How a lot of reading and a lot of luck helped me bag £500k
WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE WINNER
ABIT of luck, a lot of reading and plenty of practise down his local helped a retired geography teacher bag £500,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Davyth Fear, who lives in Llanrug near Caernarfon, was just one question away from taking the top prize of £1million on the hit ITV gameshow last Monday night.
But the 59-year-old opted to take the money after he and his “phone a friend” lifeline stumbled on the final question.
The former Ysgol Ardudwy, Ysgol Eifionydd and Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern teacher kept his win secret to all but his wife Rhiannon, and parents Jim and Pat, who were with him while the episode was being filmed in July.
Davyth said: “The four of us didn’t tell anyone about my success – not even my ‘phone a friend’ lifeline, who was my friend Terry, was allowed to know.
“He knew that I had won, but didn’t know how much.”
Davyth, who is an avid quizzer at Y Glyntwrog, had to undergo an intense selection process before appearing on the show.
“There are thousands upon thousands of people applying for the show.
“I was told that 96,000 people had applied the same time as me, so I felt very lucky that I had reached the shortlist, and eventually made it on to the show.”
In preparation for the show, the teacher revealed he began revising with the help of different reference books.
“I felt it was important that I needed to be prepared,” Davyth explained.
“So, I grabbed every book that I could find – Encyclopedia, Guinness World Records, anything
that focused on sports, science and history.
“I had six weeks to prepare, but then I realised, you couldn’t be fully prepared as any question could come up.”
On the show, Davyth astonished Millionaire host Jeremy Clarkson with his impressive amount of knowledge and luck throughout his performance.
He said: “I was mostly nervous about the ‘fastest finger first’ round.
“I came first only by 0.07 second before the next person.
“When it was my time to go on the ‘hot seat,’ I realised that I needed to focus.
“I had no real aim or goal, but I thought to myself, if I get the first five questions right, I will be fine.”
Davyth received questions on various topics such as food, sports and films.
At one point, Jeremy Clarkson revealed he had “high hopes of [Davyth], because [he had] never seen anyone have more interests.”
The retiree is a member of the bridge, croquet, and photography societies based around North Wales.
He also likes rugby, astronomy and languages, in particular the Welsh language.
Davyth, who was originally born in Bristol, learned Welsh as a student at Bangor University.
He now identifies as a fluent Welsh speaker, and has often used his language skills to promote and strengthen the language.
As mentioned on the game show, it was during his stay in Zimbabwe that Davyth, who is also an avid bird-watcher, realised there were no Welsh names for birds of the African continent.
In response, Davyth decided to do something about it and spent nearly 20 years naming birds in the Welsh language.
“I got a group of naturalists together, we would look at these birds scientific names and then their English names.
“At times, it was difficult because a few of the birds had multiple English names and we would have to figure out which one suited the bird best.
“My favourites are Grey
Lourie or Goawaybird as they are known, which we named in Welsh ‘Lowri
●
Lwyd,’ and Blacksmith Plover, which we named ‘Gof y Traeth.’
“I was really pleased that I was able to discuss my work on the show, and I hope it will inspire others to learn and use Welsh.” During the same episode, Davyth was joined by fellow Welshman, Sean Lea from Wrexham, who managed to bag an impressive £32,000. Since the episode has been aired, Davyth has revealed he has no immediate plans to spend his fortune, but as mentioned on the show, he believes he and his wife will be spending it on travelling.
He has been overwhelmed by people’s reactions, in particular on social media: “I have just come to terms with the fact that I have won that amount of money myself.
“But people’s messages on Facebook and Twitter, especially from the students that I taught in the past, has been absolutely lovely to see.”
“For anyone considering applying for the show, my only advice would be that you need to know your stuff!”