John Graham

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the crossword compiler, John Graham. Now aged ninety, he works under the name Aricaria, and for more than fifty years has infuriated, intrigued, and entertained

Presenter0:47

pleasure puzzle hungry public, with fiendish clues and mind twisting anagrams. His interest in crosswords sprang from a rather cloistered childhood. His father was a clergyman, and growing up in a large family, entertainment was found inside the home, and was of a rather old fashioned variety.

Presenter1:05

He's pretty dismissive of his time as a navigator in the RAF, and of the weeks spent hiding behind enemy lines in Italy. After the war he studied theology, and, like his father, became a vicar but, when divorce forced him to leave the Church, crosswords provided an unlikely source of revenue.

Presenter1:24

He says the crossword is an art form which has no independent value apart from the esteem of the public.

Presenter1:32

Is that the clue, then, John Graham, that actually this is about an element of intellectual jousting with strangers? That's the pleasure of it, is it?

John Graham1:39

Yes, I think that's a pretty fair description. I hadn't thought of it myself, but yes, I think it's good. I hope that it also

John Graham1:46

equips one for life in the sense it makes one think more clearly and

John Graham1:51

Can only be good.

Presenter1:52

And also you've you've got to presumably, because it is for so many people there are their ritualistic daily activity.

Presenter1:59

You've got to leave people wanting to come back for more the next day as well.

John Graham2:04

Yes, though I don't know that one consciously does anything about that, but that's true, certainly, yes. So much of it, I think, is something that goes on unconsciously. You see the word

John Graham2:16

You play with it in your mind and you play with ideas related to it. You don't actually think about the pantas at all at that stage.

John Graham2:25

You tried it for yourself, I think.

Presenter2:26

Right. But you do have devoted followers.

John Graham2:29

Sign believe, yes.

John Graham2:31

I can't quite think why.

Presenter2:33

Yes, and I'm wondering about cryptic crosswords, which for so many people are you know more than a closed book. They are im impenetrable in their nature, and it seems to me they are quite a sort of you know a British pursuit, a little bit like cricket, you know. They require a lot of time, a lot of energy, and to outsiders they are essentially a pointless pursuit. Is that fair?

John Graham2:53

I think that's very affair, yes. People do occasionally even go to the lengths of framing these things. I've been sent them with the intention that I might keep them and hang them up on my walls, which is the last thing I want to do.

Presenter3:06

Uh what about Sudoku? Do you consider that to be the devil's work?

John Graham3:10

Well, as I've never done one, it would be unfair to judge, but I'm sure you do love a judgment. Share it with me. Yes, I think s that's fair comment. It takes people away from their proper occupation of solving cryptic crosswords. I I think t people s was better employed doing my crosswords than doing the Sudoku.

Presenter3:13

Sure, you do have a judgment. Share it with me.

Presenter3:27

Let's have some music then, John. We're going to begin with your first disc, and I want you to tell me why you've chosen it.

John Graham3:34

Well I chose this piece because it's the first piece of serious music I ever got to know and when I went to King's College, Cambridge for my interview before going up, a group of us sat around with a prospective tutor and he asked us each to choose a piece of music to to play and this was the only piece of serious music that I knew. I thought I'd better choose that. And so it's always been a favourite.

Presenter4:57

That was the opening of the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Karl Bohm. So let's find out a little bit more then, John Graham, about cryptic crosswords. To I mentioned a moment ago to the uninitiated, to people like me, I'm afraid to say, they are a sort of

Presenter5:14

They're a foreign language that you certainly haven't learned. I I want to try to pick apart one of your clues that I was looking at. Now the clue was Correcting Sets in the North, oh, don't, I can't bear it. That was the clue. The answer was well, you remember what it was, the answer was what?

John Graham5:31

Author Dontik.

Presenter5:32

Orthodontic. Now you say that in a very matter-of-fact fashion, as if that's obvious to anybody with even half a brain. How do you begin with the clue and how do you reach orthodontic?

John Graham5:41

In the compiler's mind, the process is that you you see the word, you think this is an opportunity for a hidden clue. Sets nearly always or ca very often refers to teeth.

Presenter5:52

Bye.

John Graham5:52

So also Dante is correcting sets. That's the me that's the definition part of the clue.

John Graham5:58

Um I can't remember exactly how the rest of it goes.

