Like his parents and grandparents, Dr Stephen Walker is from Kirkby Stephen, and lived at Riverside in full view of the Nine Standards. After Appleby and Kirkby Stephen Grammar Schools, he was educated at the Universities of London, Cranfield and Birmingham, and joined the Directorate of Overseas Surveys, working for over 30 years in Central America, Indonesia, Nepal, the Solomons, Cameroon and elsewhere, before coming home.
On retirement, his interest in Westmorland local history was rekindled, and the Nine Standards presented a special challenge. Schoolboy Latin and fluent French were useful in tackling the local and national archives; while decades interpreting aerial photographs and satellite imagery for agriculture, fisheries and forestry development gave him access to another research tool; but sadly a doctorate in the engineering hydrology of tropical rice fields was no help at all with the rigours of winter fieldwork on the high fells.

Like his parents and grandparents, Dr Stephen Walker is from Kirkby Stephen, and lived at Riverside in full view of the Nine Standards. After Appleby and Kirkby Stephen Grammar Schools, he was educated at the Universities of London, Cranfield and Birmingham, and joined the Directorate of Overseas Surveys, working for over 30 years in Central America, Indonesia, Nepal, the Solomons, Cameroon and elsewhere, before coming home.
On retirement, his interest in Westmorland local history was rekindled, and the Nine Standards presented a special challenge. Schoolboy Latin and fluent French were useful in tackling the local and national archives; while decades interpreting aerial photographs and satellite imagery for agriculture, fisheries and forestry development gave him access to another research tool; but sadly a doctorate in the engineering hydrology of tropical rice fields was no help at all with the rigours of winter fieldwork on the high fells.