Memories of great character

It was great to see the picture of my late grandad in the paper.

I have no idea who the lady is but they are certainly deep in conversation.

He is Alfred Walter Willerton of Old Fletton and was around 84 in the picture.

He was born in Star Road in 1897 and when the First World War broke out he was a lad of 17 and received call up papers for an “unknown destination”, which took him with the Royal Engineers to the Dorain front in Greece where the British forces where fighting the Turks in trenches.

He survived the horrors of the Great War and returned to Peterborough where he started to court a young lady from Kings Cliffe and I recall him telling me how he would jump on his pushbike and cycle out there from Star Road to do his courting then cycle back!

They eventually married so she became my grandmother and they had a daughter, Mary, my mum.

They bought a house in the new Wootton Avenue in Old Fletton for £500 in 1926, which he named “Kilinder” after the village the Royal Engineers were stationed at in Greece.

He worked on the steam locomotives at the old East Station, now under massive redevelopement, and became head shunter for British Rail and retired after 45 years.

The house still bares the name “Kilinder” and I know this as my family and I still live in it as it remains in the family, the name continues as a mark of respect.

He continued to work into his late seventies for Macfisheries on Cathedral Square as odd job man collecting trolleys and changing light bulbs etc.

He died probably a year or so after the picture was taken but I will always remember this wonderful old character. Gary Edwards Peterborough