Prince William will pin an MBE on Jay Flynn’s chest at Windsor Castle just before noon today.
Jay will enjoy the moment. Jay is being honored for his contributions to charity and general chivvying with the nation during the coronavirus epidemic.
You may have heard of Jay’s Virtual Pub Quizzes. These quizzes have been enjoyed by hundreds upon thousands.
The first lockdown took place in March 2020. Jay had started running Thursday trivia nights in his pub in Darwen (Lancashire), and set up an online version to serve his friends.
Former pub landlord Jay Flynn, 39, (pictured) created Jay’s Virtual Pub Quizzes in March 2020 during the first lockdown
Clueless about the privacy settings on Facebook, Jay didn’t restrict who could see the invitation to join in, however, and he was rather bemused to find 250,000 people waiting expectantly for his first lockdown quiz.
Jay was thrilled with the success of his weekly quizzes and wanted to do more.
The word spread quickly and the lockdown movement took root. A group of seven houses in one cul-de-sac became so addicted to their weekly trivia fix that they would decamp to their front drives and watch Flynn’s Virtual Pub Quiz on a giant screen projected on the side of one of the houses.
It was also a popular event that attracted celebrities. Dame Judi Dench played — and had a hoot. Stephen Fry, actor and Prime Minister asked some questions. Zoe Ball also asked Jay if he could appear on BBC Radio 2’s breakfast program and serve as quizmaster.
Clueless about the privacy settings on Facebook, Jay didn’t restrict who could see the invitation to join in, however, and he was rather bemused to find 250,000 people waiting expectantly for his first lockdown quiz
Jay accepted donations as soon as he saw an opportunity. More donations.
To date, his quizzes have raised more than £1 million for charity — and now even the Queen is saying thank you.
The MBE investiture won’t be the only ceremony that honours Jay, though. Later in the week, some miles downriver from Windsor, there will be another small gathering — one with less pomp but all the more poignant for it. In a park close to the Thames, overlooking London’s Embankment, Westminster Council will unveil a plaque on a bench.
‘Number 3, Riverside View’ it will read. ‘This bench was home to Jay Flynn from Jay’s Virtual Pub Quiz. He proves you are not alone and there is always hope.’ For between 2007 and 2009, this was indeed Jay’s home — or the closest he had to one.
His failures in relationships and jobs had led to him being homeless.
The full story is complicated, but the potted version is that he split up from his fiancée and stayed in a friend’s one-bedroom flat while he worked irregular hours as a delivery driver.
His mental health suffered, and eventually (‘it’s never for one reason; it’s a slide’) Jay toppled into the void, spending his days wandering around London, his worldly possessions in a rucksack, and his nights on a park bench.
This was always the same bench that was located next to Embankment Station. (He called it No 3 as a reference to the British tradition of odd numbers being placed on either side of the street).
To date, his quizzes have raised more than £1 million for charity — and now even the Queen is saying thank you
Every morning, before 7 am, he would pack up his bedding — ‘so as not to offend anyone … I didn’t want to be a nuisance’. He talks of getting up every morning ‘as if going to work — only my work was looking for discarded coins on the street’.
Jay insists that Jay never robbed or begged. He never became addicted to drugs or alcohol, which are well-trodden paths for anyone who is trying to find their way back into society.
He would use public bathrooms to wash. A common dinner (or combined breakfast-lunch-and-dinner) would be a packet of custard creams. ‘In Sainsbury’s they were 22p,’ he recalls. ‘If I was feeling flush, I would splash out on bourbons.’
Is he able to stomach custard cream? ‘I can, actually. They are still my favourite biscuit, and my son loves them, too.’
Publishers have beaten a path to Jay’s door, requesting fun quiz books, and his second has just been published. They might ask Jay to tell his story about being homeless. It is remarkable.
He is being honored for his efforts to bring people together.
His lowest moment was when he felt insignificant and unseen. He decided to disappear.
