A Life in a Quiz - My Mother

Answer: Southampton

The White Star Line, owners of the RMS Titanic were taken over by Cunard which still operates cruises out of Southampton. Southampton was also the departure point for The Mayflower which took the Pilgrims to their new home in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Bristol was the port from which Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Eastern sailed.

When it was broken up, its topmast was purchased by Liverpool Football Club as a flagpole for their Anfield ground. Liverpool is also a port, on the River Mersey.

Answer: Staffordshire

The prefix su- indicates south. Surrey is corrupted Saxon for south ridge or southern administrative unit; Sussex refers to the southern Saxons and Suffolk refers to southern folk or people. Stafford derives from the Old English for a ford by a landing place.

Answer: Mavis

The songthrush is also known as a mavis in East Anglia and Ireland and is believed to be of French origin "mauvis". Chaucer and Shakespeare both used the word and the first line of the traditional song "Mary of Argyle" is "I have heard the mavis singing..."

Answer: Arnold Bennett

In Arnold Bennett's novels, The Potteries were depicted as the Five Towns - there are actually four, Burslem, Tunstall, Hanley and Stoke plus two districts Longton and the one Bennett did not use, Fenton.

Alan Bennett is a modern playwright whose "The Madness of George III" became a successful film in 1995. "The Madness of King George" had four Academy Award nominations and won the Best Art Direction category. Benedict Arnold was a general in the American Revolutionary War, originally for the Americans but then switched to the side of the British, his name therefater being associated with treason. Samuel Beckett was an Irish playwright who wrote many of his works in French, including "Waiting for Godot".

Answer: Monty Python

The song was written in 1944 by Fred Heatherton. Danny Kaye came across it on a tour of the UK and recorded it in 1950. His version was less successful than Merv Griffin's which also came out in 1950 and topped the US Hit Parade selling 3 million copies. His version is sometimes attributed on the Internet to Monty Python. Ringo Starr sang it on a BBC TV special in 1967.

Answer: Manufacture of Rolls Royce motor cars

Rolls Royce used to manufacture motor cars in Crewe but the last one came off the production line in 2002. Bentleys are still made there. Crewe's role as a major railway centre started when the Grand Junction Railway sited its locomotive factory and a railway station there in the 1830s. Bill Bryson made this comment in his 1995 book "Notes from a Small Island". Crewe crater on Mars is about 3 kilometers in diameter.

Answer: Southport

Fylde means field or green area and refers to a flat plain roughly between the River Ribble in the South and the River Wyre in the north. Southport is on the southern side of the Ribble and can be seen from Lytham St Annes. Fleetwood is in the north on the Wyre and used to be home to an important fishing industry. Blackpool's Tower, Pleasure Beach, piers and autumn illuminations make it a popular holiday resort.

Answer: In 1713, by the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht

The Treaty of Utrecht ended the War of the Spanish Succession during which several European powers had tried to prevent the union of the kingdoms of France and Spain. Gibraltar was part of Britain's spoils, as was the island of Minorca and the exclusive right to slave trading in Spanish America for the next 30 years.

Answer: Pierce Brosnan

Pierce Brosnan was married to the Australian actress Cassandra Harris in 1980. Since her death he has been involved with cancer charities, and is the London patron of Gilda's Club, the charity set up by Gene Wilder (Willy Wonka) whose wife also died from an ovarian tumour.

Answer: Elvis Presley

Actually my mother liked all these singers. Elvis did set foot in the UK in 1960 on his way back from military service. He had a stopover in Prestwick, Scotland.

Engelbert Humperdinck, although born in India, is a British performer who made many live appearances in Britain before his later successful career in Las Vegas. Roy Orbison toured Europe with The Beatles in 1963. Gene Pitney toured the UK several times - my mother took me to see him at the Queen's theatre in Blackpool on the same bill as Lonnie Donegan, Cilla Black and Billy J Kramer and much to my embarrassment told him to stand up when he sat on the edge of the stage as the people in the balcony could not see him. He died on a UK tour in Cardiff on 5 April 2006.