The Church in Abingdon annual quiz this year was at St Michael’s Church. St Michael’s still have the crib and Christmas decorations up. They will remove the decorations at Candlemas on February 2nd at the end of their Epiphany-tide. They also put the decorations up very late on Christmas Eve.

The church seats had been cleared and the church had tables and chairs for the different church teams. The person asking the questions was an ex teacher from Larkmead who taught our son Religious Education. He remembers her well, and puts down his enduring curiosity about the unanswerable questions of religion to her teaching. She was a very lively and entertaining hostess.

We started with picture quizzes while people gathered: one was naming properties round the Monopoly Board, the other was recognising famous people as children.

Then there were eight rounds on different topics.

There were two rounds you would not have found at pub quizzes. One was the fiendishly difficult round on women in the bible. For most teams it was the lowest scoring round. (Name one of the daughters of Job in the bible? They were: Jemimah, Keziah and Keren-Happuch).

Then there was a much easier guess the hymn tune with Glynn Butt playing the first line of each hymn on the piano. Most teams got 10 out of 10 for hymns and scored between 1-6 for women in the bible.

At the break there was a wide selection of cakes, and savouries on offer with tea and coffee, for which you could make a donation. The people of St Michael’s did us proud in hosting the evening.

The final quiz round was about Abingdon’s Twin Towns. One of our team was part of the Abingdon and District Twinning Society and that helped us a lot. There was also a Twinning Society quiz the night before at Preston Road Community Centre.

Here are the questions we had on twinning for anybody interested. I will put answers in the comments unless somebody beats me to it.

Abingdon’s twin town Argentan in France is in what region?
What fabric is Argentan well known for producing?
The twin town St Niklaas in Belgium is in what region?
What famous map maker has a museum in St Niklaas?
The twin town Colmar in France is in what region?
What product is Colmar famous for?
The twin town Schongau in Germany is in what region?
What town near Schongau has a famous passion play this year?
The twin town Lucca in Italy is in what region?
What famous composer was born in Lucca?

At the end the scores were totalled and the Trinity team just pipped the team of Christ Church in Long Furlong by 1/2 point. The team who won the women in the bible round get to host next year’s quiz. I think that is Abingdon Baptist Church but am not sure. Team’s chose cryptic names. (Update – Peachcroft are hosting it next year).