DEREK CROZIER, better known to Irish Timescrossword fans as Crosaire, has died in Zimbabwe, aged 92. He began compiling crosswords for the paper in 1943.
Mr Crozier, who lived in Harare, Zimbabwe, died on Saturday. “He became ill on Good Friday morning while compiling a crossword, and died in office, you could say,” Mr Crozier’s son Brian, said last night.
Derek Crozier started his career as a clerk of the Guinness Brewery in Dublin and moved to southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, in 1948.
Former crossword editor with The Irish Times, Lorna Kernan, paid tribute to Crozier, who she described as "a real gentleman".
“He did up all his crosswords on a manual typewriter. Because of problems in Zimbabwe, he would give the crosswords to anyone he could pawn them off to who was travelling to the UK or other parts of Europe, who would then post them on to me,” Ms Kernan said.
"He never solved a crossword in his life but he was a genius and a dab hand at compiling crosswords," she added. The first Crosaire came about after Mr Crozier told Irish Timesjournalist Jack White in the Pearl Bar on Fleet Street in 1942 that it was "a sort of hobby" of his to make up crosswords. The name Crosaire was inspired by the then common road signs bearing the Irish cros aire – crossroads – as well as being a play on his name.