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Nick
Mills
 Some
really sad news for The Opsimaths - and for all of us.
Nick Mills died in his sleep earlier
this week.
Nick had played for The Opsimaths
since 2009 and was by some way the most accomplished quizzer we've
had in our team over the 40+ years we've been competing in
WithQuiz. Indeed he has a claim to having been the best
quizzer WithQuiz has ever had.
Famously it was the Opsimaths who
broke the 12-year KFD stranglehold on the League title in 2011 and
it's fair to say that without Nick that would never have happened.
In 2014 and 2015 he helped us to 2 more titles and only last season
we finished second with his contribution a sizeable element in our
success.
His team mates will sorely miss both
his encyclopaedic knowledge and his impeccable reasoning skills when
he wasn't sure and was conferring. If Nick suggested an
answer, it was a brave Opsimath who didn't go with it!
One story about Nick I will always
treasure ...
It was the Opsimath/Prodigals derby
in the back room of the Albert Club, 12th October 2011. The
Pigs were setting and (Round 6 Question 8) the QM asked me:
"If you travelled due east from
the southern tip of India, in which country would you next touch
land?".
Correctly (as it turned out) I
answered "Sri Lanka". "Wrong" was the QM's response.
Nick exploded arguing that I was right (rather than the answer
"Thailand" given in the paper). The debate got somewhat heated
and it was a while before Anne-Marie and I cooled tempers.
However this was all too much for Nick; he stomped out of the back
room almost taking the curtain divider with him. "Oh, God",
thought the Opsis, "our best quizzer has just walked out on us."
A few minutes later, much to our relief, Nick reappeared. On
the way out he'd stopped to consult a Pears Encyclopaedia which he'd
noticed on the Club's bookshelf and returned somewhat sheepishly to
show us all a map from the encyclopaedia that showed that "Mike was
dead right". Thanks to the generosity of the Prods I got my
two points and we moved on. A few years later Nick and I
laughed about that incident and I think Nick did slightly regret his
impetuosity. For me however it just showed what a committed Opsimath he was - and how important the quizzing scene was to him.
Away from WithQuiz Nick was a
celebrated quizzer nationally, at one stage standing very near the
top of the national quizzer rankings. On TV quiz shows - like
our good friend Rachael - Nick was a regular, competing in
University Challenge, Mastermind and Only Connect to name
but three.
We will all greatly miss his earnest
Yorkshire-ness and his occasional loud chuckle. Being an
Opsimath will never be quite the same again. Nick, I hope you
realised how much your team mates loved having you as their
colleague every Wednesday. Many thanks and Rest in Peace!
When I have more details about Nick's
funeral I'll pass the information on via this site.
(Nick, second from the right, with
all his Opsimath mates celebrating the 2014/2015 League title) |
