I’m very sad to report the passing of Graham Willison who taught Geography at Emanuel from 1960-1966. For much of that time he was head of department, taking over this role from Lt-Col Charles Hill. He was also in charge of Eton Fives and for a short time was housemaster of Howe.
Graham was educated at King Edward’s School, Birmingham and then Durham University. Emanuel was his second professional post, the first having been Brentwood School in Essex. Following his period at Emanuel he moved for almost all of the rest of his life, to Whitehaven in Cumbria, where he taught at the grammar school. (Incidentally, what the ‘R’ in his first name stood for remained a closely guarded and unsolved secret at Emanuel, and it has been interesting to find out that this was also the case at Whitehaven Grammar School, where pupils simply resorted to the nickname ‘Reg’.)
At Emanuel, Graham organised a number of excursions for pupils – some to study landforms and the like and some simply to enjoy the mountains. I recall a trip in which he combined the two and several pupils were a little surprised to find themselves ‘roped up’ on Snowdon’s Crib Goch while exploring Snowdon’s famous arête! For a minority, particularly those especially interested in climbing, he put leisure time aside to encourage and support with visits to Harrisons Rocks (close to London), Snowdonia and even the Italian Dolomites.
Graham and his wife Brigid had two children, John (born while Graham was at Emanuel and living in New Malden) and Andrea. John, 25 at the time, sadly died in a climbing accident in Canada in 1987. After Brigid’s death in 2019, Graham moved to Worcester to be with his daughter and her family.
Graham’s great passion was mountaineering and especially rock climbing. He remained an active mountaineer, especially of hard rock climbs, both in Britain and the Alps – until a very serious climbing accident in 1983 ended both his climbing and teaching careers.
Martin Ray (OE1957-64)