Ted Walker

Infobox Writer
name = Ted Walker
birthdate = birth date|1934|11|28
birthplace = Lancing, England
deathdate = death date and age|2004|3|19|1934|11|28
deathplace = Valencia, Spain
occupation = Poet, short story writer, travel writer, screenwriter, broadcaster
nationality = British
period = 1963–2001Screenplay: "Big Jim and the Figaro Club" (1979) Children's book: "The Lion's Cavalcade" (1981) Autobiography: "The High Path" (1982) Collected short stories: "You've Never Heard Me Sing" (1985) Travel book: "In Spain" (1987)
spouse = Lorna Benfell (1956–1987) Audrey Hicks (1988–2004)
children = 4
influences = Leslie Norris, Andrew Young,

Edward Joseph (Ted) Walker (28 November 1934 – 19 March 2004) was a prize-winning English poet, short story writer, travel writer, TV and radio dramatist and broadcaster. [To view the Ted Walker archive please contact the Head of Library Services, Learning Resource Centre, University College Chichester, College Lane, Chichester, West Sussex. PO19 6PE (e-mail address: [e-mail]), telephone [phone].]

Early life

Walker was born in Lancing, West Sussex, the son of a carpenter from Worcestershire who had found work in the south-coast construction industry. He was educated at Steyning Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge, where he read modern languages. Walker's earlier poems and later autobiographical work, in particular "The High Path", show that his childhood appeared to have been unusually happy and totally remembered. ["The High Path," Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.] Although there was tragedy too: Both of his paternal uncles, who lived in shared accommodation together with Walker's parents, grandparents and aunt, were killed in World War II; George in North Africa and Jack on Shoreham Beach. [See Walker's poem, "For John Charles Walker, Killed on Shoreham Beach", in "The Night Bathers," Jonathan Cape, 1970.]

At the age of 15 he met Lorna Benfell, and almost immediately after their graduation they were married (in 1956, at St Mary de Haura church, Shoreham-by-Sea). At first they lived in west London and worked as teachers, she in Tottenham and he in Southall. They had four children.

It was at school that Walker and John Cotton, a like-minded colleague, founded a poetry magazine they called "Priapus", an attractive if amateur production, copies of which are now very rare. [Citation | last=Mole | first=John | title=John Cotton Obituary | newspaper=The Independent | date=March 24, 2003 | year=2003 | month=March | url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-cotton-730147.html | accessdate=2008-02-20 ] Walker published some work in the early numbers, the beginning of his poetic career.

Poetry and short stories

In 1963 Walker obtained a teaching post in Bognor Regis and from there moved to Chichester High School. He had also started to write poetry regularly and of a quality that made it welcome in journals such as "The Listener", "The Observer", the "Times Literary Supplement" and the "London Magazine". It drew the attention of William Plomer, then poetry editor at Jonathan Cape and a powerful figure in the poetry world. Walker had also submitted poems to "The New Yorker", where Howard Moss made his work welcome. The fee Walker received for his first poem to be published in "The New Yorker", "Breakwaters" (published June, 1963) helped Walker to move back to his native Sussex. [http://www.newyorker.com/search/query?queryType=nonparsed&query=&submit.x=47&submit.y=14&submit=Submit&bylquery=Ted+Walker&month1=-1&day1=-1&year1=-1&month2=-1&day2=-1&year2=-1&page=&sort=] Looking for a new source of income, Walker taught himself the art of short story writing, and his first short story, "Estuary", appeared in "The New Yorker" in April, 1964. [See the obituary in The Independent 30 March, 2004, written by Leslie Norris.]

Other key influences on his literary development included the Welsh poet Leslie Norris [Citation | last=Stephens | first=Meic | title=Leslie Norris Obituary | newspaper=The Independent | date=April 10, 2006 | year=2006 | month=April | url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/leslie-norris-473565.html | accessdate=2008-02-20 ] and canon of Chichester Cathedral, the Scotsman Andrew Young, both near neighbours, as well as the critic Robert Gittings.

Walker's first book of verse, "Fox on a Barn Door", focused on the Sussex countryside and coast. The titles of a good third of the poems - such as "Breakwaters", "The Skate Fishers" and "On the Sea Wall" are about the shoreline of Lancing and Shoreham. The South Downs were likewise a fertile source of inspiration.

