Graham Wiremu

Te Ao Hou, September 1968, Page 39

Graham Wiremu by Barbara Ewing, London Several months ago I wrote about Hemi Wiremu, who is Head Receptionist in New Zealand House in London. There has been great interest in New Zealand House recently about the Oxford Scholarship won by Hemi's son, Graham. Graham, who is eighteen, sat for the Oxford Entrance examinations recently and won the top award in History for Queen's College, one of Oxford's most famous University Colleges. This award gives him a financial grant and special privileges (even a special gown to wear) when he starts his University arts course in October. Graham was a pupil at Christ's Hospital, an extremely interesting school in Sussex which was opened in 1552 to ‘keep boys off the streets’. Pupils there still wear the same uniform—a long blue coat, fitting at the waist, with brass buttons, together with knee breeches and bright yellow stockings! Although Graham thinks of himself as English, rather than as a New Zealander or a Maori (being born and brought up in England and with an English mother) he is in fact the first person of Maori descent to win an undergraduate scholarship to Oxford University, and New Zealand House is feeling especially proud of Hemi's son. Graham is interested in rugby, fishing. debating, the theatre and reading, and is obviously looking forward to starting his studies at Oxford. He hasn't as yet any definite plans for the future. Until October he is working in London at the Library of the Oxford University Press and for the first time in his life is taking an interest in the Maori language, poring over Wills' ‘Lessons in the Maori Language’ in his spare time.