William Barnes isn’t used to being mobbed by teenage girls wanting selfies with him.
He admits it’s one of the more unusual moments he’s had since being crowned Mastermind New Zealand champion after a nail-biting grand final last week.
The 36-year-old teacher from Havelock North is the first local Mastermind winner in 25 years and says seeing his name now appear alongside those he admired watching as a youngster “blows my mind”.
“To be like them is crazy, just crazy. As a kid, I thought I’d like to be on Mastermind, but I never thought I would be – because to me, they [the winners] seemed superhuman.”
A longtime fan of trivia, pub quizzes and game shows such as The Chase, William decided to sign up for the series last November after seeing an advertisement on TV One.
He filled out the online application, made a short video of himself and auditioned via Skype. Another two auditions later, the programme’s producers told him he was in – one of 32 Kiwis who would take the seat to face host and quiz master Peter Williams on the iconic show, which last screened in 1991.
“I did three laps of the house, I was so happy. I was about 80 per cent excited and 20 per cent worried about what sort of questions they’d ask,” he recalls. “My worry was going on TV and doing really badly. That would be horrible.”
Deciding what subjects to choose was fairly straightforward for the former Rangitoto College history teacher. Topics such as World War I and World War II were too expansive, so he focused on 1960s US history (“It’s one of my favourite periods because I just think it’s awesome all the things people did to challenge the status quo – quite inspiring”), and the life and political career of Joseph Stalin.
William was able to choose two books on each topic, which the show’s question-making team would work from, and he spent the next few months frantically studying his subjects, sometimes up to four-and-a-half hours a day.
Wife Kate and his children Daniel and Ganya couldn’t be more proud of William.
But all that preparation was almost ruined the night before the grand final face-off with Auckland GP Julyan Lawry.
“I stayed at this hotel and they put me on the same floor as a tour bus full of tourists who were really loud. They wouldn’t shut up until I started screaming at them, which was about midnight,” recalls William.
“That just wound me up and, of course, when you get wound up about being in the final of Mastermind too… To cut a long story short, I only had about three or four hours’ sleep. That, plus the nerves, really messed me up, actually. It wasn’t fun, the final – it was hard going.”
Going into the final round of the grand final, he and Julyan were tied.
“It just came down to the last round to decide who was going to win,” tells William. “It was as tense as it could get.”
“As an insurance policy, I kept telling myself, ‘Second in New Zealand is outstanding.’ But I think my gut was saying, ‘You have to win. You really have to win.’”
When he was young, the dad-of-two thought Mastermind champions “seemed superhuman” – now he’s joined the club!
How did he keep calm under the pressure of the quickfire questions and the ticking clock?
“The nerves settled the moment I got in the chair,” he reveals. “They turn out all the lights, it’s just one spotlight and Peter Williams. And I just turn into this other person, really. Nothing else matters.”
The fact he is now this year’s Mastermind champion is still dawning on him, William says.
“I haven’t fully got my head around it.”
Being congratulated on his win by quiz master Peter Williams.
He’s slowly getting used to his new-found celebrity in Havelock North, admitting he’s even been mobbed once – by a group of teenage girls at a high-school table-tennis tournament.
“They were waiting for their bus, then they saw me and came charging over. They wouldn’t stop asking questions and demanding selfies,” he says, laughing. “That was hilarious.”
William’s son Daniel (9) and six-year-old daughter Ganya are impressed by his win, but his wife Kate (32) is keeping him grounded.
“At home, she tells me to get over myself, yet I keep finding out how she’s told literally hundreds of people,” he laughs.
Words: Michele Crawshaw