John Graham6:04

Yeah

Presenter6:04

Oh, don't, I can't bear it.

John Graham6:07

The the in very often refers to a hidden clue. You have to go into this set of words to see the answer. So it's in the north and then once you get to the e after the end of north the the clue begins. Orth I don't, I can. Indeed. You can do it other ways, like saying part of or from or various ways of doing it, but in is the easiest.

Presenter6:30

You obviously with that you you come up with the word first of all and then you have to cunningly work out a way of hiding it, obscuring it. Right. Um what about anagrams? I I again was caught by probably one of my favourite of viewers. This this was at a time when Geoffrey Archer was uh lying low. I don't even know if he was in the clink at this point. But anyway, um the anagram that you made up was Chaste Lord Archer vegetating.

John Graham6:36

Yeah.

Speaker 46:36

Yes, right.

John Graham6:37

Uh

Speaker 46:37

Yeah.

Speaker 16:46

Uh

Speaker 46:46

Okay.

John Graham6:57

Yes, that's right.

Presenter6:58

Yes. And you realize that these letters made up what?

John Graham7:02

They meet at the old Vicarage, Granchester, which is where he lives.

Presenter7:05

Indeed. That I mean, that is an absolute corker. Did you celebrate the day you made up that one?

John Graham7:11

Well, I don't remember doing so particularly, but it w it was quite pleasing, I must say.

Presenter7:15

Quite pleasing. That's the best we're going to get, yes.

John Graham7:16

Yeah.

John Graham7:18

I do it with scrabbled letters with a big one like that.

Presenter7:21

But you d use scrabble tiles.

John Graham7:23

Yeah.

Presenter7:23

You don't do it on a computer.

John Graham7:25

No, I wouldn't know how to do the computer.

Presenter7:27

Right.

John Graham7:27

I just gathered all the tiles out, making quite sure that I don't lose anything, because it's so easy to make mistakes with anagrams otherwise.

Presenter7:35

What about you said checking, and and presumably you have people who check your your process. How does that work? Explain that to me.

John Graham7:39

I do.

John Graham7:41

Well, I send the puzzles to them. Um they try solving the puzzles. They have the answers ready and so they can check. And they come back to me and let me know where they think I've gone wrong, but also they check all the references I make.

Presenter7:56

Right. Do do they ever tell you, John, you it it's impossible? You'll drive people to, you know, an institution with this puzzle.

John Graham8:04

The worst I get is very hard. I think that's a polite way of saying the same thing.

Presenter8:09

Yeah.

John Graham8:09

Uh

Presenter8:09

Right. So we're going to go to disc number two then. Tell me uh tell me what's coming next and why you've chosen it, John.

John Graham8:16

I loved Caroline Ferry the first time I heard her sing, but it's not just that. Where I live now I have a well, great friends, a family who have more or less adopted me, so to speak, since I was widowed. But the lady of the family who died last year, she was a contralto and concerned singers always remind me of her. And this is from in her memory really.

Speaker 48:44

Southerly, southerly, Blow the wind south o'er the bonny blue sea.

Speaker 48:56

Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly

Speaker 49:03

Love on it breathes my love on

Presenter9:11

That was Kathleen Ferrier and Blow the Wind Southerly. So let's go back, John Graham. You were born in nineteen twenty one the very difficult years after the war for most people. What are your earliest memories?

John Graham9:24

They don't go back very early. I hardly remember anything, clearly, until I was about six. Then I just remember bits of the countryside where we lived in Wiltshire.

Presenter9:37

Describe your home to me, what was it like?

John Graham9:38

Well, it was a a big country vicarage. We didn't have an electric light at that stage, and we didn't have any gas of course, or anything like that. We we had oil lamps. So it was it was by these standards primitive, I imagine. It was quite normal then.

Presenter9:53

Yes. Your grandfather and your father had both gone into the church. And what what sort of man was your father? What was he like?

John Graham10:00

He was a lovely man, and he was.

John Graham10:03

A very private man, I think. I I never felt I got to know him very well.

John Graham10:07

In some ways, but I've always loved him very dearly, and I also.

John Graham10:12

Felt for a long time.

John Graham10:14

that he was rather fragile and I needed to look after him. This is probably quite untrue, but Did you feel that as a as a young young boy? I wasn't conscious of it, but I think we were brought up to feel that. I think my mother had felt that and brought us up, I think, to think and feel the same.

