This year's champion of the iconic BBC TV quiz show Mastermind is from Lancaster!
Diane Howe won the Grand Final of the ultimate test of trivia in nail-biting fashion on Monday night.
The Animal Care charity volunteer triumphed in a tie-break to win the famous glass bowl on the programme which has run on the BBC since 1972.
Diane defeated five other finalists, including Lorna Frankel from Southampton with whom she tied on 25 points after the specialist subject and general knowledge rounds.
The two remaining contenders were then separately asked the same five tie-break questions by presenter Clive Myrie.
Diane answered three of these correctly to Lorna's two, to win by 28 points to 27.
The answer that won it for Diane was that she knew Fosse Way was one of the two major Roman roads that converge near the modern day city of Lincoln.
The other finalists were Ross Taylor from Alloa, who finished third with 24 points, Danielle Connolly from Kent who scored 21, David Ford from Dumfries (20) and Miles Searle from London (17).
"Surprised and shocked!" said Diane, when asked by Clive Myrie how she felt.
"I didn't honestly think I'd won that.
"It's an amazing feeling, I'm so happy and relieved."
Diane (right) with the other finalists. Photo credit: BBC
Diane described herself on the show as "an adrenaline junkie" who has done hot air ballooning, microlighting, gliding and even a tandem sky dive.
She said she wanted to appear on Mastermind after being a contestant on the show six years ago.
Diane's husband Dermot said she is "ultra competitive".
"If there are two drops of rain on the window she'll bet on which one will be at the bottom first," he said when interviewed for the show.
She has volunteered at Animal Care for six years and is known as a "cat cuddler" who looks after the cats, often sitting in the animal rescue charity's cattery while she revised for Mastermind!
Her specialist subject in the final was astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the Apollo 13 space mission.
On the programme, Diane visited the National Space Centre in Leicester and received a good luck message from famous British astronaut Tim Peake.
She scored 12 points on her specialist subject questions, then 13 on the general knowledge round.
Diane reached the final after storming to victory in the heats, winning with 26 points after getting all her questions correct on specialist subject Katherine Parr - the sixth wife of King Henry VIII.
Then she won her semi-final with 20 points, her specialist subject being the musician Jeff Buckley.
Read more: Charity volunteer from Lancaster set for Grand Final of TV quiz Mastermind - Beyond Radio
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