"The Douglas Boarding house was built in 1906 by my Great-uncle, Arthur Walter. My mother, then Anita Frethey, actually boarded there when she went to Douglas to teach.
When Isabel and I married in 1966, she was about the ninth Mrs Walter living there.
"Today, our son, Roderick is the only Walter still out there, along with two cousins and their families who are also descendants of Edward."
A career in ink
After returning from working as a journalist in Europe in the early 1960s, David became the east-Taranaki stringer for the Taranaki Daily News. Like many in the trade, he came to realise that everyone has a story: all that is needed is someone to listen and write it down. Then, and now, it's the human interest tales that he's most passionate about.
"I went through a period where I had more time for oral histories, and many times, these people, who were getting on in years, would be reticent to talk, but then two hours later they'd say, 'I enjoyed that.' I found that fascinating."
As county historian, he saw his job as an opportunity to collect as much history as he could, and turn existing archives into more easily accessed resources.
As he says, the records weren't there to collect dust, but to provide information to all-comers - for family trees, school jubilees or any other occasion.
Good old bones: The original Walter homestead at Douglas. Built in 1902, it burned to the ground in 1953. Image courtesy David Walter
Stand-out stories
Certain stories stand out, he says, like that of the Scanlans who, from 1940 to 1960, towed their mobile picture theatre around the countryside, stopping to show films at the tiny outlying communities, like Awakino, Mōkau and Whangamomona.
They covered a regular circuit, taking movie entertainment to every rural hall where they'd park their unit up to a specially made hole in the wall for the projector. Some of these can still be found today, covered by a piece of tin to keep the weather out.
During the war years, the Scanlans were given a special concession on benzene (petrol) rationing because the service they provided was considered so good for morale. Their mobile movies were a highlight in pre-television days.
Eventually, they retired to Inglewood, with the unit parked up permanently outside the Whangamomona Hall.
"I've done a couple of articles on them," David says. "Vince Scanlan was also a great memory man. He could read a page of a book and somehow regurgitate it."
The Mayor of Whangamomona
Another interesting story was that of Bill McAloon not long before he died. Regarded as the Mayor of Whangamomona, Bill moved there in the mid-50s to look after the diesel generators that provided electricity to the town.
"He was a man who was very good with machinery and bulldozers," David says. "In fact he helped pull the railway carriages out of the river at Tangiwai."
When Mt Ruapehu's crater lake broke its banks on Christmas Eve, 1953, and sent a lahar of mud down the Whangaehu River, just west of Tangiwai, 151 people on board the Wellington-Auckland night express were killed. Known as the Tangiwai disaster, the event remains New Zealand's worst railway catastrophe.
Bill McAloon went to Whangamomona for six months but stayed the rest of his life. "He was everything, from sexton when they dug the graves, to the parks superintendent," David says.
"He ran a garage and could fix anything. For some time he was head of the domain, the hall and also the lodge, a very clearly-spoken and relatively articulate man. He's another I'm glad to have talked with when I did."
The Walter family and guests at Edward Walter's wedding to Louise Jonas at Waitara in 1901. Image courtesy David Walter.
A family story
A different kind of interview with a family member seemed doubly relevant.
"My father's cousin, Jack Hine, was a Toko resident for many years. He was in his 30s when he went to war, which was quite old.
"He ended up a prisoner of war in East Germany and Poland, and when the Russians came in from the east and the Americans from the West, virtually squeezing out the German forces, these people were deserted by the POW camp bosses and left to their own devices.
"I think they were on the run for six or nine months. It became known as 'the long march.' Jack came back in terrible health, though he survived and only died a few years ago, by then in his 90s."
Another had nothing to do with Stratford County events at all, but nonetheless, David found it remarkable.
"A chap brought up in Douglas, Snow Latham, who became quite a well-known New Plymouth policeman, followed the 1981 Springbok Tour rugby games with the force."
Because of South Africa's apartheid policy, protests were staged during the Springbok tour to New Zealand and dozens of arrests were made. It was a time that saw usually law-abiding citizens fall foul of the police.
"Again, that was interesting getting his perspective of things that happened at a volatile time."
Rough boards: The Douglas Boarding House in 2005. It was built by Great-uncle Arthur Walter. Image Puke Ariki Collection TS2006_1022.
A well-researched book
In 2005, David launched Stratford: Shakespearean Town under the Mountain, a well-received and popular book commissioned by the Stratford 125th Jubilee Committee to celebrate the Stratford story. Today it has almost sold out and is likely to go into another printing.
