From rough sleeper to quizmaster – and a community hero

JAY FLYNN, QUIZMASTER

A quizmaster who kept hundreds of thousands of people entertained during lockdown has been rewarded with an MBE.

Jay Flynn’s online virtual pub q quiz was intended as a small event to entertain his friends and regular r quizzers, using a webcam from his living room after the lockdown shut hut pubs and bars across the nation.

He absent-mindedly left the Facebook event public, and instead ead of the expected 30 or 40 players, it attracted interest from half a million. ion.

The weekly events, also streamed med on Youtube, became a lockdown n phenomenon, regularly bringing g hundreds of thousands of people e together during the socially distanced weeks of isolation.

Mr Flynn’s efforts also raised three-quarters of a million pounds ds for charities. For his efforts to the e Covid-19 response, he has been awarded an MBE.

The 38-year-old, who lives in Darwen, Lancashire, with his wife fe Sarah and son Jack, aged three, said: “I nearly fell backwards off my chair. I’m completely overwhelmed med and honoured.

“It was not something I ever thought I would achieve. I never thought I would achieve anything g in my life. I don’t think it will sink k in until I go to the ceremony. I’m blown away.”

Mr Flynn had been running a pub with a business partner, where he e ran the quiz nights until the March ch lockdown and decided to switch to the virtual event on Facebook.

He said: “I did not realise it at the time that the setting was ‘public’, , and by the time of the first quiz on n March 26 we had half a million people interested.”

One edition of his quiz, hosted by Stephen Fry in May, raised £140,000 for Alzheimer’s Research UK, with total charity donations now at £750,000. Mr Flynn’s quiz has also raised money for homeless charities, an issue close to his heart.

Originally from Roehampton, London, in 2007 he found himself homeless and living on Victoria Embankment for two years.

A rough-sleeper team from St Martin-in-the-fields church in central London helped him get back on his feet.

“They rebuilt me from a shell,” Mr Flynn said, “I don’t forget, ever.”