Supporting Content
About the programme
Treasure Quest explores all corners of Norfolk with you as the vital contributor, helping to solve the clues and work out where the radio car should head next!
Sophie Little is our intrepid clue-hunter out in the radio car each week, with David Whiteley in charge of the maps back in the studio.
Every Sunday morning, we have four or five clues hidden in different places around a certain part of the county. Each clue leads to where the next one is located, with the final clue leading to the treasure envelope! Our radio car team of Sophie and her driver have to battle against the clock to solve the clues and find the treasure before the 11.55am deadline, but they wouldn’t be able to do it without you phoning in to crack the clues for them!
Sophie Little
Sophie first took part in Treasure Quest in 2013 as a stand in clue-hunter, and since then has become a well-loved member of the team - now as the full-time regular 'runner' out and about in the radio car. A Norwich girl, she’s a familiar voice on BBC Radio Norfolk, having been the presenter of our Saturday evening new music programme BBC Introducing since 2009. She was also the voice of the travel bulletins in the breakfast show between 2011 and 2014, and has stood in as a presenter on various other shows - and also for BBC Radio 1!
She doesn’t just play music on the radio, however – Sophie is also a keen musician herself, and has sung in a local rock band! It’s probably no surprise therefore that listeners are occasionally treated to snatches of her singing along to the records played when the radio car is travelling between clue locations on Treasure Quest!
Sophie holds a unique position in the history of Treasure Quest, as she’s the only one of our regular 'runners' to have also stood in as Navigator, having driven Julie Reinger around the county for a memorably chaotic quest in September 2014! She has also stood in as the show's studio presenter, so she knows most sides of it!
David Whiteley
David first took part in Treasure Quest as a stand in studio presenter in the summer of 2010, and over the next three years deputised as the man with the maps on ten occasions, as well as compering our third and fourth Treasure Quest Live! Children in Need stage shows in 2011 and 2012. In May 2016, he took over as the programme’s new regular studio presenter.
Born in Essex in 1977, David began working in the media in his native county the 1990s, at the age of just 18. He initially worked as a reporter and newsreader for commercial radio and then with his local BBC station, BBC Essex. In 2001 he moved to Norfolk to become a television reporter for BBC Look East, working on the programme for 18 months and winning a Royal Television Society award in the process.
In 2003 he became the presenter of Look East’s sister programme, the regional current affairs series Inside Out on BBC One. He has presented Inside Out ever since, also working as a director and producer on the programme. His other television work has included the nationally-networked BBC One documentary The Village That’s Falling Into the Sea, about the damaging effects of the December 2013 storm surge at Hemsby on the east coast of Norfolk, and the Star Wars documentary The Galaxy Britain Built for BBC Four.
From the mid-2000s, David often stood in as a programme presenter for BBC Radio Norfolk, before landing a regular job at the station in January 2010 as the presenter of the Saturday breakfast show. He continued to present Saturday breakfast until August 2016, when he stood down to concentrate on the Treasure Quest job and his television work.
Outside of work, David has great passions for surfing and for the Star Wars films, both of which receive frequent mentions on his radio shows! He is married to fellow BBC television presenter Amelia Reynolds, and they live in South Norfolk with their two daughters.
Past presenters
For its first five years, the show was well-known for its double-act of David Clayton in the studio and ‘runner’ Becky Betts, until Becky left in 2013. After Becky left, Kirsteen Thorne and Julie Reinger alternated the clue-hunting role week-to-week in 2013 and 2014. Sophie replaced Julie in late 2014, and took over as full-time clue-hunter after Kirsteen decided to step down in September 2015. David left the programme in April 2016, after eight years as the studio presenter, when he retired from the BBC.Want to be a clue holder?
If you've got a great idea for a Treasure Quest clue location in your town or village and you'd like to place a clue there for us one Sunday morning, then why not get in touch? We can't guarantee to use your suggestion, but the Questmaster is always on the look-out for new places to put clues! You can e-mail the Questmaster at the following address:
Treasure Quest on Facebook
Treasure Quest has its own dedicated page on Facebook, where you can join in with the debate over the clues every Sunday morning and post your suggestions for what the answers are and where the radio car should be heading next. You can also share your passion with fellow fans of the show, and catch up with all the latest news about the programme. Just click on the link below to take part:
