John Galbraith Graham - Career

Career

Graham was raised in Oxford, where his father held the post of dean of Oriel College. After attending St Edward's School, Oxford, he obtained a place to read classics at Kings College, Cambridge, leaving to join the RAF when the Second World War began. After the war he returned to Kings to read theology. In 1949 he joined the staff of St Chad's College, Durham as Chaplain and Tutor where he worked until 1952. On Graham’s departure the Principal, Theo Wetherall, paying tribute to his good nature, wrote that ‘he squandered his sensitive taste and knowledge of Classics on 1B Greek with unfailing patience enlivened by rare expressions of nausea’. He later became a vicar in Huntingdonshire.

Writing his first puzzle for The Guardian in July 1958, he eventually took to compiling crosswords full-time when his divorce in the late 1970s lost him his living as a clergyman (he was reinstated after the death of his first wife). In December 1970, The Guardian began publishing its crosswords under the pseudonyms of their compilers, at which point Graham selected the name "Araucaria".

Besides Araucaria's cryptic crosswords in the Guardian, for which he produces around six per month, he also sets around a third of the quick crosswords for the Guardian, cryptic crosswords as Cinephile in the Financial Times and puzzles for other publications.

He takes his pseudonym from the monkey-puzzle tree, whose Latin name is Araucaria. Another name for this tree is the "Chile Pine", of which "Cinephile" is an anagram, demonstrating his love for film.

Graham now lives in Somersham, Cambridgeshire. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2005 New Year's Honours, for services to the newspaper industry.

In July 2011 Graham was the subject of the BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs.