Summary
Lynn Barber first met Sebastian Walker at Oxford. "He was the first person I'd ever met who was gay...quite funny looking with a big adam's apple and bespeckled face...he dressed in a very dandy way."
He formed Walker Books in 1978 which, in Lynn's words, "launched a whole new era of children's book publishing." He took every opportunity to reinvent the rules of publishing - he paid the illustrators more money than anyone else, befriending the likes of Maurice Sendak and Helen Oxenbury till they agreed to work for him. He struck a deal to sell books through Sainsbury's supermarkets and justified it in the name of child literacy. Titles like 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' and 'Where's Wally? would establish Walker Books as a major player in children's book publishing. Walker would describe the financial side of business as a "bore" preferring to spend his money on lavish parties for his friends.
Lynn Barber talks to Matthew Parris about why Sebastian Walker remains such a memorable friend. They're joined by Walker's sister and biographer Mirabel Cecil who says her brother "..had very little sense of his own identity", and that his one true love was really the piano.
Producer: Toby Field
First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2012.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Once you've wrapped up this podcast, how about trying a very British cult? |
| 0:06.0 | What happens if the person you trust with your future isn't what you think they are? |
| 0:10.0 | I did feel the whole time he was watching me Yeti. I saw a footprint and that really gave me gusmas. |
| 0:16.4 | Or people who knew me. Emme, I remember every secret, every lie. I'm the only one who knows the truth. |
| 0:23.0 | Discover more of our biggest podcast from 2003. |
| 0:27.0 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:29.0 | Thank you for downloading this great lives podcast from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:34.0 | For more information and details of other podcasts, just visit BBC.co. UK slash radio 4. |
| 0:41.0 | Choo Choo Choo Choo. |
| 0:43.8 | We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one. |
| 0:48.3 | What a beautiful day. |
| 0:50.7 | We're not scared. Uh-oh. |
| 0:54.0 | Grass. |
| 0:55.0 | Long wavy grass. |
| 0:58.0 | We can't go over it. |
| 1:00.0 | We can't go under it. |
| 1:02.0 | Oh no! We got't go under it. Oh no, we got to go through it. Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish. |
| 1:08.7 | In case you didn't recognize it, that was a clip of We're going on a Bear Hunt, performed by its author Michael Rosen. |
| 1:16.3 | That story was published by Walker Books, and the subject of today's great lives is the man |
| 1:21.9 | after whom that company is named Sebastian Walker. |
| 1:25.0 | Walker was a children's publisher. I like the way that from time to time our |
| 1:30.4 | program dives off the beaten track to bring into the light someone neither you perhaps nor I may much have heard of. |
... |
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