Marshall WALKER Obituary

Professor Marshall Walker was indeed the best and brightest lecturer I have been privileged to study under. The Hamilton campus of the University of Waikato's loss was the campus of Tauranga's gain. He both taught and performed literature to my class of 2003/04/05. He was, undoubtedly, the greatest English lecturer that the University of Waikato ever had in its short history. He possessed the charisma of a great orator. What a pleasure his lectures were, and what a shock his retirement was, and the manner in which it came about. Bless you Marshall.

The best university lecturer I have ever had. Such amazing knowledge and such a gentleman and scholar. Always remembered.

Thank you to friends, colleagues and students who have shared your kind condolences for our father. It's comforting to read you stories, memories and kind wishes. Jeanne

I knew Marshall when he was a young lecturer at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa; he was a colleague of my father, and I was a school boy. Shortly after my father died, Marshall left South Africa, and I was never to see him again, though we found each other, via emails, in the 90s, and he graciously renewed a friendship that came to mean an enormous amount to me. I was privileged to be sent some of his Letters to Sibelius, and his beautiful voice stays with me always. Our correspondence was so precious to me, and even in his last painful illness he still found the time and energy to write, and to jest about his approaching fate. His spirit lives on in all of us, in so many ways.

This fabulous teacher managed to turn a dull lecture theatre into a stage. He inspired me then, he inspires me now. How often I think of him when I sit down to write.

So sad to deduce that dear Marshall has died (2 yrs ago!) Apparently he was very friendly with my father Harry Dorman (musician in Glasgow). I was first aware of him as a much older pupil (than I was) at Jordanhill College School, Glasgow; he later often visited my parents in Troon, Ayrshire, Scotland. My sincere condolences to his family. (the acc. photo is cropped but contains more very young family members)

Eversince I first heard the voice and speech of Marshall, I instantly connected and admired his great spirit, intellect, passions and enriched imagination!!I've only just learnt more about his greatness and owe him a heartfelt 'thank-you' for touching my life with his beautiful spirit and rich inner-life! Well wishes to his family!

Marshall gave me laughter and Gorecki. He gave me pain and Mahler's 8th with Tennstedt. He gave me Poland and Poznan. I knew him with all his complexities, passions, and intellect. He enriched lives. Mine was one of them.

To the family of Marshal Walker.
My condolences for the loss of Marshall.
I exchanged two or three Emails with him after
hearing his "Letters To Sibelius"on A.B.C.
television.Just marvelous.
His presentation was riveting and I obtained
the book and the following one he wrote.
I warmed to him after just a few words in our
Emails.I am sure that the University and his
friends in Waikato will miss him very much.
Kenneth Gifford.N.S.W. Australia

Marshall Walker was a dear neighbour and friend to us when they lived in Tauranga. Many a practical joke was played between us. Many an expedition on the kayaks. I'll never forget Marshall rowing Claudia out onto Lake Rotoiti with a wistful look in his eyes; clearly reminded of his boyhood days on the lochs of his homeland. I cannot believe you are no longer with us Marshall. A dear friend lost and clearly a sad loss to his family.

I met Marshall years ago on a ferry to Lismore; it was the most hilarious and entertaining few days which I will never forget. His wit and sense of fun fun were unsurpassed and I am so sad I never made it to NZ though our exchange of emails was wonderful - a testament to his real generosity of spirit. He described himself to a friend of mine as 'a red sandstone boy' so when I am in Glasgow I often think of him. Winifred McEwen, Scotland

He was such an intelligent man. Great sense of humor. Loved by so many people. I was so blessed to meet him and spend some time with him and his wonderful wife Claudia. He'll be in our hearts forever!

When I was asked to write in support of the appointment of Marshall Walker as Professor Emeritus at the University of Waikato, I wrote as follows, and I would like to repeat what I said here in respect and affection......

I have known Marshall Walker for more than forty years, first as his student then for many years as a friend. It was Marshall's inspirational teaching which first sparked my life-long interest in American literature. It was Marshall, too, who re-introduced me to the music of Sibelius. So I have more than one reason to thank him.