John Graham10:28

Um he was shy. That's certain he was shy. And had he fought in the war?

John Graham10:33

He'd been a chaplain in the war.

Presenter10:35

Rise.

John Graham10:35

He would never speak about that at all.

Presenter10:37

Right. Very generational though. I mean, I think it's a very good idea.

John Graham10:39

Yeah.

Presenter10:40

Tell me about your mother.

John Graham10:43

She was amazing really. Um very forceful. We were six altogether. I'm the oldest. I think she could get things wildly wrong sometimes, but most of the time she was wonderful.

Presenter10:53

And I I I mentioned that as a family and I suppose back in the the nineteen twenties and thirties this wouldn't have been quite so unusual, but even by those standards it sounds

Presenter11:03

Relatively old fashioned and self contained to me. You you were encouraged to make your own entertainment. That the family units was where you pretty much stayed.

John Graham11:11

Yes, it was, yes.

John Graham11:13

Well, I think it's because we're a big family to to a great extent.

John Graham11:17

But living in the country, you weren't encouraged to mix with the village children, you know, because they were they were just teriff rough, I think. The word it was never put like that, but that's uh how it really was, I think. There were just a few families around the place who were gentry and you could you were allowed to associate with. We hardly ever did, mind you. But uh this is for me very weird because well, it was almost a shame to admit it was like that, but that's how it was.

Presenter11:41

That's how it was. And so what did you get up to at home? With it, did you did you begin I mean, were you a boy who liked puzzles?

John Graham11:48

I think we all did in the family, probably, yes. So Times Crossroad was part of my parents' life.

Presenter11:53

And did you start to make up crosswords when you were little?

John Graham11:56

Yes, but I couldn't tell you at what age. We did do it fairly early.

John Graham12:00

When my younger brother was old enough to take an interest in me, we we really got into it then, I think.

Presenter12:06

When you look back, I mean it sounds like quite a sort of

Presenter12:09

Quaint childhood. When you look back at it now, does it seem like

Presenter12:13

Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-highty years ago that you lived that life?

John Graham12:17

Yeah, it does. Uh in fact, I I can't really believe any of it. I don't think I live in the past at all, really.

Presenter12:23

How interesting. Are you nostalgic?

Presenter12:26

For the past

John Graham12:28

No. I do like to go back

John Graham12:31

But it's not nostalgia, I don't think.

John Graham12:34

My heart started his curiosity, I think, but

John Graham12:36

It wouldn't matter if I didn't do it.

Presenter12:38

For now, John, tell me about your next piece of music. We're on the third piece now.

John Graham12:42

Ah, yes, the peasant cantato. It's the first time I remember doing any choral singing. And although I I'm by no means a singer of any kind, I do love choral singing and I l I love singing a part. We sang it at school. I don't remember exactly when. I must say I don't think I've ever heard it since, so it's a it's just a childhood memory.

Speaker 413:06

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 413:14

He again put the side, they took it to it, turned to the turn of the sack, he lost my shape with

Speaker 413:24

For the goodness is the cycles in silence.

Speaker 113:24

Go ahead, come and see.

Speaker 413:35

All says except the truth, begin the whole,

Presenter13:51

That was the ending of Bach's Peasant Cantata with Lynne Dawson and Stephen Alder and The Friends of Apollo. So, John Graham, you as we know, you were the oldest of six children, and your father went on to become a bishop, and he was the principal of a theological college, and his father before him, as we know, had risen high up in the church. Were you expected to follow in that uh path?

John Graham14:13

Oh, not to rise high. No, I don't think so.

John Graham14:16

I don't remember ever discussing it actually. I do remember that when I finally made up my mind, after a good deal of coming and going mentally, I did want to do this.

John Graham14:27

He seemed quite pleased.

Presenter14:28

But tell me about the year of coming and going then.

John Graham14:30

Well, I I lost my faith, as they say, in the course of the war not because of the war particularly, but it just didn't seem to make sense at the time. I didn't actually seriously consider being ordained as a clergyman, but

John Graham14:43

But eventually I decided that's what I should do.

Presenter14:45

And prior to that then, you say during the war you you had left uh Cambridge, you joined the RAF and tell me about the time that your plane caught it caught fire, did it?

