Derek Crozier

Derek Crozier was born in Dublin in 1917 and began his working life with the Guinness Brewery. He and his wife Marjorie emigrated to Zimbabwe in the late 1940s and have lived there ever since. He farmed tobacco until 1963 and then taught English (he is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin) at St George's College until his retirement in 1989.

His involvement with the CROSAIRE Crossword began in 1943 when the then editor of the Irish Times accepted his proposal for a weekly crossword in the paper. The first crossword was published on 13 March 1943. Because of its growing popularity, the Crosaire gradually began to appear more frequently, reaching its daily status in 1982, a position that it still holds today.

Over the fifty years of its publication CROSAIRE has become an Irish institution, attracting a huge and loyal following for whom no day would be complete without its mental stimulation, and often frustration. Derek Crozier remarks that ‘It's splendid to think that there are people who from time to time would love to wring my neck.’