Former Merchant Taylors’ School pupil Ian Bayley is officially the 'Brain of Britain'.

The Oxford educated whizzkid beat off other brain boxes to win the prestigiousBBC Radio 4 competition.
He scooped the top prize in emphatic style after he scored more points than the other four finalists put together.

But Ian isn’t resting on his laurels. He has already set his sights on winning the even more famous Mastermind – in which he came runner-up last year.
Crosby-born Ian, 35, gives his brain cells a regular work-out by taking part in quizzes around the UK and Europe.

He has competed on University Challenge and proved to be a very handy “phone a friend” to one of his Oxford chums who appeared on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. He has also won a string of non-televised buzzer competitions.

Ian puts his enthusiasm down to quizzes held at Merchant Taylors’ Boys’ School, Crosby, where his competitive streak was fired when he realised other pupils knew more about some subjects than he did.  His first quiz experience,  an informal 'stick-up-your-hands-to-buzz' quiz, as he puts it,  was in a class taken by Rev'd Smith who is actually still Head of RS here at the Boys' School (due to retire this year).

He said: “I became interested in history a couple of years after I had to drop it to take biology, Greek and Latin as my GCSEs, because I realised that my schoolmates who didn’t drop it were far more knowledgeable about it than I was.”

Ian took a PhD in computing at Oxford University after leaving school, and is now a senior lecturer in computer science.
He even has his own nickname of “Iron” Bayley – the result of a mispronunciation of his Christian name by the Estonian quizmaster at the 2005 European Quizzing Championships.
Ian said: “I find doing the quizzes gives my life a huge amount of variety.
“It means that you’ve got this whole world of facts that you’re a part of and can use to develop your own interests.
“The main thing you want to do, then, is enter competitions to improve your ability and measure yourself against other people who feel the same way. That’s why I keep doing it.

Ian also said: "I think there were fewer opportunities in my day. I am very pleased to hear though about how one of boys at the school became Junior Mastermind recently." (David Verghese in 2007)

The School also appropriately held the North West Schools General Knowledge Quiz last week so the tradition is still going strong!

“Winning Brain of Britain was the best one in terms of the sheer exposure of it, but I want to give Mastermind another go. I will be putting a lot of pressure on myself by taking part because the only improvement I could make on last time would be to win it. Anything else would mean staying the same, or worse.”

Thanks to Laura Karban at Merchant Taylors' for this information