John Galbraith Graham
Encyclopedia
The Reverend John Galbraith Graham MBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (born 16 February, 1921) is a British crossword
Crossword
A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer...

 compiler, best known as Araucaria of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

. He is also, like his father
Eric Graham
The Rt Rev Eric Graham was an eminent Anglican priest in the mid 20th century.He was born into an ecclesiastical family, educated at Cheltenham College and Oriel College, Oxford, and ordained after a period of study at Wells Theological College in 1913. He was Vice-Principal of Salisbury...

, a priest of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

.

Career

Graham was raised in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, 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
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 when the Second World War began. After the war he returned to Kings to read theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

. In 1949 he joined the staff of St Chad's College
St Chad's College
St Chad's College is a college of the University of Durham in England. One of the smallest of Durham's colleges in terms of student numbers , it has the largest staff, the most extensive college library facilities, and consistently the highest academic results in Durham...

, Durham
Durham
Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...

 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
Huntingdonshire
Huntingdonshire is a local government district of Cambridgeshire, covering the area around Huntingdon. Traditionally it is a county in its own right...

.

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 crossword
Cryptic crossword
Cryptic crosswords are crossword puzzles in which each clue is a word puzzle in and of itself. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated, Ireland, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta,...

s 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
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

 and puzzles for other publications.

He takes his pseudonym from the monkey-puzzle tree
Araucaria araucana
Araucaria araucana is an evergreen tree growing to tall with a trunk diameter. The tree is native to central and southern Chile, western Argentina and south Brazil. Araucaria araucana is the hardiest species in the conifer genus Araucaria...

, whose Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 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
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 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
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...

.

Style

Graham's clue-writing style has made him one of the best-loved of all setters. His style falls into a grouping sometimes referred to as "Araucarian" in which – to a degree – "anything goes" as long as the answer can be readily and unambiguously determined. This style, of which The Guardians Bunthorne
Bob Smithies
Robert Smithies was a photographer, journalist and crossword compiler. He was born in Middleton, near Rochdale, Lancashire....

 was another notable exponent, contrasts with the more rigid "Ximenean
Derrick Somerset Macnutt
Derrick Somerset Macnutt was a British crossword compiler who provided crosswords for The Observer newspaper under the pseudonym Ximenes. He was one of the principal influences on the modern style of cryptic crossword.- Career :...

" style in which strict clue-writing rules must be adhered to.

Widely admired for his clever use of cross-references and special themes, he is usually called upon to produce the extra-large puzzles printed in the Guardian on bank holiday
Bank Holiday
A bank holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom or a colloquialism for public holiday in Ireland. There is no automatic right to time off on these days, although the majority of the population is granted time off work or extra pay for working on these days, depending on their contract...

s; these sometimes even include two grids, with complicated rules governing the placing of answers in each.

He is also credited with creating a new format of crossword, the "alphabetical jigsaw" in which the clues are labelled with letters rather than numbers, and the grid has no markers to indicate the placement of solutions. Instead the clues are arranged in alphabetical order of their answer — usually labelled with the beginning letter, with either one or two clues for each letter. The answers are to be placed "jigsaw-wise, however they may fit," though of course only one arrangement will work. In a few puzzles, an additional clue is given which describes a phrase or set of words placed around the edge of the grid (alternate squares of the perimeter being black) to give a starting point for placing some of the answers. Araucaria's clues to the alphabetical jigsaws are often in the form of rhyming
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...

 couplets in iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter is a commonly used metrical line in traditional verse and verse drama. The term describes the particular rhythm that the words establish in that line. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables; these small groups of syllables are called "feet"...

.
His 'alphabetical jigsaw' puzzles have been christened - 'araubeticals' by fans on a crossword website - www.fifteensquared.net.

His clues often include long anagrams, with his favourite appearing in a Christmas puzzle:
O hark the herald angels sing the boy’s descent which lifted up the world,

an anagram of "While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground".

Another much-quoted example of his brilliance in clue-setting is the following:
Poetical scene has surprisingly chaste Lord Archer vegetating (3, 3, 8, 12)

which yields "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester
Old Vicarage, Grantchester
The Old Vicarage in the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester is a house associated with the poet Rupert Brooke, who lived nearby and in 1912 immortalised it in an eponymous poem....

". This is the title of a poem by Rupert Brooke
Rupert Brooke
Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier...

. The anagram was a topical reference to Jeffrey Archer who was the vicarage's current owner and was lying low there at the time following a sex scandal.

Books

Several collections of his crosswords have been published. His crosswords have also been included in many other compilations, not listed here.
  • Monkey Puzzles (2002)
  • Monkey Puzzles volume 2 (2004)
  • Chambers Book of Araucaria Crosswords Volume 1 (2003)
  • Chambers Book of Araucaria Crosswords Volume 2 (2005)
  • Chambers Book of Araucaria Crosswords Volume 3 (2006).

External links

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