Biography

Graham was born in Worcestershire in 1941. He trained as a book illustrator at the Birmingham College of Arts & Crafts and spent 30 years working in printing and publicity in a variety of sales and management positions. In 1979, when he was the general manager of a trade litho reproduction house in Somerset, he was appointed by the government to a three-year term as a member of the council of management of the Design Council.

His interest in travelling funfairs stems from his childhood days in Warwickshire, when he lived immediately opposite the ground used for the annual Studley Mop Fair.

In the early 1970s he became a freelance correspondent for 'The World's Fair', reporting on fairs along the Welsh Marches. In January 1978 he was a founder member of the Fairground Association of Great Britain. Established to provide a forum for those interested in all aspects of fairs and fairgrounds. He was elected to the post of chairman at the foundation meeting and has retained that position ever since. In addition, after the Association's first two years of operation, he became the editor of their quarterly journal 'The Century of Tobers’, which was re-designed and renamed 'The Fairground Mercury'.

Graham was involved in the foundation of the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield in 1994 of which he has been a member of the Management Board since. By this time he had left the printing industry to take up the post of Secretary to the Midland Section of the Showmen's Guild of Great Britain. He had for some years assisted the Guild in its promotional efforts, writing and producing its booklet 'All the Fun of the Fair' in 1987 and serving as a member of the team that organised the celebration of the Guild's centenary in 1989. He retired from the Guild in 2006. Graham is the co-author of ‘Thomas Walker: Builder of Steam Roundabouts’ published in 2008, written with Dr John Middlemiss.

He is a trustee of Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, and has served on the museum's council of management since 1968. Graham is the current chairman of the Alcester & District Local History Society and, prior to its dissolution, was a member of the Heart of England Tourist Board's tourism council. He has also illustrated and designed reprints of three books by the Tewkesbury-born writer on country matters, the late John Moore, for the John Moore Society.

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