Eric (Walkey) Gillett was born in Cheshire in 1893, and was privately educated (he went to Radley). During World War One, he was wounded at Ypres. After the war he established himself as a literary critic and also an early film critic, although his principal post was as a senior editor at Collins. In 1932, when he makes his first appearance in the WR, he had been for a while the professor of English Language and Literature at the Raffles University in Singapore. He went on to be a literary critic for The Daily Telegraph, and produced/ edited a stream of anthologies, literary surveys, books about film for adults and children, two biographies, and to appear on 2,000 occasions for the BBC, Radio Luxemburg, Radio Normandie and the Swedish and Dutch networks. He lived in London, but later in Hove, in Flat 4, 29 Brunswick Square (where he made a name for himself locally by leading a successful protest against a plan to build car parks). He married twice, in 1926 and in 1962 (seven years after being widowed); he had a son and daughter (the latter died as an infant). He died on November 8th 1978 at the age of 83.
His middle name is much mis-spelled as Walker and Walkley.
New Statesman Competitions and New Statesman satirical poems: a history 