and raised over £15,000 in a one-off ‘self-isolation special’ he held to raise money for NHS workers during lockdown.

“I’m very pleased and very proud,” he told the Advertiser. “We got a wonderful response.”

Now the special is over, he’s turned his attention back to his Christmas quiz, which he is putting together with a little bit of assistance from his friend Mark Haszlakiewicz and his son Andy, who has helped distribute the quiz online.

Stephen says he’s “thrilled to bits” with the new quiz, which was released recently. In a short space of time, it’s already raised over £3,800, which he attributes to fans of the quiz.

“We’ve got quite a following now, as we’ve been doing this for 10 years,” he said, “and it’s built up to quite a family of quizzers who tend to go for it each year, which is rather fun.”

Stephen said that he couldn’t quite explain what about cryptic quizzes appeals, but said that he takes joy in the fact that participants “can’t just go to the internet and lookup the answer.”

“You won’t get it that way,” he said, “you’ve got to work it out. Either you’ve got that sort of brain or you haven’t.”

The participants in the quiz are all raising money for Blood Cancer UK and St Peter’s Church, with the quiz distributed online, as well as in local shops. The new lockdown, however, has posed a slight problem, with pubs, which normally sell hard copies, currently closed.

“I hope that the pubs will do it for me again once they’re open in December,” said Stephen, “because they normally bring in a bit of money too.”

Anyone wanting to participate in the quiz can head to Stephen’s fundraising page and get a copy by clicking here.