Nicolas Walter | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Nicolas Hardy Walter (1934-11-22)22 November 1934 South London, England |
| Died | 7 March 2000(2000-03-07) (aged 65) Milton Keynes, England |
| Education | |
| Occupations |
|
| Movement | |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 2, includingNatasha Walter |
| Father | William Grey Walter |
| Relatives | Samuel Kerkham Ratcliffe (grandfather) |
Nicolas Hardy Walter (22 November 1934 – 7 March 2000) was a Britishanarchist andatheist writer, speaker and activist. He was a member of theCommittee of 100 andSpies for Peace,[1] and wrote on topics ofanarchism andhumanism.
Nicolas was the son of Katherine Monica (née Ratcliffe) andWilliam Grey Walter, an American-born Britishneurophysiologist,cybernetician androbotician. His paternal grandfather was Karl Walter (1880-1965), a journalist, writer and translator who worked for theKansas City Star and the Horace Plunkett Foundation. Karl married an American woman called Margaret Hardy and lived in the US from 1908 until the outbreak of theFirst World War. His maternal grandfather wasSamuel Kerkham Ratcliffe (1868-1958), a former member of the executive of theFabian Society. After his parents divorced in 1945, his mother Monica (1911-2012) subsequently married aCambridge University scientistArnold Beck[2] with whom she brought up Nicolas.[3]
Walter attendedRendcomb College,Cirencester. He served two yearsNational Service in theRoyal Air Force, where he learned Russian prior to working inSignals Intelligence, and then read modern history atExeter College, Oxford. At this time he joined theLabour Party.[4]
Alongside his work for media associated with the causes that became his personal mission, as a working journalist Walter held editorial roles atWhich? andThe Times Literary Supplement before working as press officer for theBritish Standards Institution.[5]
Walter was heavily involved in the peace movement, being a founder member of theCommittee of 100.[1] Walter married Ruth Oppenheim, another member of the Committee of 100 in 1962, who was the daughter of refugees from Nazi Germany. The couple had two children, Susannah (born 1965) andNatasha Walter (born 1967), but divorced in 1982.[6]
Walter was a member ofSpies for Peace, which only became known after he died,[7] along with Ruth, who was happy to be publicly identified by Natasha Walter in 2013.[1][6] In March 1963, the group broke intoRegional Seat of Government No. 6 (RSG-6), copied documents relating to the Government's plans in the event of nuclear war and distributed 3,000 leaflets revealing their contents.[1][7]
In 1966, Walter was imprisoned for two months under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Act 1860, after a protest against British support for theVietnam War. As Prime MinisterHarold Wilson read the lesson (on the subject of beating swords into ploughshares) at aLabour Party service at theMethodist Church inBrighton, Walter and friends interrupted by shouting "Hypocrite!"[8]
Walter's bookAbout Anarchism was first published in 1969. It went through many editions and has been translated into many languages. A revised edition was published in 2002, with a foreword by his daughter, the journalist and feminist writer Natasha Walter.[9]
Walter had a long association withFreedom Press and was a regular contributor toFreedom among other publications. The last writing he did appeared inFreedom.
A collection of his writings fromFreedom and elsewhere was published in 2007 asThe Anarchist Past and Other Essays, edited byDavid Goodway.
Walter was appointed Managing Editor of the Rationalist Press Association in 1975, but his progressive disability and the fact he was not, as Bill Cooke puts it, "a born administrator"[10] led to difficulties.
He was a prominent member of theSouth Place Ethical Society and became one of its Appointed Lecturers in 1978.[11] He resigned from this position in 1979 following a special meeting of the Society to consider a paper by Albert Lovecy and vote on the motion "that the Society has no theistic creed and does not practise worship".Peter Cadogan managed to have the motion amended to "does not practise worship of a deity" and it was passed. Walter remarked "many people ... have joined the society as part of their rejection of religion".[11]
Walter was editor of the Rationalist Press Association's magazineNew Humanist from February 1975 until July 1984, whenJim Herrick took over.
In 1989, in the aftermath of thefatwa onSalman Rushdie and his bookThe Satanic Verses, Walter (along withWilliam McIlroy) re-formed The Committee AgainstBlasphemy Law. It issued aStatement Against Blasphemy Law, signed by more than 200 public figures. Walter andBarbara Smoker were attacked while counter-demonstrating during a Muslim protest against the book in May 1989. Walter's bookBlasphemy Ancient and Modern put the Rushdie controversy into historical context.
Walter also served as company secretary of G. W. Foote & Co., publishers ofThe Freethinker, and was a vice-president of theNational Secular Society.
Walter occasionally wrote or spoke about howsecular humanists might face death – he had done so himself. In a letter toThe Guardian in 1993 (16 September, p. 23) he explained:
All of us will die, and most of us will suffer before we do so. "The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play may be," said Pascal. Raging against the dying of the light may be good art, but is bad advice. "Why me?" may be a natural question, but it prompts a natural answer: "Why not?" Religion may promise life everlasting, but we should grow up and accept that life has an end as well as a beginning.[12]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
