Oxford and Cambridge Musical Club

Graham Thorne
(Pianist, Club member from March 1956, and Club Chairman and Secretary at various times,
born May 17 1931; died February 2 2008)

Memories from Tim Hibbett (a tribute delivered at Graham's funeral)

Like many of us present today to honour Graham's memory, I first met him at the House. At that time I had just discovered Mozart and I remember walking with him round Tom Quad expounding to him just why Mozart was one of the greats. Graham listened, made a few agreeable comments and we parted company at Kilcannon, I to my rooms in Peck and he to his in Meadow Buildings.

I tell this story because at that time I was unable to play or read a note of music while Graham, as I soon discovered, was already a very accomplished musician. The anecdote captures, I hope, something of his innate tact, modesty, patience and ability to make and keep friends.

Graham was never a man to push himself forward. Amateur dramatics at Oxford, including the House, had its share of inflated egos and ambitious would-be Richard Burtons. But after the very successful Christ Church production and tour of Shaw's St Joan in his first year, in which he played Bishop Cauchon, it was Graham rather than some of the more colourful aspirants, who emerged as the director of the following year's production. This was The Player King, which he also took on tour to Germany. Those whom he directed will remember his patience, no-fuss competence, encouragement of others, humour and complete absence of self-promotion.

Graham settled early on for a life in which friendship, music, theatre and the arts would be central, rather than the more common option of career-building, marriage, children, and the accumulation of material goods. He was a man to whom his friends could and did turn when they wanted a dependable best man and later godfather or mentor for their children or indeed for themselves. These were roles which he played with accomplishment – but no, that is the wrong way to put it. Graham played no roles. He was the dependable supportive best man, the fully engaged but unobtrusive alternative parent. His friends too would turn to him in times of trouble, knowing that they would always find support. He had the gift not just of listening but of knowing when to listen and when to come out with wise words of counsel or a tension-breaking joke.

He was, though, a very private person. He had wide circles of friends but not many of those circles interlocked. Those circles included old Oxford friends, musical friends, and freemasons (he was a freemason himself). I suspect that most of his friends, myself included, did not know the whole man.

One of Graham's most admirable characteristics was his courtesy. His good manners were based, as true good manners are, on endless consideration for others and on natural kindness. I remember one occasion when Graham and I were running a series of lunch-time seminars in St James's. Most of those who attended were senior civil service and business people from the surrounding area, but one day when we entered the seminar room, we found to our – or at least my – dismay that the front row was occupied by a shapeless and rather smelly mass of old clothes containing, as we both instantly realised, the familiar figure of a homeless bag-lady who normally spent the day sitting on the pavement outside.

Others might well have summoned help from the doorman who had evidently neglected his duty. Graham, though, with scarcely a pause, went up to her and said "we thought that today we'd start with lunch. Would you like to come with me?" and led her and her bags away as unobtrusively as was possible in the circumstances. The point of this story, though, is not just his presence of mind. He made sure that the lady was not simply ejected onto the street again but was given a good lunch first before being ushered out onto her pitch.

As with most of us, there were triumphs and disasters in Graham's life. Unlike many of us, Graham treated both these impostors just the same, that is to say with equanimity. Like Chaucer's knight:

" he was a worthy man........
He never yet said any villainy
In all his life unto no manner wight
He was a very parfit, gentle knight"