A UNIVERSITY Challenge contestant from Weymouth stole the show by answering a winning question about Chesil beach.

Rebecca Gillie, of South Road, Wyke Regis, fielded the deciding question to put her team, Worchester College, Oxford, in the lead over their derby competitors, Queens College, and secure them a place in the quarter finals.

The 20-year-old said: “Getting the final question was such a buzz. The feeling I had as it dawned on me that I knew the answer was incredible and time seemed to slow down for a moment.”

The question was on Ian McEwan’s novel ‘On Chesil Beach’, which is about a newlywed couple who take their honeymoon in a hotel along the seaside.

“As for Chesil Beach, as soon as Jeremy Paxman started describing the novel I knew it wasn’t Atonement and the only other McEwan novel I knew was On Chesil Beach, which has always stuck in my mind, as a Wyke-ite,” said Rebecca.

“I was just praying that it would be the right answer.”

Rebecca is a former pupil of Wyke Regis Infants and Junior School and went on to All Saints School in Weymouth to gain 12 GCSES before attending the Thomas Hardye sixth form.

She is currently teaching a conversational English class at a residential college in France as part of her degree.

The third year French and Italian student added: “Even though it’s a shame I can’t be there to watch in person, last time my mum set up Skype so I could ‘watch’ with the family, which was lovely.

“And my friend at college sent me an amazing photo of everyone gathered in the common room to cheer us on which really showed me how passionately our friends and family care about our appearances – it meant a lot.”

Mum Keeley Gillie said: “We are all very proud of her and the whole team, they’re doing so well.

“We live right by Chesil beach so I was quite surprised when the question came up, it was such a coincidence that of all things it should be a question about our beach.

“We got so excited when we watched it, all the family came round. For her to be captain as well is a great thing.

“Rebecca went to All Saints and a year in they said she should go to Oxford, we knew she was quite clever but she was only 12 when she decided she wanted to go to Oxford.”

The BBC have not yet set a date for the quarter final show to be screened.