“Appearing on the TV quiz show Pointless was great fun”
This #ThankYouThursday we wanted to profile one of our supporters, Marianne Sunter and her niece Claire who appeared on the popular TV quiz show Pointless in May 2021. They generously donated part of their winnings to our hospice. Here Marianne shares more.
“Appearing on Pointless was great fun
My niece Claire and I applied for the show, auditioned online and in October 2020 we found out we’d been selected as contestants. We filmed our episode at Elstree Studios in December 2020.
The first round was based around films, so we knew we’d be alright, the second round was all about football. We had to guess a team that had been in the top three of the Premier League. My niece went first and said Everton, and it was like my husband Jim, who was cared for by your hospice, was with us while we played. Jim was a lifelong Everton Fan!
Claire worried that her answer would get us knocked out, but after the other team went it was down to me to give an answer that scored less than 74. I said Celtic and that helped us make it through into the head-to-head round.
Our head-to-head was all about saws
When I saw that and the pictures that appeared in the round, I thought Jim’s in here with us somewhere. He was always working with wood and had a great love and talent for using it
I knew three saws from the five pictures immediately. Three were obvious even if you weren’t really into woodwork but the other two were less obvious. Luckily because of Jim I knew what they were. One of them was a dove tail saw that was used to make joints – Jim used to use one. I chose that picture and got our team a point. We ended the head-to-head two – nil.
In the final round we had to name 3 Prime Ministers under Queen Victoria
Claire and I had been researching and listing different topics ahead of appearing on the show and I had researched Prime Ministers. Call it fate or luck, before we went for our recording, I looked into less well known Prime Ministers during that timeframe.
We knew some and we went on to win the final!
We won £3,000 in the end
I told Claire she could have £2,000 as she has a family and needs the money more, and I took £1,000 of the winnings. I was asked what I’d do with it on the show.
I mentioned I was going to donate some of my winnings to your hospice as you looked after my husband Jim so beautifully and you’re a cause very dear to my heart. It was lovely to donate some winnings to support you and have some left to treat myself.”
If you’re feeling inspired to do some fundraising of your own for our hospice please visit our DIY fundraising pages for inspiration and ideas
