John Galbraith Graham

John Galbraith Graham MBE (16 February 1921 – 26 November 2013) was a British crossword compiler, best known as Araucaria of The Guardian. He was also, like his father Eric Graham, a Church of England priest.

Graham was born in Oxford, where his father, Eric Graham, held the post of dean of Oriel College. The family moved to a country rectory in Wiltshire. After attending St Edward's School, Oxford, he obtained a place to read classics at King's College, Cambridge, leaving to join the RAF when the Second World War began. After the war he returned to King's 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, of which he produced around six per month, he also set around a third of the quick crosswords for The Guardian, cryptic crosswords as Cinephile in the Financial Times and puzzles for other publications. In 1984, he founded 1 Across magazine as a way of providing more of his puzzles to subscribers who wanted them; the magazine still publishes five crosswords monthly: four new puzzles by various setters, and one by Araucaria taken from the extensive 1 Across archive.

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

Graham lived 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, in which he revealed that he always used Scrabble tiles as an aid when compiling.

The December 2012 issue of 1 Across magazine printed an Araucaria puzzle which revealed that Graham had oesophageal cancer. The puzzle was reprinted as Guardian cryptic No. 25,842 on 11 January 2013. The puzzle had a supplementary narrative beginning "Araucaria has 18 down of the 19, which is being treated with 13 15". Those who solved the puzzle found the answer to 18 down was "cancer", to 19 "oesophagus", and to 13 and 15 "palliative" and "care". Other clues had answers such as "Macmillan Nurse", "stent", "chemotherapy", "endoscopy" and "sunset". Araucaria said this particular puzzle had not taken him very long, adding that a crossword had seemed the most fitting way to make the announcement. "It seemed the natural thing to do somehow," he said. "It just seemed right."

The last Araucaria puzzle published before Graham's death also had some hidden meanings: it included answers such as "cottage hospital", "nil by mouth" and "time to go". Fellow Guardian crossword compiler and friend Sandy Balfour was with Graham on the night of his death, reading to him. A year after his death, on 27 November 2014, The Guardian published a crossword with the grid and some clues compiled by him but completed by his friend and fellow compiler 'Philistine'. He was described as having a "mischievous erudition, humility and courage."