Life History

Other facts

Notes

• <From data supplied by Shane Woollett>
  
  8th August 1993. (Greymouth Cemetery)
  
  After showing us the grave of his parents and us showing him the grave of his
  Uncle Abner and Auntie Lizzie (Eliza), Walter told us about himself.
  
  Trade - panelbeater. Walter admitted to being good with work of a physical
  nature and with pride announced that he had never been sacked.
  
  While working as a bushman he had an accident that broke bones including his
  3rd to 10th ribs. A tree was felled and as it dropped it hit a dead limb on
  another tree which then swung down and hit him.
  
  Another incident happened in Dobson while unloading a compressor from a
  railway carriage. The compressor fell and sandwiched Walter between it and
  the bank. He thought he was a "gonna" as with every breath that he let out
  he could feel the compressor sinking further onto his chest. When his fellow
  workers finally extracted him they found him so badly injured and bruised that
  they laid him to one side expecting the worst. On the way to hospital he was
  conscious and told those around him to keep speaking because if he lapsed into
  sleep felt that he would never wake up.
  
  On duty in the army in the Solomon Islands he was cleaning his Bren? gun.
  He bent down to the gun looking for number 2 setting and as he turned he
  heard a sniper's bullet passing very close to his head. The bullet hit a tree
  but Walter felt that if he had not moved it would have hit him in the head.
  Hearing the shot the other soldiers with him turned another Bren? gun on the
  sniper and "cut him down"
  
  Gillian was amused to hear a phrase that she remembers her father (Charles #4)
  using. When refering to his Son in Law as being good with electronics he
  proclaimed that he "is a clever rooster"
  (Source: Walter WOOLLETT).