Guardian crossword compiler Araucaria's birthday celebration in 2001, with editor Alan Rusbridger. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

My hero: John 'Araucaria' Graham by Sandy Balfour

I had gone to ask for a crossword, but fell in love with his mischievous erudition, his humility and his courage

Sandy Balfour

Saturday 21 December 2013

Like many fans who came to Araucaria's door, I found a warm welcome. I had gone to ask for a crossword; what I got was friendship and laughter and a decade of playing bridge together. And like so many others, I fell in love with his mischievous erudition, his humility and his courage.

As the world knows, John announced his cancer in a crossword puzzle that appeared in 1 Across, the magazine he founded, in December 2012 and was reprinted in the Guardian in January of this year. I saw him several times in his last few weeks. He had lost none of the twinkle that so infused the puzzles that made him famous. Once he asked whether I would speak at the memorial event that he knew would follow his death.

"Of course," I said.

"Make sure you say something sensible. The others will overdo the praise."

"I'll give it a whirl. I'll tell them you were ordinary. And a bit dull."

"Thanks."

"They won't believe me."

"No, well, we can but try."

On 25 November I made the journey to see him again. By then he could no longer speak, but he liked us to read to him. I had a couple of books with me: the collected writing of CLR James on cricket and a dog-eared copy of Poems on the Underground. John's breathing was laboured and he may or may not have heard me. I read essays on D'Oliveira, on Weekes, Walcott and Worrell and James's particular favourite, Learie Constantine. Men who, like John, were the cream of their generation and whose genius found expression on a very public stage.

My monotone was punctured by his breathing. Regular, but loud and harsh. Every now and then his breaths would skip a beat and my heart would do the same. And then it would start again and I would return to James.

But even I tire of cricket, and so after a couple of hours of this, I moved on to Poems on the Underground ... snippets of this and that, all too familiar to bear repeating, except perhaps Adrian Mitchell's paean to Charlie Parker: "He breathed in air / He breathed out light / Charlie Parker was my delight."

And John was ours. He died that night.

THE GUARDIAN