Former Blairgowrie High School physics teacher Henry (Harry) Walker has died aged 87.
Harry became head of the physics department at Blairgowrie High School in 1971 and retired just over 20 years later.
Harry and his Dutch-born wife, Wikje, were members of the Abbey Church, Coupar Angus, where they were involved in the choir and youth work respectively.
He was the third of four children of James and Christina Walker and was born in the station master’s house at Roxburgh station where his father was the station master.
On Sundays, when there were no trains, he was allowed to use the whole station as a giant playground. From this he developed a lifelong love of railways, especially steam engines.
Harry had a difficult start in life partly due to an abnormality causing one leg to be several inches shorter than the other.
This was corrected by pioneering surgery when he was 14 years old but required him to be in hospital in Edinburgh for four months, with only occasional visits from family.
He used to quip that he would have been two-and-a-half inches taller if he hadn’t had the longer leg shortened to make them both the same.
Harry was also regarded as slow in his development, however, when he went to secondary school it was found that he had a flair for mathematics and especially physics.
Academic excellence
He won the dux medal at Kelso High School in 1953 then went on to Edinburgh University where he excelled at physics, achieving a first-class honours degree.
This was the time of the Cold War and physics graduates were being recruited for the nuclear industry for both power stations and nuclear weapons.
This was not in line with his beliefs. Instead, after attending a rally where the American evangelist Billy Graham was speaking, Harry was inspired by the message about using your talents for Jesus and helping others.
He offered his services to the Church of Scotland as a missionary to lecture in physics. Being a child of the 1930s and 1940s he was brought up on missionary stories of the likes of Gladys Aylward and Eric Liddell in China so hoped to be sent to China.
However, by the 1950s, China was closed to western missionaries. Instead, the Church of Scotland suggested that he go to the Punjab in Pakistan to teach physics in a further education college of the very Scottish name of Murray College.
He served there for 10 years. Back in 1958 when he was training at the Church of Scotland college in Edinburgh for mission work he had met a beautiful Dutch girl, Wikje Apperloo, recently arrived from Australia, who was also at the Church of Scotland college training to be a deaconess.
They married a year later in Pakistan and had three children all born there.
Harry, Wikje and the children returned to Scotland in 1967 where Harry became a physics teacher, eventually moving to the position of head of the physics department at Blairgowrie High School in 1971.
Harry and Wikje moved to Coupar Angus from Rattray in the mid 1990s where they became part of the community and the congregation of the Abbey Church.
In time, Harry became involved with the choir and Wikje, in the young people’s work. In 2017, Harry completed 50 years of singing regularly in church choirs.
Wikje sadly died in 2019. Harry is survived by Marten, Andrew, Jackie and their respective spouses, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
You can read the family’s announcement here.
Conversation