Bamber Gascoigne was the legendary quizmaster of University Challenge (where, very unusually, he wrote his own questions) for twenty-five years. His calm intelligence and urbane manner have been much imitated -- he was spoofed in Monty Python, The Young Ones and Red Dwarf -- but never equalled.

He handed over the reins to a rather more irasible Jeremy Paxman in 1994 and now devotes most of his time to www.historyworld.net, an online history encyclopedia. He has also written and presented several landmark TV documentary series including The Christians, Victorian Values, Man and Music and The Great Moghuls and he is the author of some twenty books.