John Graham14:55

Yes, yes. It seems to be in a flare at the back that ignited. Nobody knows why.

John Graham15:01

And the plane caught fire.

John Graham15:03

All I knew about it sitting in the front was I was a navigator and I couldn't of course see what was going on in the back.

John Graham15:09

There was just a shriek from the back saying the kite's on fire, and that's the last I heard because the intercom was then burnt out.

John Graham15:16

The next thing I heard was the pilot ringing the bell, which is get out, so I got out.

Presenter15:20

Yes, you build out over Italy.

John Graham15:22

Yes.

Presenter15:22

Tell me about that.

John Graham15:24

Well, it was night. Night intruding was our job, they called it night intruding, dropping small bombs on railway lines and that kind of stuff. So we were quite low level, so it wasn't very far to go, so it was rather urgent to get your parish return fairly quickly.

Presenter15:39

Right. And there had been four men on board your plane. How many survived?

John Graham15:42

Yeah.

John Graham15:44

Just me and the pilot. The pilot flew the flame back.

John Graham15:48

As I bailed out I watched this blazing object taken going away in the sky. Quite amazing. He did it it was a magnificent feat of flying, it really was. When I got down I I according to instructions I hid the parachute as best I could and and went to the nearest house and knocked on the door. And they said go down the road. So I went to another house where I was taken in and looked after.

Presenter16:11

And there f for an amount of time, in fact, that they took you into their house, this Italian family, and looked after you, where where were you in the house? Presumably you had to be hidden.

John Graham16:19

I was in the stable to begin with.

John Graham16:21

which is very nice and warm, full of rats. But they moved me out. Full of rats? Yes. Rats, yeah. But I mean, you get that in the stables, that's all right. Then they moved me out after a couple of days. I thought that was too dangerous. They moved me out to a a little hide for that they had in the field for shooting birds from.

Presenter16:24

Fort of rats.

Speaker 116:26

Yeah.

Presenter16:26

Yes, right.

Presenter16:29

Yeah

Presenter16:38

And how much communication was there? I mean, on the one hand, of course, they clearly wanted to shield you, but on the other hand, they themselves must have felt a degree of terror at at doing that.

John Graham16:46

Well, they were a bit scared though they were. The village school teacher was billeted on them. So if she actually gave me lessons in Italian, I gave her lessons in I think in English, but also in Latin, I think. It worked out very well. And I was there for fifty one days and I was rescued.

John Graham17:02

and brought back to behind our lines and went back to the squadron, and then I knew all about it then.

Presenter17:07

And and how were you rescued?

John Graham17:09

There was a little group of people who who had escaped from the prison of war camps and they had contact with the partisans and the partisans arranged for a motorboat to come and drop armours for them and pick us up.

Presenter17:09

Deliver.

John Graham17:21

So a group of five of us went back on the boat.

Presenter17:23

But your appearance surely must have thought you were dead.

John Graham17:27

Well, they were told I was missing. That's all they were told.

Presenter17:28

Yes.

Presenter17:30

You were mentioned in despatches, then. Do you do you

John Graham17:33

That was because I bailed out and got safely back. It was quite automatic. Anybody who did that was mentioned in dispatches.

Presenter17:41

You don't want to take any credit for that at all. I mean, it seems to have been a a rather brave and uh extraordinary thing that you did.

John Graham17:48

Well, you just uh you did what you did, didn't you, then? I mean, it wasn't brave rhythms, you just did it.

Presenter17:51

Possibly.

John Graham17:54

And it was diff at the time.

Presenter17:57

And you said that losing your faith you don't think had anything particularly to do with the war, but but I'm wondering about the random nature of the fact that four men go up in a plane, two of them make it, two of them do not. Did that not in any way sort of cause you to to question the the meaning of life and the purposefulness of a god?

John Graham18:19

I don't think so really. I don't think that made any difference. I mean, all those questions occurred. Of course they do, and they they always do and they always will.

Presenter18:20

Present.

John Graham18:28

But I don't think that actually that much to do with it because in a war you you you just do all this stuff and you don't really think that much about it, it sort of happens and

John Graham18:37

That's it.

Presenter18:38

Okay. Well, let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear next, John?

