Virginia Graham

VIRGINIA GRAHAM, the daughter of the humorist Harry Graham (author of Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless People), was brought up in nannied affluence near Hyde Park and sent to Notting Hill High School. As a child she played with Joyce Grenfell; the two became friends for life, Virginia writing or collaborating on many of Joyce's songs; she also wrote her own poems, columns, essays and film reviews, and translated novels from the French.  In 1939 she married Tony Thesiger; like Joyce Grenfell she had no children. Consider the Years (1946) is a collection of her poetry evoking her life during the war, in London and Bristol, as life continued 'as normal' while she worked for the WVS. A lifelong and committed Christian Scientist, Virginia Graham was  'passionately addicted to music, poetry, the theatre and friends; rather less fond of children, animals and the country'. She died in 1993 at the age of 83.