1955 Fredericton Encaenia
Walker, David Harry
Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)
Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.
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L to R: B.F. Macaulay, Colin B. Mackay, David Harry Walker
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Source: UA PC-4 no.5ar
Citation:
ENCAENIA, MAY, 1955
DAVID HARRY WALKER
to be Doctor of Letters
We are rightly conservative in the awarding of this among our Honorary Degrees. Our Doctors of Law may indeed be born with many talents and come before us having acquired more (of which Legal knowledge need not always be one); yet -- such is our jealous custom -- we are not prone to bestow a Doctorate of Letters on one who is not a master of that craft. Such a master is David Walker.
Soldiering, not Literature, was to be his first profession. Our generation, for all that it has reeled under two ghastly wars, has yet collected its quiverful of warrior-authors. It was David Walker's fortune to serve under two soldier-writers whose names are writ large on the scrolls of both War and Peace. On the staff of Lord Tweedsmuir he came to Canada in 1938; in 1946 he was Comptroller of the Household when Viscount Wavell went as Viceroy of India. How far, if at all, he was the literary apprentice of either of these masters would be an invidious enquiry. For, if "Paul planted, and Apollos watered", it was five years as a prisoner of war that saw the germination for his own seeds of authorship. In that captivity he claims that he learned German fairly well, and other languages fairly badly. Modestly he omits his own maturing mastery of the English tongue. All he tells us is that he turned his back on the glitter of a soldier's career, and came to New Brunswick to write novels.
Many of his audience will know Geordie and The Storm and the Silence: all should know Digby and The Pillar, for the latter two have won in successive years the Governor General's award for Fiction. For any author this is rare fruition. It is rarer for one whose hand so deliberately forsook the sword for the pen.
What was it that wrought this transformation of warrior into writer? Was it genius? Was it the sea breezes of St. Andrews? Was it that paragon of helpmates, a patient, critical and sympathetic wife? That is chemistry beyond the atom. Being but human let us in sober proportion acclaim all three; and of this happy trinity let us rejoice that St. Andrews (that nurse of talent) is in New Brunswick and that David and Willa Walker are both with us in this Hall.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
DAVID HARRY WALKER
to be Doctor of Letters
We are rightly conservative in the awarding of this among our Honorary Degrees. Our Doctors of Law may indeed be born with many talents and come before us having acquired more (of which Legal knowledge need not always be one); yet -- such is our jealous custom -- we are not prone to bestow a Doctorate of Letters on one who is not a master of that craft. Such a master is David Walker.
Soldiering, not Literature, was to be his first profession. Our generation, for all that it has reeled under two ghastly wars, has yet collected its quiverful of warrior-authors. It was David Walker's fortune to serve under two soldier-writers whose names are writ large on the scrolls of both War and Peace. On the staff of Lord Tweedsmuir he came to Canada in 1938; in 1946 he was Comptroller of the Household when Viscount Wavell went as Viceroy of India. How far, if at all, he was the literary apprentice of either of these masters would be an invidious enquiry. For, if "Paul planted, and Apollos watered", it was five years as a prisoner of war that saw the germination for his own seeds of authorship. In that captivity he claims that he learned German fairly well, and other languages fairly badly. Modestly he omits his own maturing mastery of the English tongue. All he tells us is that he turned his back on the glitter of a soldier's career, and came to New Brunswick to write novels.
Many of his audience will know Geordie and The Storm and the Silence: all should know Digby and The Pillar, for the latter two have won in successive years the Governor General's award for Fiction. For any author this is rare fruition. It is rarer for one whose hand so deliberately forsook the sword for the pen.
What was it that wrought this transformation of warrior into writer? Was it genius? Was it the sea breezes of St. Andrews? Was it that paragon of helpmates, a patient, critical and sympathetic wife? That is chemistry beyond the atom. Being but human let us in sober proportion acclaim all three; and of this happy trinity let us rejoice that St. Andrews (that nurse of talent) is in New Brunswick and that David and Willa Walker are both with us in this Hall.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
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