Matthew SparkesA Norfolk man hopes to become the first Mastermind champion from the county when he appears in the grand final of the famous show tonight.Matthew Sparkes

A Norfolk man hopes to become the first Mastermind champion from Norfolk when he appears in the grand final of the famous show tonight.

Les Morrell, 60, has chosen the General Strike of 1926 as his specialist subject and will be quizzed along with five other finalists this evening by John Humphrys.

Because the strike lasted for only nine days there was a limited amount for the retired businessman from Cringleford to learn, but Mr Morrell said that 'nothing's easy in Mastermind'.

'This was just a matter really of finding as many books as I could and learning as much as possible,' he said.

'It's going to be tough now that I've seen the quality of the finalists.

'I'll need a fair amount of luck but I'm not nervous. I'm just concerned about doing my best.'

Although there have been three Norfolk finalists in the history of the quiz, nobody from the county has ever managed to be crowned the Mastermind champion.

In a previous round of this series Mr Morrell chose the BBC sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles as his specialist subject.

He said that he was previously a fan of the show but after revising it for almost eight months he now cringes when it appears on television.

Broadcast of that round was temporarily delayed because of a political question asked of another contestant.

Because of the BBC's strict guidelines on political fairness it was held back until May 7 when the election outcome was decided.

He also appeared on the

show three years ago, choosing Kett's Rebellion as his expert topic, but was defeated in the semi-final.

Mastermind is broadcast tonight on BBC2 at 8pm and will be repeated at 4.35pm tomorrow.