Nicolas Walter

Nicolas Hardy Walter (22 November 1934 – 7 March 2000) was a British anarchist and atheist writer, speaker and activist.

Career overview

Walter was born in London; his father was the neurophysiologist and pioneer of cybernetics, William Grey Walter. After serving his National Service in the RAF (where he learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists, and was engaged in SIGINT), Walter studied history at Exeter College, Oxford, 1954–57, afterwards becoming a journalist. He was deputy editor of Which? (1963–65); press officer for the British Standards Institution (1965–67); and chief sub-editor of the Times Literary Supplement (1968–74). He was also a staff writer for the Good Food Guide.

Walter was editor of New Humanist, published by the Rationalist Press Association, for a decade, and he was to continue to work in the humanist, rationalist and secularist movement until his retirement from it in 1999.

In 1973, Walter was diagnosed with testicular cancer. As a result of the consequent treatment Walter had eventually to use a wheelchair. The cancer was found to have returned shortly after Walter's retirement, and he died very soon afterwards.