Journalism & broadcasting

In the 1970s Walker was a contributor to his local newspaper, "The Chichester Observer", where his regular column on West Sussex villages fascinated (and often enraged) the county set.fact|date=February 2008 He also began broadcasting with BBC local radio and TV. Then, in 1979, he worked on a TV dramatisation with BBC Bristol producer Colin Rose. It was the start of a highly productive relationship. Their output included "Big Jim And The Figaro Club" (1981) and "A Family Man" (1983). "Big Jim", a series of comedy films set during the postwar building boom, extolled the comradeship which, for Walker, epitomised working-class life "in them far-off days of the Figaro Club before the world turned lax and sour".Citation | last = Rose | first = Colin | title=Ted Walker Obituary | url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/apr/02/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1 |newspaper=The Guardian | date=April 2, 2004 | year=2004 | month=April ] "A Family Man" dealt with several generations of father/son relationships, drawing deeply on Walker's own family history.

Walker also wrote plays for Shaun McLaughlin in BBC radio drama and adapted Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" (1995) for an animated version with a voice cast including Alan Bennett, Rik Mayall, Michael Palin and Michael Gambon.

Later life

For most of his working life (1971-1992) Walker earned a living as Professor of Creative Writing at New England College, an American liberal arts academy that had a British campus in West Sussex, while pursuing his writing and other great passion, travel. He was a frequent visitor to Spain, and in 1989 he published an account of his experiences and impressions of the country, "In Spain". Although this was Walker's only significant venture into travel writing, it was greeted by critics as one of the finest portraits of the country.fact|date=February 2008 After a long hiatus he returned to poetry with "Mangoes on the Moon" (1999) in which many poems are inspired by travels in Australia. [Citation | title=Ted Walker Obituary | newspaper=The Times | date=March 26, 2004 | year=2004 | month=March | url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1051660.ece | accessdate=2008-02-20 ]

In 1987 Lorna Walker died after a long battle against cancer. A year later Walker married their close friend, Audrey Hicks, who had been similarly bereaved.

In "The Last of England" Walker tells the moving story of Lorna’s disfiguring illness, and his own grief at being robbed of their anticipated years of retirement together. The cancer also serves as a metaphor for what Walker saw as the unrelenting decay of the England so lovingly described in "The High Path". ["The Last of England," Jonathan Cape, 1992.]

In 1997 Ted and Audrey Walker moved to the village of Alcalali near Valencia, Spain, where he died in 2004.

Honours

Walker's early poetry won many prizes, among them the Eric Gregory Award (1964) and the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize. He was the first winner of the Cholmondeley Award (1966). [cite web | title = Cholmondeley Awards for Poets (past winners) | url = http://www.societyofauthors.org/prizes_grants_and_awards/prizes-for-fiction-and-non-fiction/cholmondeley_awards/cholmondeley_awards_past_winners.html | publisher = The Society of Authors | accessdate = 2008-02-20 ] Ted Walker was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1975 (he resigned this title in 1997).He was awarded an honorary D.Litt by Southampton University in 1987.

Literary work

Poetry

*"Fox on a Barn Door" (1965)
*"The Solitaries"' (1969)
*"The Night Bathers" (1970)
*"Gloves to the Hangman" (1973)
*"Burning the Ivy" (1978)
*"Hands at a Live Fire" (1987)
*"Mangoes on the Moon" (1999)

hort stories

*"You've Never Heard Me Sing" (1985)
*"He Danced with a Chair" (2001)

Autobiographies

*"The High Path" (1982)
*"The Last of England" (1993)

Children's books

*"The Lion's Cavalcade" (with Alan Aldridge, 1981)
*"Granddad's Seagulls" (1994)

Travel

*"In Spain" (1987)

Television and radio

*"The Gaffer"
*"The Family Man"
*"Big Jim & the Figaro Club"
*"The Wind in the Willows"

References

Persondata
NAME= Walker, Edward Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Walker, Ted (known as)
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Poet, short story writer, travel writer, screenwriter, broadcaster
DATE OF BIRTH= 28 November 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH= Lancing, England
DATE OF DEATH= 19 March 2004
PLACE OF DEATH= Valencia, Spain