John Graham18:41

Count John McCormack and the stars, the counties are well this is it's in very early days. Somebody must have given us a gramophone, one of these enormous great things with a one of those funny horns on the top and steel needles. We had just a few records that this was one of them. I'm not sure I like it so much now, but I loved it then.

Speaker 119:01

Banbridgetown in the county down One morning last July Down a boring green came a sweet Colleen And she smiled as she passed me by She looked so sweet from her two bare feet To the sheen of her nut brown hair Such a coaxing elf I was ashamed of meself For to see I was really there

Presenter19:27

That was John McCormack and star of County Down. I should tell our listeners, John Graham, that you got a fit of what I can only describe as the giggles during that track. Why did you get the giggles?

John Graham19:35

Well, I was thinking uh I would never now chose choose that so the record I put it in because of the history of it.

Presenter19:41

Yeah.

John Graham19:42

I wouldn't particularly want to play it again.

Presenter19:45

Well, maybe for the last time there, you heard it today. So, you returned to Cambridge after the war. Yes. You'd been studying. What were you studying at Cambridge?

John Graham19:46

Yeah.

John Graham19:49

BS

John Graham19:51

I did classics for the first two years at Cambridge.

Presenter19:54

You didn't you didn't pick up your studies in classics.

John Graham19:56

No, I I decided to read theology because not because at that stage I wanted to go into church, but because it was the only thing I could well, I tried mathematics first. I I sat I read mathematics in Cambridge for forty-eight hours, I suppose. Went to four lectures and didn't understand a word of any of them. So I thought I'd better switch. And theology was easier because I have a fairly good knowledge of the Bible and that sort of thing from the background. So it was easier to do. So it wasn't a calling? It wasn't a calling at that stage, no.

John Graham20:26

Uh

Presenter20:26

What appealed to you at that stage then was just that you could do it.

John Graham20:28

Yeah, stuff like his dreams at that stage, yes.

Presenter20:30

Right. So when did the y when did the calling?

John Graham20:32

Yeah. About about two two-thirds of the way through the course, really.

Presenter20:37

Can you describe it to me? What what happened? What

John Graham20:39

I can't really. It's just uh I was saying my prayers, and just somehow I knew. It's the only time it's ever happened to me, I may say, but it did seem as though I was just being spoken to.

John Graham20:48

You've got to do this, you know, your country needs you and all that sort of

Presenter20:50

To see.

Presenter20:52

Um but it wasn't a straightforward career because t tell me early on you were sent away you you went to your first parish which was

John Graham20:58

It is the first parish in Saint John's East Dunnage, South London.

Presenter21:01

And what happened?

John Graham21:01

I fell in love with a girl in the parish, and it was not a tradition of the parish that anybody should do that.

John Graham21:07

We were not supposed to have anything to do with all that sort of thing. We were supposed to be celibates.

Presenter21:11

But this was not a rule of the church.

John Graham21:13

It wasn't the rule of the church, it was the rule of that particular parish, and quite a lot of parishes there were like that. Right, so it was a very.

Presenter21:17

Right, so it was a very high church. Was it sort of a

John Graham21:19

Yeah.

Presenter21:19

Yeah.

John Graham21:19

High Church, yes, yes.

Presenter21:19

So what happened? You were

John Graham21:22

And they found me another job a long way away.

Presenter21:27

Oh, what do you think about that?

John Graham21:28

Well, didn't question it really.

John Graham21:31

I knew the rules when I got there, and if you

John Graham21:34

You break the rules you you suffer, you know.

Presenter21:36

And what happened with your sweetheart? Did you keep writing or keep

John Graham21:39

Yeah, we kept in touch. She actually had T B and spent the year in a sanatorium when I was up in Durham.

John Graham21:45

Then finally we she was better and finally we got married and went to a new job in Aldershot.

Presenter21:51

And when you were sent away to Durham

John Graham21:53

Yeah.

Presenter21:53

What your father by that point must have been was he a bishop at that point?

John Graham21:57

It must have been, mustn't he, at least?

Presenter21:58

Yes.

John Graham21:59

Uh

Presenter22:05

Good. I look forward to that. But but in but at the time that you were sent away and your father was a bishop, didn't he was he disappointed? Was there a sense that you'd got it wrong, you'd breach the rules?

John Graham22:13

I don't think so. I think it's I think I never thought he'd been judgmental about it at all.

