| The following is the OBITUARY that appeared in
the Blackheath Harriers Gazette and Club Record dated Aug/Sep 1929.
It is with deep regret that we have to record the
death of a young and promising member, Walter Patrick Dillon Bennett, in
an air crash on July last. Bennett joined the Club early in 1926, and
although unable to compete regularly made considerable progress, being
placed in several handicap races, notably in the Nicholls Cup last
winter, when he was second; and he supported many Club social functions.
He was very modest and known well to only a few, so that the tribute
from the Rev. A. J. K. Martyn, headmaster of Sedbergh School, below is
especially apt to assist 'Heathens of his generation to estimate the
loss of this generous and unassuming character.
Walter P. D. Bennett was born in October 1907, and
educated at Sedbergh School, Yorkshire. At the time of entering that
school, in September, 1921, his father, who was an engineer, lived at
Stocksfield-on-Tyne. Bennett joined the School-house under Major W. N.
Weech, the headmaster. During his five wars at school he worked his way
from the lowest to the highest form with that perseverance and pluck
which characterised him all through. Though never distinguished in any
branch of athletics, he exercised a strong and healthy influence on his
schoolfellows, with whom he was immensely popular. After leaving school
he worked with an engineering firm in London, but took up
"flying" in his spare time, and after gaining his pilot's
certificate was on the Reserve of Air Force Officers. It was on July 19,
when he had been observed by an eye-witness to perform some daring
feats, that the aeroplane, a single seater, nose-dived and crashed near
Radlett, in Hertfordshire; Bennett was killed instantaneously.
We tender our profound sympathy to his mother, and
to his sister and surviving brother. The sudden close to a brilliant
young life is made the more pathetic as Bennett had only a few weeks
previously passed the examination for entrance to King's College,
Cambridge, and had been looking forward eagerly to his three years at
that university. |
