Graham Shorrocks was born in Farnworth, England on 14 June 1948. He wrote: "Farnworth is a municipal borough in the Greater Bolton area, and is situated three miles south-east of Bolton, seven miles south-west of Bury, and nine moles north-west of Manchester. It is part of a vast area of population in what formerly south-east Lancashire ..." where he and his younger sister grew up in a Methodist household. The father who worked as Master at a cotton mill died when the children were young. Graham's working-class roots and early interest in the relationship between social class and dialect were to set Graham on a path that eventually took him to Newfoundland and St. John's. He earned his B.A. (Hons.) and Post Graduate Certificate of Education (P.G.C.E.) at Birmingham. Having started his career as a teacher at Howell's School in Wales, he went on to complete his M.A. and Ph.D. at Sheffield. At the time of publication of his Ph.D. dissertation 'A Grammar of the Dialect of the Bolton Area', Peter Lang writes: "it constitutes the fullest grammar of an English dialect published to date. The distinctiveness of the Bolton dialect suggests that grammatical variation among English dialects has generally been underestimated by scholars ... [This] has some bearing on the theory of English dialectology, and English linguistics more generally ... It also emerges that urban environments are not simply melting pots, in which all distinctive linguistic characteristics are levelled out." In searching for a university posting, Newfoundland with its established community of eminent scholars in linguistics, dialectology, and folklore seemed to Graham like fertile grounds for further study of English phonology. He arrived at Memorial University of Newfoundland in the mid-1980s where he took a faculty position in the Department of English Language and Literature and was later promoted to full professor. He was known as a keen and demanding teacher who took his students' learning seriously and would not compromise his standards. He established his research program early, cultivated ties with faculty in the Department of Folklore on campus and grew a collaborative international network of linguists in the UK, Finland, Sweden, Germany, and Spain where he spent time as Visiting Professor at the University of Salamanca. He was fluent in German and had a working knowledge of several other foreign languages. Graham's oeuvre is published in scholarly journals including Canadian Journal of Linguistics, Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik, American Speech, Historiographia linguistica, Lore & Language, Canadian literature, Journal of English Linguistics, and Contemporary Legend. His papers in these and other journals are widely cited. He served for several years as Editor of Regional Language Studies based at Memorial. Graham received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Scholarship in 2004. He described himself as a descriptive linguist. In the early days of the Internet, he mused online that this made him akin to a dinosaur. Graham's recreational interests included angling, photography, and Asian calligraphy pens. He was an avid bridge player and took part in international tournaments. He was also one for exotic food, Danish pipe tobacco, and a good pun. An animal lover, he never forgot Lad - the dog of his youth. When he retired from Memorial in 2014, he had been on leave for a considerable time due to ill health. Health issues were to plague him until the end. Graham Shorrocks is remembered by friends and colleagues. May he rest in peace.