Walter was born in 1900 and spent the first few years of his life in Dover where his father, also named Walter, was an accounting clerk for the Admiralty. His sister Ellen Marjorie was born there in 1901. Walter’s parents then spent some time in Egypt where a second sister Dorothy Margaret was born. It is not known whether the older children accompanied their parents or stayed in England. Two more children were born but died before 1911.

In 1911 Walter’s father was working as a secretary to a public engineering company. The family were then living at Ikkhala, Emlyn Street, a house with 8 rooms and they had a live-in servant. The name of this house was subsequently changed. They probably stayed in Stamford between 5 and 10 years and Walter was certainly a schoolboy in the town. No military records have been found but he may have been called up in 1918 but still undergoing training at the end of the war.

Sometime in the 1920s they moved and the family home was ‘Petitor’, Woodhouse Lane in Quorn, Leicestershire until Walter’s father’s death in 1940. Walter married Nellie Walker in 1925 and they had 2 daughters Wendy in 1926 and Beryl in 1928. Soon after Beryl’s birth they went to live in Rhodesia and may have stayed there although they did visit England. Walter’s occupation was described as an agriculturalist and education officer.

Neither of Walter’s sisters married – Ellen Marjorie became a teacher and died in Bristol in 1987. Dorothy Margaret spent many years as a missionary in West Africa and died in Weston-super-mare in 1953.

Ikhala plant

The family clearly revelled in unusual names for their houses!

Ikhala is the common name of an aloe from the Eastern Cape and may be the origin of the house name given the family’s travelling nature.

Petitor means a seeker.