It was a starter for 10 as Lieutenant Governor Sir Richard Gozney appeared as a contestant on University Challenge.

He featured in a team of alumni of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, in a special Christmas edition of the TV quiz that aired on BBC2 on Friday last week.

But despite correctly identifying Bach as the composer in a musical round, Sir Richard failed to do enough to prevent his team being beaten 40 points to 155 by St John’s, Cambridge.

He had graduated from Oxford in 1973 with a degree in geology then spent 40 years as a British diplomat, with postings including Swaziland, Nigeria and Bermuda, before retiring five years ago and taking up his current post in the island.

Questions

As well as a correctly buzzing in with Johann Sebastian Bach as the composer of The Setting of Magnificat, he contributed on a question about the first exhibit to the Imperial War Museum, a life buoy from the Lusitania, that was sunk by a German submarine in 1915.

But given his geology degree, he must have been kicking himself when he gave the wrong answer to a question on the most abundant element in the Earth’s crust after oxygen and silicon - incorrectly suggesting calcium rather than aluminium.

The Lieutenant Governor was joined by fellow distinguished alumni news presenter Anna Botting, writer Dan Abnett and writer and actress Emma Kennedy.