Eric Sherbrooke Walker

Major Eric George Sherbrooke Walker, MC (1887–1976) was a hotelier and founder of the Outspan Hotel and Treetops Hotel in Kenya, as well as a decorated military officer. He is remembered as the host of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip when they visited Treetops in 1952, shortly before receiving news of the death of King George VI and Elizabeth's accession to the throne. Early life The son of Reverend George Sherbrooke Walker and his wife, Jessie Elizabeth Carter, Eric Walker was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham in Warwickshire on 4 July 1887, and brought up in March (now in Cambridgeshire) where his father was rector of St Wendreda's Church. He was educated at Oakham School and King Edward's, Edgbaston and then read Theology at The Queen's College, Oxford. After graduating in 1908, Walker was associated with the Scouting movement, and was a personal secretary to Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the movement. He was one of the first two Scout inspectors, overseeing Wales and the South of England. He was present at Baden-Powell's first Scout camp in Humshaugh in 1908, and toured Canada with sixteen Scouts in 1910 to demonstrate Scouting. Walker was commissioned in the infantry in August 1914. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps but in 1915 on his 28th birthday, his aeroplane came down behind enemy lines and he was held as a prisoner of war in Germany. He is said to have made 36 attempts to escape. Apparently, on one occasion, a German girlfriend from before the war helped him by supplying him with wire cutters provided by Baden-Powell hidden inside a piece of ham.