This award is only given to those who have "been good friends of English bridge over many years". Philip Graham from Hampshire is the man to whom we pay tribute this month. In recommending Philip for this honour, Hampshire and Isle of Wight secretary, Beryl Bloxsom, said this:
"The Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Contract Bridge Association has the honour of proposing to the English Bridge Union the name of Philip E Graham for the Award of Merit.
Philip Graham, who will be 82 in June, began to play auction bridge in the late 1920s sharing his early interest with the girl he was later to marry. They moved on to contract bridge together with the aid of Harold Thorne's book, Contract Bridge in Twenty Minutes and Mrs Culbertson's Little Yellow Book. Subsequently, they were early converts to Acol.
Philip's wife became a member of the Sutherland Ladies Bridge Club, the predecessor of the Southampton Sutherland Bridge Club, in 1934 and was joined by Philip when that club opened its membership to husbands. He recalls their earliest duplicate evenings just before the war when he, as the owner of Thorne's The Blue Book of Duplicate Bridge had his first directing experience.
At about this same time thev began playing in tournaments, in one of which, at Bournemouth, they met Ralph and 'Penguin' Evans. It was the Evans who introduced them to the recently formed Southern Counties Contract Bridge Association. Over the years Philip served that Association as district delegate, committee member, tournament director, EBU delegate, and master points secretary (from 1966 to 1982). He was chairman of the Association through the years of its greatest growth. Upon his retirement as chairman, he was elected president, a post he held until the Association was dissolved in 1983.
As a delegate to the EBU council, Philip became a member of the master points committee and as such was responsible in part for the appointment of Anne Stavely to the post of EBU master points secretary, and for the production of the 1967 edition of the Master points Scheme Handbook.
In his own Southampton Club. he served as master points secretary, as chairman and for a long period was its sole tournament director. The club flourished over the years and now has amongst its members one Grand Master, nine Life Masters, six National Masters and eleven Regional Masters, including the redoubtable Mr Graham (eleven stars). His wife was duplicate secretary of the club from 1949 until her death in 1980. She was also the organising secretary of the Southampton and District Bridge League, which Philip still manages.
Philip is modest about his bridge accomplishments, but he continues to place highly in county competitions. He celebrated his 79th birthday by winning his club's individual championship, and repeated that feat in his 81st year. He looks back with pleasure at winning the Torquay Congress Teams-of-Four Championship in 1959 with a much younger Eric Crowhurst on his team.
Records of service to bridge and accomplishments at the table tell only a part of the story. The leadership he gave to Southern Counties, his contributions to bridge administration, his unflappable tournament direction and, above all, his great patience and gentleness in dealing with people, all contributed to the development and the enjoyment of bridge in Southern Counties and still contribute to Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Most recently, he was the guiding spirit in the revision of our Association's constitution and ru1es. When the new County Association was formed in 1983, he was unanimously elected its first president.
Apart from bridge, he has maintained a lifelong interest in music and dramatics, singing in choruses and appearing on the stage. For 38 years he was honorary treasurer of the Southampton Operatic Society. He has been honoured with life membership in two societies, one
dramatic and one musical.
As he approaches his 82nd birthdav, and his 61st year in bridge, Philip Graham is pre-eminently deserving of the EBU Award of Merit."
Dimmie Fleming Award citation, 1986