When asked whether he enjoyed writing it, David says, "I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but it was stimulating, challenging. It's a case of knuckling down to it, but the hardest part was starting and finishing it."
He pays tribute to other written works that turned out to be invaluable, and proved to him once again how important it is to get history down when you can: A 1928 jubilee booklet Carved from the Bush: Stratford 1878-1928, an unpublished histories by former Borough Council historians, W.L.Kennedy and C.S.Kelly, and the 1978 Stratford District Centenary Booklet by R.G.Habershon.
He admits he was genuinely surprised by some of the facts he uncovered during the writing process, which took 'from Genesis to Exodus' to complete.
"Some featured in the book and some didn't. I didn't realise Christchurch was going to be called Stratford - I assume that's the link to the Avon River - but with the strong Anglican presence in the early 1850s, they decided on the name of Christchurch."
He also had no idea to what extent Stratford had been considered a key player in the lead up to Parihaka. "The Opunake Road, from Stratford out towards Opunake, was really only built because of the military for strategic purposes," he says.
Collect and collate: Preserving history for future generations is a worthwhile business. Image Puke Ariki Collection TS2006_1021.
What's next?
On the writing front, David still has several projects he would like to do before he calls it quits, like the centennial booklet he's been asked to write for the Douglas School.
Douglas School officially closed shortly after the centennial celebrations, held Easter 2006. Along with his cousin, Bradley Walter, and Bradley's wife Marie, he helped put together a school and district history for the school's 75th celebrations, just before the school closed.
"At some foolish moment, I said I'd do this one, too. I don't want to regurgitate the first one - it was a pretty comprehensive history - but I've a mind, if I have time to go back to some of the tapes I've done, to close a few gaps.
"There were several interviews with older members of Douglas families that had been there for at least two or three generations - most of them have now passed on. Things have changed drastically over the last few decades, so if I get time, I'd like to get these people's stories into the book.
"One becomes aware of how relatively recent events are now part of our past," he says. "Six o'clock closing of hotels and the police 'raids', working horses on the farms, the dairy factory routines in small villages, the card evenings of the rural communities, the World War II experiences on the home front, with soldier's send-offs and farewells, fund raising, black-outs. The ever-changing aspects of farming and land development."
A heap of possibilities
The list goes on but his message is firm - record now, it's easier than trying to prise memories from people of events that go two generations back.
"I usually say to groups I speak to, 'For goodness sake try to nab your mother or grandmother or your aunty, it only takes a tape recorder and an hour or two. What do you know of their life and times?"'
One of the achievements he's most proud of achieving is building up the county archival resources. "I got involved in bringing together the Stratford Archives as much as I could on each of the distinct communities in the district. Over a 13 year span I tried to get out of the district as much oral and written history as possible - notebooks, minute books from associations that were going defunct.
"I managed to get them into some kind of order in the Stratford archives. We built an extra room to house them when the library was extended in 1998.
"So that's there for people as a repository, though I don't think it's used as well as it could be. I've almost come to the view that it should be stored at Puke Ariki. Sadly, small units of local government, and Stratford comes under this category at the moment, they don't have the political will to give archival and historical documentation the justice and resources it deserves."
Autumn 1988: The current Walter homestead at Douglas, built in 1934. Image courtesy David Walter.
History and politics.
As past Stratford County Chairman, first Mayor of Stratford and now Chairman of Taranaki Regional Council, David Walter is a good one to ask if politics and history mix.
"People often ask me that," he says. "It's an interesting mix. Someone once made a comment that it was very rare to have the mayor or county chairman involved in history, and I suppose that's right.
"I think probably a lot of government leaders do have a sense of history but don't use it overtly. So, yes, I think they do mix because you're experiencing history being made at the same time as recording it.
"I'm always aware that when local government reorganisation occurred and mergers took place in 1989, there were smaller councils who had material that ended up in the hands of people who didn't know what to do with it, or at the dump. To me, that's just sacrilege.
"That's what I'm always worried about, that lack of political will, because it's not a vote-catching item. It's not sexy. And it's something for tomorrow, rather than today."
Asked for advice for future historians, David Walter thinks for just a second. "Ensure records are collated, accessible and used, and that they are easily located. That way, as time passes, recording today's events and attitudes for tomorrow's history can truly be a success."