ONE of the daughters of popular Gazette & Herald columnist Peter Walker is to follow in his footsteps.

Sarah Walker is to continue the Rural View column which her father wrote for over 40 years.

A mum to three boys, Sarah grew up in Ampleforth, went to local Catholic Primary School, then Bar Convent York, followed by university in Newcastle

Sarah said: “I wasn’t sure what to do next, but was planning to travel, so needed to save up. Dad advised me to write a letter to Yorkshire Evening Press to see if they had summer work.

“It didn’t start well - I spelled ‘journalist’ wrong all way through letter, but they still asked to see me and took me on as an assistant in the library. While there I got to write a few feature articles , and then before I left to travel they asked me if I’d like to join the news team and train as a proper journalist on my return. So that’s what I did, and did my full journalism training there.

Sarah left in 1992 to take a commercial editing job in the south, then became a freelance writer soon after.

“My working career has revolved mostly around writing or related fields and I was also working on a book with Dad when he died. . .

“The decision to take over the column wasn’t straightforward, as I wasn’t sure I was up to the commitment of a weekly column, plus the shoes I had to fill were enormous, but when I stood in my dad’s study and looked around at his vast archive I just thought it would be such a waste not to make use of it..

“And with him writing his column for so many years, I wanted somehow to carry that on, to continue his legacy, so that his contribution to Yorkshire and the North East is not forgotten. Of course, I asked my mum whether she would be happy for me to do so, and she was.

“I hope to do justice to my dad’s legacy in the only way I know, which is in continuing his columns. I’m not my dad, and my writing and experiences, are very different, but I hope, by using his archives as inspiration, that I can in a some small way, fill the gap his death has left.”