I know from conversations with others of my generation at Glasgow University that I am not alone in owing him a debt of gratitude. As a young lecturer in the Department of English, his enthusiasm, charisma and dedication to his subject inspired both those of us who became teachers of English, or who (like me) followed other career paths. Decades afterwards, we still remember Marshall's always lively seminars with affection and admiration.

Speaking as a publisher, I can confirm the respect in which he is held by academic publishers and reviewers alike. His published works testify to a lifetime of scholarship and research which has produced one of the most outstanding histories of Scottish Literature of recent decades: Scottish Literature since 1707, and a highly authoritative survey of American Literature: The Literature of the United States of America. Of particular significance in terms of published work is Marshall's seminal study of the American writer Robert Penn Warren (Robert Penn Warren: A Vision Earned.)

The award of Professor Emeritus pre-supposes in the recipient an extra dimension to his or her teaching: something that makes that person stand out in the crowd. For me, what makes Marshall Walker stand out is the consistent and unerring breadth of his vision of what the study of literature should be about. Throughout his teaching life Marshall has sought to embrace much more than the traditional canon. He has infused his teaching with perspectives on music, history and politics. His teaching is rooted in experience as well as in theory. His, too, has been ‘a vision earned'.

Lamplighter, knifegrinder, fisherman, friend:

He was what a Professor means. He was a lamplighter. Lecturing, he had students singing with the Proclaimers, going 500 and many more miles, Marshall leading the dance. Literature and the arts were all the dance, springing his steps, awakening Glasgow University before moving Scots and Edwin Morgan's poems to the centre of Waikato teaching, exploding the moribund, dead rules and rulers, setting up matters of value that last. Theatre and film, but centrally, music, was what he made for so many happen in Hamilton, big-time. For real. He was a knifegrinder, sharpening the critical senses of all who talked square with him, whatever your pedigree. He made you ask why, cut the crust, get the juice. He was a fisherman, playing things in, discovering, laying the goods on the table, in his presence, on radio, in books, bringing back Sibelius, Prokofiev, showing you how to listen and hear, to see, through the lens of his own perceptions and stories, yet fair to all greatness out there, never diminishing. He taught you to see for yourself. He was a friend. I have never worked with anyone so well with such yield. Going home was what he knew great literature and music helps you understand and do. He was the wee boy his father took fishing on the island of Lismore, Scotland, and the professor who gave Hamilton's university his best, and its brilliance, for a while, the local hero. These places and his loved ones gave him what he made, in the end, that home he prized most. He knew, and he showed us, the dancers inherit the party.

Marshall Walker was the finest orator I've ever seen. In our three decade association I only experienced his talent in a formal capacity a handful of times yet each of these left an indelible impression. Whether lecturing a first year class on poetry and Dickens, delivering a keynote address at the outset of an academic conference, eulogising a dead colleague or speaking at his own final book launch early last year, Marshall proved himself to be so much more than a gentleman and a scholar. His vocabulary and grasp of language and expression were beyond that of mortal men yet he tempered them with warmth, wit and a rich sense of humanity. This was no arid professor lost in books and manuscripts. Marshall was a man who believed in the redemptive possibilities of art, be it music or literature.

A couple of years ago we were discussing the Ingmar Bergman film Fanny & Alexander. Marshall had not seen the longer, five hour version of this masterpiece and when he returned to me he articulated a thought that had crossed my mind also. "It was a privilege to watch that", he said, in his wonderful Scottish brogue. Any who had the good fortune to know or spend time with Marshall were equally privileged. In Swiftian terms he was a Brobdingnagian in a world of Lilliputians. An output of three books in the last five or so years point also to an individual who coped with illness with bravery and fortitude. There was much worthwhile raging against the dying of the light.

My condolences to Claudia, Elsie and family.

Richard Swainson.

Adorable and such gentlemen that i ever met.I hope that all the mystery surrounding death can be easily understood by his spirit and surely angels from God's orchestra will be guiding him to the haven. R.I.P

A delightful man, one of a kind, great intellect, beautiful sense of humour, superb photographer, renowned writer. He will be sadly missed. I was blessed to have known him over the past 40 or so years. My wife carol has fond memories of Marshall as she taught Marshall's daughter Elsie.