Donald Fear, a 57-year-old history teacher from Newport, Shropshire, has just won ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’.
He is the first person to win in almost 14 years.
His brother, Davyth Fear, was on the show one year ago, having left with $500,000. While his brother left the show halfway, Donald Fear completed all questions in just 20 minutes. He gave all answers without hesitation, only using one lifeline.
The last question was: “In 1718, which pirate died in battle off the coast of what is now North Carolina?” Fear answered almost immediately, citing that he taught piracy in his class as ‘a special unit’ and that he was ‘good with dates’.
Upon seeing the final question, Fear stated, “The first thing I spotted was that there was a date in there… then a microsecond later I saw that it was 1718. Then synapses went, ‘That’s got to be Blackbeard’. That was the only thing it could be. I’m a dates man.”
Fear teaches at Haberdashers’ Adams Grammar school in Newport. The school is famous because politician Jeremy Corbyn used to study there. Fear calls himself ‘a bit of a democratic socialist’. Therefore, he wants to give 50% of his winnings to his family.
The rest, he claimed, was to fund his early retirement from his teaching career.
Before his win, Fear gave an interview to The Mirror, stating “To be honest if I had a million pounds, I wouldn’t have a clue how to spend it. I could buy an Aston Martin for instance, but I could get into the thing, but I could never get out of it. I’m fat!”
After his win, Fear immediately gave notice to the head of the history department at his school. Students and teachers alike were highly disappointed at losing a valued teacher like Fear.
However, the school officially congratulated Fear on the win, tweeting:
“Wow, what a performance from as cool as a cucumber Mr. Fear! Congratulations from everyone at Adams! ‘I taught it to Year 8 kids!”‘
This was a record in the show’s history. Fear should be proud of setting a benchmark.