The Melbourne-based crossword setter is known for his difficult cryptic crosswords for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers each Friday. Crosswords brought joy to Harrison and he said it was the greatest job of his life.It may not surprise anyone who has attempted his crosswords that, as a child, David Astle preferred comic book supervillains to their superhero nemeses. As a tribute to his recent 90th birthday, the grids of fellow compilers have sported the H. Harrison had a healthy ego and cheekily put a big H in his grids. In recent years, he created more than 10,000 of these easy quicks and emailed them to readers who wanted them as an antidote to stress. He did it in memory of his late sister who’d had dementia. Harrison not only compiled, for free, 3000 crosswords, but he also drove to the far north of NSW to deliver them to her. His elderly wife had dementia and doing the crosswords gave her comfort and calm. Several years ago, a reader sent in a request for the Quick crosswords to be made a little easier. It could be subtle, such as choosing “Evans Head” for the letter E, to delight a posse of puzzlers based in that North Coast town, to something much larger. His favourite way to raise funds for charity was with a trivia night, and for that he had created a gargantuan database of questions. Harrison was a long-time supporter of the Wayside Chapel. Three days later he returned, to continue disrupted cancer treatment. Harrison packed the car, calmed his wife Maria who had early dementia, and drove 260 kilometres to his son’s home. The fires of 2019 were to test Harrison’s resilience. Cancer was to recur several times, so Harrison would supply a year of puzzles in advance in case of illness. Since then, he has written many hundreds of puzzle books. Harrison bought his first computer and software. The couple retired in 1996 and moved to the holiday house they had built near Batemans Bay. Grids were hand-drawn with ruler and pencil and samples were sent to magazines and newspapers. Maria’s gift of a small electronic thesaurus to an ill and bed-ridden Harrison in 1993 was the catalyst for a new career as a cruciverbalist. He married Hungarian-born Maria Gergaly in 1981. The stress led to a heart attack and the breakdown of his marriage. Interest rate hikes and a credit squeeze under the then Whitlam government had a disastrous effect on the building industry. In 1972, he was asked to join a development company in Sydney and became a director. The family increased with the births of Gregory and Wendy. Children Neale and Christine were born.Īfter graduating, Harrison was delighted to find work with an architecture firm in his beloved Grafton. He also gained an SMH crosswords sparring partner in his father-in-law. Harrison moved to Sydney in 1949 to study civil engineering, then two years later, transferred to architecture. Donald could always recall that first cryptic clue he solved, aged 11, while, looking over his mother’s shoulder – New one new gas (4)* Father, Wesley Harrison, was a senior surveyor with the Department of Main Roads and mother, Marjorie née Macklin, liked crosswords. Like his brother Malcolm and sister Rosalie, he was taught to strive and to value learning. Harrison was born and educated in Grafton in the Northern Rivers region of NSW.
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