‘On a couple of occasions, I tried to take myself out of the world,’ he says. ‘I’d been homeless for a couple of months and no one had missed me.
‘I’d pretty much got rid of my identity anyway. I had no ID, no bank card. There would have been no way of identifying me because I’d never been in trouble with the police, so they wouldn’t be able to do it from fingerprints. I’d just have been another John Doe.’
The second time he tried to kill himself, he went on a grocery trawl and spent his street-collected coins on prescription pills. He bought alcohol for them to be washed down and then he died.
Today, just before noon, Prince William will pin an MBE on Jay Flynn’s chest at Windsor Castle.
‘Except I didn’t,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t even do that right. I shouldn’t joke about it — and I’m not, really — but I felt such a failure that I couldn’t even take myself out of the world. I just ended up with a terrible stomach ache.’
He resolved to make another attempt a few more weeks later.
‘I went to a bridge and was going to jump, but the thing that stopped me was thinking of the person who would find me. How could I do that to someone, affect their life like that?’
Jay continued to live with his family and managed to find a way of survival.
‘I had conversations in my head. Radio was my lifeline. It was my lifeline. I used to buy the batteries before anything else. I had a notebook and I’d keep busy, writing.’
The synopsis of a musical inspired by Westlife was written by him. He wrote radio plays.
The most significant thing he did, though, was to accept help, when, in 2009, he woke on his bench to find a card from a homeless charity, The Connection At St Martin’s, under his head.
Three days later, he was unable to muster the courage to call. When he did, they provided clean clothes and ‘a proper shower’.
Crucially, they also helped him get a copy of his birth certificate — the first step on getting him back into society. ‘One of the most important things they do is provide people with an address they can use, so finally I could apply for a bank account, and all those official things you need.’
He was not eligible for benefits immediately (‘It took six months to get me in the system’) but the charity did help him access a crisis loan.
‘It was like winning the Lottery. I said: “Really, I can get these mythical purple notes with 20 on them?” That meant hot food.’
This was not an easy task. A temporary shelter became a more permanent residence, and he secured a job with Sainsbury’s.
The man who is being honored for his efforts to bring people together acknowledges not having had a meaningful conversation for more than two years with any one.
Because of an unhappy relationship, he decided to move north. But while residing in Wigan, Sarah became his wife through an online dating platform.
Their son Jack was four when the couple relocated to Darwen. Jack hasn’t visited Daddy’s bench, ‘but he will one day’.
‘I have taken my wife, and a few other people,’ says Jay, who describes himself as a proud Londoner.
‘It really is the most peaceful place in the world. You can see London’s bridge and London Eye lit up if you visit it at night.
‘It’s breathtaking really, and all you hear is the lapping of waves.’
He still loves this bench, and talks of it as an old friend — which is odd because you imagine it would be a reminder of a terrible period of his life. ‘Yes, but it’s the period that reset me,’ he tells me. ‘Reset everything, really.’
Jay is now a full-time quiz-master, still running online quizzes every Thursday and Saturday evening for thousands of loyals players, and he has been the resident quizmaster on Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 breakfast show for more than a year now.
Last month, he set a new Guinness world record for the world’s longest streamed quiz, which lasted an epic 35 hours and 44 minutes,
He already held the title for most viewers of a YouTube live stream quiz, after a record-breaking 182,513 households took part in Jay’s Virtual Pub Quiz on April 30 last year.
Let me now ask you the final question: Is it a compliment that you have stayed with us?
His response is clear.
‘Yes, and I do think everything happens for a reason.
‘Maybe I had to go through those years, as difficult as they were, to be the person I am today. The signs are obvious in the faces of others. I can say: “You are NOT alone, however much you feel you are.” ’
Jay’s Virtual Pub Quiz Book No 2 is out now.
If you’re having a difficult time, for confidential support call the Samaritans on 0845 790 9090, go to samaritans.org, or visit your local branch.