FARMERS and their families will be cheering on student William Wearmouth when he pits his wits against the mean queen of TV quiz shows, Anne Robinson.

Nineteen-year-old William has surprised himself, and friends, by battling his way through to a place on the popular BBC quiz show, The Weakest Link.

Tomorrow, he travels to the BBC studios at Pinewood, in London, to record the programme, to be broadcast at a later date.

"You could say I view the prospect of being told by Ms Robinson: 'you are the weakest link, goodbye', with some trepidation," said William, whose family farms at Eastgate, in Weardale, County Durham.

"But I am still very excited about taking part in the quiz."

William, a politics student at Leeds University who is working as a waiter at the Cross Keys pub, in Eastgate, said he first decided to try to appear on the programme as a joke.

"I was having a drink with a few friends and we were watching The Weakest Link. I thought it would be a bit of a laugh to get on it," he said.

He filled in an application form, then last month he was invited to an audition in Leeds, during which he had three minutes in which to answer 30 general knowledge questions.

"Some of them were quite tough," he said, "but some were quite facile, like what do the initials BBC stand for?"

He took part in several dummy rounds of the quiz show, with a researcher standing in for Ms Robinson. Two weeks later he was told he had been chosen to go on the show.

William is quite philosophical about his ability to stand up to the often abrasive questioning which Ms Robinson has made her hallmark on The Weakest Link.

"If nothing else, I have earned a nice all-expenses-paid trip to London," he said.

His mother, June Wearmouth, summed up the opinion of family and friends when she said she "wouldn't like to tackle Anne Robinson"