Pictured: Imogen Gold with her Cambridge team-mates in the final of Univesity Challenge; and, below, her sister Katrina in 2008
Published: 22 March 2012
by GEORGIA GRAHAM

IT is the programme every brain-box pub-quiz geek secretly dreams of appearing on – and two Kentish Town sisters have achieved the accolade just a few years apart.

So when Imogen Gold from Oakford Road, took her seat opposite hectoring questionmaster Jeremy Paxman in the University Challenge final on Monday,
her mother’s pre-match nerves were all too familiar.

Imogen, 21, an engineering student at Pembroke College Cambridge, was following something of a family tradition.

Her sister Katrina was a contestant in 2008.

Imogen said: “I think my parents are really proud and it’s quite impressive having two daughters on the show – they get to email all their friends about it.

“My mum came up and watched the first match in the audience and then my dad came up for most of the rest of them.

"She was so upset by the first one – she was so nervous for me, she couldn’t stand being in the room and got really stressed out – so she wasn’t in the audience for the rest.”

Katrina, who is now studying for her PhD, reached the second round of the programme in 2008 with her team, also from Cambridge.

“We’ve both got our photos with Paxman upstairs,” Imogen added, “but he’s just such a pro at it now that they all look the same. The only way you know it’s not Photoshopped is because he’s wearing a different tie.”

While even the most avid general knowledge fans struggle to clock up a few correct answers on the notoriously tough show, Imogen’s performance in the semi-finals surprised even herself.

“I’m not insanely good at general knowledge,” Imogen said. “It was all these coincidences – a bit like Slumdog Millionaire.

“Once, a couple of years ago, I came across a book in a second-hand shop and that was one of the answers.

"And there was one – ochlocracy – which is the Greek for mob rule.

"Although I had done a bit of Greek at school we had never officially learnt that word because it’s completely random. It’s just that our Greek teacher thought it was a funny word so I ended up knowing it.

“So a shout out for Mr Fozbrook for that – Mr Foz, he was awesome.”

Both girls have lived in Kentish Town their whole lives and attended Eleanor Palmer primary school and then went on to South Hampstead.