On his passport, under occupation, it read simply Gentleman, a description, a description to his many friends, one never more fitting. Someone once described him as “self-unemployed.” but never idle. Robert Ramsay Campbell Walker was born on August 14 1917. His father Campbell Walker was an heir to the Johnnie Walker whisky fortune, and his mother, Mary Marshal Ramsay, came from a family with business interests in tea and rubber trading. His father died in 1921, aged just 32, and his mother subsequently married the much older Sir Francis Eden Lacey, long-time secretary of the Marylebone Cricket Club; thus Rob and his older brother John grew up on the Sutton Veny estate near Warminster, Wiltshire, which his mother and stepfather had bought at the time of their marriage. The main house had a hundred rooms, included several staff cottages and a 270-acre tenanted home farm but the feature most prized by young Walker was the long driveway.
His fascination with fast cars stemmed from a visit, aged seven, to the 1924 Boulogne Grand Prix. The preliminary event was won by B. S. Marshall, whose wife happened to be seated in the grandstand beside young Walker; she explained every move to him. When he was 10 years old he persuaded his indulgent mother to buy him his first car, a Bullnose Morris, which due to his age he was limited to driving on their estates driveway. “We had a long drive at home of a mile or so, and my mother gave me the old Bullnose Morris for Christmas to keep me quiet,” Walker said in a television interview in the 1980s. “From that moment on, my life was dedicated to trying to break my record on the one-mile drive.” He had a pit manager too, in the form of the family’s ‘second chauffeur’, whose responsibilities largely revolved around teaching Walker how to drive and maintain cars, and to try and keep the spirited boy from doing himself mischief. Walker lived to reach college age without suffering any lasting harm.
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His fascination with fast cars stemmed from a visit, aged seven, to the 1924 Boulogne Grand Prix. The preliminary event was won by B. S. Marshall, whose wife happened to be seated in the grandstand beside young Walker; she explained every move to him. When he was 10 years old he persuaded his indulgent mother to buy him his first car, a Bullnose Morris, which due to his age he was limited to driving on their estates driveway. “We had a long drive at home of a mile or so, and my mother gave me the old Bullnose Morris for Christmas to keep me quiet,” Walker said in a television interview in the 1980s. “From that moment on, my life was dedicated to trying to break my record on the one-mile drive.” He had a pit manager too, in the form of the family’s ‘second chauffeur’, whose responsibilities largely revolved around teaching Walker how to drive and maintain cars, and to try and keep the spirited boy from doing himself mischief. Walker lived to reach college age without suffering any lasting harm.
