Mastermind David has TV final in his sights

He's started but will he finish? Wombourne man David Love has reached the semi finals of Mastermind. The brainy father-of-two will be in the famous black chair on Friday.

The 55-year-old scored an impressive 30 points in his initial heat. He had a perfect first round with no passes or wrong answers, scoring 16 points, with English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams as his specialist subject.

This time, the technical consultant, who works for Birmingham-based Chamberlain Wealth Management, has been reading up on British birds of prey.

The first heat was screened on March 2. It is the third time Mr Love has been on the programme but the semi-final is the farthest he has got.

He said: "I wanted to use Vaughan Williams as my specialist subject both times previously but the producers don't like the same topic coming up more than once in five years and someone had already done it.

Wife Rosemarie, 54, had to put up with her husband playing Vaughan Williams music almost constantly while at home to practise for the quiz.

Both the heat and the semi-final were filmed at the BBC's Salford studios last summer. For the semi-final Mr Love, of Bumblehole Meadows, had three months to become an expert on British birds of prey.

He said: "I'd always been fascinated since seeing kestrels over Sedgley Beacon as a boy in the 1960s."

Mr Love, who has two daughters Jeni, 27, and Emily, 25, did not tell his colleagues at work that he was auditioning for the show.

"I work about 30 seconds away from the BBC's studios in Birmingham where the auditions were held", he said. "I nipped over in my lunch break. If I hadn't have got through I would have just kept it to myself."

During his general knowledge questions Mr Love was helped by having been a former pupil of Bilston Grammar School. He was asked who had written the poem Vitae Lampada, which ends "Play up, play up and play the game". "The answer was Henry Newbolt and I knew that because one of the houses at school was Newbolt," he said.