Crossword expert who devised the first dictionary for solvers
ANNE BRADFORD, who has died aged 90, was a crossword wizard who compiled the first crossword solver’s dictionary, providing words or expressions – synonyms, puns and wordplays – that were possibly related to words appearing in cryptic crossword clues.
Thus the word “outstanding” in a clue might, with other pointers, suggest the answer “fugleman” – a soldier who stands out in front of the rest to demonstrate the drill. The word “scarper” might lead the solver to consider as solutions (or part-solutions), words such as bunk, run, shoo or welsh.
Though she admitted doing an average of 20 crosswords per week, Anne Bradford was no obsessive. She estimated that she was able to finish the Times cryptic in “10 minutes on a good day, six on a very good day, more like 18 to 20 on a bad one”, and her hobby occupied no longer than about an hour a day.
She also found time to write a book about Harry Whittier Frees, an eccentric photographer of animals dressed as people, curate and publish a collection of Victorian postcards, run an agency for graduate mothers looking for part-time or temporary employment, work for 20 years as a school secretary, and bring up four children.
Her career as a “cataloguer of clues” began in 1957 when she stopped work to have her first child. She was stuck on a clue in the Observer cryptic crossword: “An isolated pillar (India) (3).” The answer, it transpired, was “lat”, an Urdu word for a pillar, which forms part of the word “isolated”. She decided it might be useful to have what she called a “reverse dictionary” to help herself and others struggling with such clues.
The result, first published in 1986, was the Longman Crossword Solver’s Dictionary. By 1993 it had been renamed the Bradford Crossword Solver’s Dictionary and she would continuously compile more entries based on her own cruciverbal experiences for new editions. The 12th edition was published in October.
Anna Rae Freeman was born in Jesmond, Newcastle, on November 3 1930. Her father was a dentist; her mother, who enjoyed crosswords, taught Anne to read when she was three
and, as she recalled, “before long, I was very good at reading upside down, too, which is most useful if you’re playing Scrabble.”
In 1973 she would win the national Scrabble championship. She never won the Times crossword championship, however, though she was a finalist on several occasions.
During the war she was evacuated to Alnwick in Northumberland, where she was so successful at school that she was moved into a year with girls three years older than she was. She became head girl.
After reading Social Sciences at King’s College, Newcastle, then part of the University of Durham, she worked at an employment agency. In 1952 she married Francis Bradford, with whom she moved to north London, where he worked for BP. While their children were young she worked from home, running the University Women’s Part-time Employment Agency.
Later, she spent 21 years as part-time secretary at a north London prep school, worked as a volunteer adult numeracy tutor and, in her eighties, volunteered in the books section of a hospice charity shop.
Her favourite crossword clues, she told The Lady
magazine in 2013, included: “Pineapple rings in syrup (9)” (answer: grenadine); “Information given to communist in return for sex (6)” (answer: gender) and “Cake-sandwiches-meat, at Uncle Sam’s party (8)” (answer: Clambake).
Telegraph readers who can not spot the connections are clearly in need of the
Bradford Crossword Solver’s Dictionary.
Anne Bradford’s husband died in 2013 and a daughter also predeceased her. She is survived by two daughters and a son.
Anne Bradford, born November 3 1930, died October 30 2021