Presenter22:18

Right. And so you did get married. I did get married. Yes, and your marriage uh lasted a good six years? Twenty six years. Then the marriage ended. Yes. Um that was not just the end of your relationship, it then subsequently became the end of your career. Tell me what happened.

John Graham22:23

Twenty-six

John Graham22:27

PF

John Graham22:33

Well, yes. Um in those days you couldn't be divorced and c and continue in the in the ministry of the church. It was clear enough, and the rules were again were quite clear, and and it was beginning to be quite clear to me that I couldn't do it actually, couldn't stay, that I must go.

Presenter22:40

Yeah.

John Graham22:50

So I went.

Presenter22:51

Given that you you lost your career, your marriage broke down, I'm imagining you must have lost your home at the same time that would have been tied to the church. I mean, those are three great blows to take at once. Was it a particularly gloomy time?

John Graham22:59

And that would have been tied to the church.

John Graham23:04

Yeah.

John Graham23:07

A lot of that period I suppose because it was s lot of it was very traumatic, I suppose one does f been allowed to forget it somehow.

Presenter23:15

Yeah.

Speaker 423:15

Yeah.

John Graham23:16

I think actually life was so difficult before that. I think it was it wasn't so much the blow. I think it was release probably. And I was very lucky.

John Graham23:24

anyway, materially, because Margaret has a house.

John Graham23:27

Her husband had died very suddenly, so I had somewhere to go, but I needed more money.

Presenter23:33

And so Margaret, just to be clear, went on to become your second

John Graham23:36

Yes, yes.

Presenter23:38

More about Margaret and your life with her in a moment. For now, though, John Graham, let's have some more music. We're at disc number five.

John Graham23:45

Well, this again this is this is from the sixties, you see, the time of all this was going on. I had ten years at Reading University as chaplain when everything was changing, and the the era of the Beatles and everything, and I did wonder what I like to choose best from that era.

John Graham24:00

So I came out with this one because it it's the flip side as well as your shows of pale, which everybody knows, and this is not so well known, and I think it's better.

Speaker 424:09

Your trousers are cast a thirty And your shoes are laced out wrong

Speaker 424:16

You'd better take off your hunger, because you're overgoed.

Speaker 424:22

It's too long.

Presenter24:33

That was Proklharum and Homburg. So, John Graham, you said a moment ago you had to think of a way of getting some money. This was the end of your career and the end of your first marriage, and so you thought what?

John Graham24:45

Well, I I thought the the only thing I can do is crossword puzzles, and so I I wrote to my boss at The Guardian, John Perkins, the Crossword Editor, as he then was, and asked if he could find me any more work.

Presenter24:45

Yeah.

Presenter24:57

So up until that point had you been doing sporadic?

John Graham24:58

I've been doing I've been doing yes, I've been doing it regularly for some years.

Presenter25:02

You say you'd regularly been contributing, but it'd been your hob your a paid hobby?

John Graham25:04

Bino hob

John Graham25:06

Yes, that's right, Page Hobby absolutely is.

Presenter25:08

And you say you say it was traumatic, and a moment ago you said there was a sort of sense of of release. Where where was you know, having left the church and been free of a of a marriage that hadn't and ended happily? Wha what was the trauma? Was it having failed? Was it feeling that you didn't

Presenter25:23

Make the grade.

John Graham25:25

I suppose it's partly that. I mean, it's just.

John Graham25:29

I think an unhappy marriage is such a major disaster anyway to anybody.

John Graham25:33

But it's worse for your vicar because everything you do all the time is supposed to be upholding the sanctity of marriage, happy relationships in the family and all that stuff, which you can't do. That is I think it's it's a major problem and and I think it's a major headache, I think.

Presenter25:43

Yeah.

Presenter25:47

Um tell me about marrying Margaret then. When when were you able to get married?

John Graham25:52

It was seven years after we first lived together and uh we were we were together for another seven years. It took time to get the divorce sources out and everything and uh we were happy living together anyway and it

John Graham26:04

It didn't make much difference to me then whether I married or not, to be honest, it didn't seem to matter. The rules were broken anyway, so

Presenter26:11

And so why did you decide to get married?

John Graham26:14

It seemed to make sense on the whole. We knew we wanted to stay together and and marriage what you did you stayed together, so we did it.

