Alexander Graham was born at Witbank, Transvaal, South Africa, on 15 February 1921. His father, Alexander Chimes Graham, was a mine manager. His mother, Mary Josephine McKenna, was the daughter of Joe McKenna, the mine captain who assisted Winston Churchill in his escape from the Transvaal during the Boer War. Alexander was educated at Prior Park College, Bath, and at Guy's. After junior appointments, he was lecturer in surgery in Edinburgh to Sir James Learmonth, and then registrar to Lord Brock at Guy's. He subsequently went to the Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith under Ian Aird. After working with Henry Swan in Denver, Colorado, and Michael de Bakey at Houston, he went to Salisbury, Rhodesia (as it was then called), to set up their cardio-thoracic unit. He was the first to practice open-heart surgery in Central Africa. He was active in Rhodesian politics and the activities of the church. He married Alison Mary Brydone in 1947, she was a doctor who was the daughter of James Marr Brydone of London, and god-daughter of Lady Bland-Sutton. They had two daughters, one a doctor, and two sons. He died on 17 August 1999.