| The following is the OBITUARY that
appeared in the Blackheath Harriers Gazette and Club Record No 341 -
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 years 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. |