Presenter26:20

And what about where did your faith sit in all of this? Because I'm imagining it must have been sorely tested.

John Graham26:28

I don't think I ever really questioned it. Uh I probably questioned it, but I don't think I ever ever ever came to any different answer. I think it's always been there.

Presenter26:35

And when you look these days at the way that the Church um chooses to deal, or indeed at times not deal with issues like uh women vicars or accepting gay clergy, w what are your what are your thoughts?

John Graham26:49

I think the the church as an organization is not very good at dealing with this with stuff. We just don't do it very well.

John Graham26:56

Most things we do is absorb a muzzle.

John Graham26:59

But I think that's probably inevitable.

Presenter27:01

Let's have some more music. Then, John, tell us what we're going to hear next. We're on uh disc six.

John Graham27:06

Oh yes, well when I went up to King's a lot of my c people I knew best were called scholars, so it was very much an important part of life. And I think that the carols I've chosen, which is quite often done at the Carol Service on Christmas Eve, is for me the highlight of what they do.

Speaker 427:29

Things from pair

Speaker 427:33

Friends of Light

Speaker 427:36

You chorden for the pointing sounds.

Speaker 427:43

And this the quest of the tremorous tree and you born king of the Jews may

Speaker 427:58

I will gift Abel for the king.

Speaker 428:02

Those incense from Father of God.

Speaker 428:12

The star shines out with a steadfast lake The king's to Bethlehem

Presenter28:25

That was Stephen Varko and the choir of King's College, Cambridge, and three kings from Persian lands. You have, John Graham, just to be clear, been described in the past as the tiger woods of the crossword world in the days when that was still a compliment. You're considered to be at the very, very top of your game. Is there quite a distinct hierarchy?

John Graham28:46

No, certainly not. And I think these things are are very much a question of personal taste. I mean, I I don't suppose everybody would would agree with this assessment at all.

Presenter28:57

One of the things I'm wondering is how do you maintain

Presenter29:00

the current status of your work, to know that you are in touch with the words that everybody is using and and to know that you're you're sort of out there, if you like, absorbing all the same things that everybody else is absorbing in order to set clues that seem to chime with the the lives we live.

John Graham29:14

Well, this is always a problem, I think.

John Graham29:19

I have made sure that one of my checkers is at least a lot younger than me. Well, both of them are, but I have.

Presenter29:23

What how old how old are your checkers?

John Graham29:26

Well, I have a check over for a very long time who's now over seventy. So I've got a new check who's over forty. I should really get another one who's twenty, but I haven't managed that yet. I keep my friendships young, I suppose. I associate quite a lot with people who are a lot young well, everybody would associate who was as younger than me, but but

Presenter29:29

Good.

Presenter29:40

Yeah.

Presenter29:41

She was as young as me at the time.

John Graham29:43

But yes, I mean I'll try and keep in touch with that word but

Presenter29:46

Yes. And when you you celebrated your ninetieth birthday, which w was recently, that a group of compilers did explain to me what they did as a gift for you.

John Graham29:48

Yeah.

John Graham29:58

Some of my fellow companies got together and did two crosswords for me, actually, one for the Financial Times and one for The Guardian, and they gave them to me for my birthday.

John Graham30:09

I have both copies framed.

John Graham30:12

How quickly did you complete them?

John Graham30:14

I don't think I could finish one of them. I think one was too difficult.

John Graham30:18

I'm not a particularly good solver.

John Graham30:20

I can do some eventually, but not often can I do them very quickly.

Presenter30:24

Let's have um some more music then. Tell me what we're going to hear next.

John Graham30:28

Well this is a song of Mary. It's a translation of The Magnificat written by my sister Mary Holtby, who is a always the person in my family who I've been closest to I mean closest to all of them, but especially to Mary. She and Richard Shepherd actually write quite a lot of stuff together. She writes the words and he writes the music and I think it's very good.

Speaker 431:04

Praise be Holy Goly Spirit.

Speaker 431:09

Holy pressure is in his side.

Presenter31:39

That was the Song of Mary with the church choir of Saint Andrew's in West Taring. The organist was Christopher Harris, and they were directed by John Wardell. The music was written by Richard Shepherd, and the words were by your sister, Mary Hulkby. Um so, John Graham, um your second wife died uh a fe a few years ago now, Tom.

