has crowned veteran quizzer Alice Walker the winner after she sailed into the lead with six points in the grand final.
The 67-year-old achieved the highest score of the whole series and finished with a total of 33 after scoring a perfect 14 out of 14 in her specialist subject on the Peak District National Park.
Her victory marks the 50th anniversary of the show, which first aired in 1972.
After Ms Walker’s victory was announced, she told the camera: ‘I can’t quite believe it, really.’
Ms Walker, a retired IT consultant from Derbyshire, chose to answer questions about the Peak District because she walks her dog in the area, however admitted she ‘didn’t prepare’ for the general knowledge round.
‘I live on the edge of the Peak District, it is an area I visit quite a lot because I like walking,’ she said.
‘I just thought it would make an interesting subject because there is quite a variety to know about it, as well as the geographical aspect, there is a lot of history and geology.
‘I had various books on the Peak District that I studied for quite a long time.’
Ms Walker continued to the PA news agency: ‘I didn’t really prepare much for the general knowledge because you can literally be asked anything, I do quite a lot of quizzes all the time anyway so I am in the zone of answering quiz questions, I didn’t really do any special preparation.’
The champion has previously taken part in BBC’s Eggheads, The Chase on ITV and Channel 4 quiz show Fifteen To One before plucking up the courage to apply for Mastermind.
‘I thought about doing Mastermind for a long time,’ she added to the publication.
‘I think originally I thought you had to know a lot about your specialist subject before you applied and I used to think I don’t know enough about anything, but then I realised people just picked a subject that they’re interested in and learn up about it, so that’s what I did.’
On the show, Ms Walker said getting to the final ;completely exceeded’ her expectations, and exclaimed ‘Oh my God’ when she realised she had won.
Her victory follows 2021 champion Jonathan Gibson, a PhD student from Glasgow, who became the youngest person to win the show last year aged 24.
Mastermind is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