John Graham31:57

Yes, yes, it's sixteen years ago now. Seventeen years ago, sorry.

Presenter32:00

Yeah.

Presenter32:04

And you said earlier there was a family in the village who was as good as adopted you. So you don't have children of your own. Do you see.

John Graham32:07

Yeah.

John Graham32:11

I have stepchildren of my own, but Margaret Margaret had children. Yes, I see them.

Presenter32:12

But

Presenter32:15

I'm wondering in you know, in this world where we can be entertained constantly by our

Presenter32:21

Nintendo Game Boys and mobile phones and obviously constantly the television and however many hundred channels we want to tap into.

Presenter32:30

If you ever worry that the crossword is going to be a dying art.

John Graham32:35

It does cross one's mind, but per perhaps rather selfish. I think it'll it'll probably see me out. Um I mean it's the same thing with with books, isn't it? One doesn't know what's going to happen, but for the moment things are okay and

John Graham32:50

I think it'll still be all right.

Presenter32:52

And what about do you have of all the thousands of puzzles that you've compiled? Must be thousands, mustn't it? Must be thousands, yes.

John Graham32:57

Yeah.

Presenter32:58

Do you have a favourite clue? Is there something that has really given you a huge amount of satisfaction?

John Graham33:04

One I particularly like, though it's not often picked up by other people, is the gener it's the clue for general election.

John Graham33:12

Which is um

John Graham33:14

Going to the country question mark, let Green Line coach drop companion off.

John Graham33:21

It is an anagram of let green line coach and then take off the ch at the end, which is the companion.

Presenter33:28

John, you're going to have to bear with me now. I need more explanation than you've just given me. Take me through that again more slowly.

John Graham33:32

Okay, right.

John Graham33:34

Going to the country is, as you know, the synonym for an election. It's also if you're living in London, you go to the country, you take a green line bus, so green line coach. So let green line coach without the ch at the end, those fifteen letters of let green line co-a are the anagram for general election.

Speaker 133:52

Yeah.

John Graham33:57

And drop the companion off means you take the CH, the companion, at the obvious at the end. And it makes such nice sense that I was very pleased with that one.

Presenter34:04

Yeah. That's pretty good.

John Graham34:05

To get

Presenter34:05

I have to say, now that I do understand it, it's pretty good. We are constantly told that that for those of us who try to do crosswords, it'll keep us agile, it'll keep us young. What impact do you think it has on you actually setting the crosswords?

John Graham34:17

I suppose it's kept me going something hard.

Presenter34:19

Uh

John Graham34:19

As

Presenter34:20

Let's have your final piece of music, then, John Graham. What are we going to hear this morning?

John Graham34:22

Yeah.

John Graham34:23

This is the The Heavens Are Telling from Haydn's Creation. This is my favourite piece of, if you like, classical religious music. I've always loved it and it it expresses my faith very well. I mean it was the basis of it, I think. It was done by the Sadaives Choral Society a few years back, and it so that's a special memory for me.

Speaker 434:44

We live in the sand, within the power.

Speaker 435:12

Decommandant on his own talk.

Presenter35:44

That was the Berlin Radio Symphony Choir and Orchestra conducted by Helmut Koch and The Heavens Are Telling from Haydn's Creation. So, John, I'm going to give you the books now. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. And your book is going to be what? Going to be a short

John Graham35:59

Stories of Sark

Presenter35:59

Ah, right, you may have that. And um, a luxury too, you're allowed.

John Graham36:05

My first choice would have been the Madonna and Child from Michelangelo from the Church of Our Lady in Bruges but, as I can't take that away from Bruges, because I couldn't live with my conscience if I did, I would like a telescope.

Presenter36:18

Oh, yeah.

John Graham36:18

So that I can see the heavens telling the glory of God, and I've never had one.

Presenter36:21

Right. Uh easily I can give you that. And if you had to choose just one of the eight disks that we've heard today

John Graham36:26

I would choose the last one that haven't a telling.

Presenter36:28

Choose the Hyden. Yes. Right. It's yours. The Reverend John Graham, Arrow Caria, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Highland discs.

Presenter36:36

Yeah.

John Graham36:36

Thank you.

Presenter36:36

Yeah.

Presenter37:14

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.