ASSUMED DEAD

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 6, 6 July 1935, Page 10

ASSUMED DEAD

MISSING MAN TURNS UP

AN EXTRAORDINARY- STORY

LOSS OF MEMOEY

When search parties early this year failed to find any trace of Harold Goodman, who set out on Christmas Eve from Greytown to tramp to the head of the Waiohine River, it was assumed tfiat he was dead, but he has •now been found, and an extraordinary story is associated with his finding. It •is a case of complete loss of memoryGoodman1 set out from Greytown intending to take about ten days to get to the head of the Waiohine River and 'ten days back. He took plenty of food with'him, and a rifle. He was not expected back for three weeks. Three days after he was overdue the alarm was given. Tramping parties set out from Greytown and from Weljington, and a police search was also instituted, but without result. The search was intensified, more parties setting out and combing the country in which Goodman was believed to have been lost, but all to no end. The search was finally abandoned. The Waiohine River., flows through rough country in a series of gorges that are very seldom traversed, tramping parties preferring to go round them, and the searchers were put to great difficulty. A SURPRISE LETTER. Mrs. W. A. Wilton, of 21 Armidale Street, Petone, is a sister of Mrs. Goodman, the missing man's wife, and she received i the following letter dated June 22:— Dear Mrs. Wilton—Will you tell Mrs. Goodman, I can't think her other name as my mind is a blank, to meet me at the Manawatu Thorndon station on next Wednesday evening at 6 or 7 o'clock, and don't fail because I have just found out who I am. 'They Have been calling me "whiskers" and "dopey." I cannot . remember anything at all. I don't know where I have been since the rope slipped and I fell down the rock 11 and bashed my head and arm. and I ■ can't think at all, so be good and tell them. ■ . Harold Goodman. PS —I have done a lot of thinking a long while, but not a thing would come till the other night. I got 'knocked down with a car (something unintelligible follows) and something went "bung" in my head and I began to see a little then; so I made up my mind to find you. The car had no lamps. —H.G. THE MEETING. : The spelling in this letter was very bad and even the name was misspelt •Mr and Mrs. Wilton accordingly met the" train last Wednesday evening. Goodman alighted from it. He did not at first know, Mr and Mrs Wilton' but had a vague idea of Mrs. Wilton's name, but not her Christian name, nor could he recollect Mrs. Goodmans •.Christian name. He was unaware that he was marred and had no recollection of his fdfcn^y. , Goodman has periods of more or less clear vision, but these quickly pass and leave his mind a blank. He has no yet seen a doctor. From fragmen s of his conversation it is learnt that he has probably been engaged in some rural pursuit. It is surmised, as indi--1 cated by the letter, that he had an accident while tramping and los^his memory. He then probably found Soyment in some out-of-the-way farm and not until he was knocked down by a car did his memory beg n .10 function again, and then only in P His wife was overjoyed at hearing the news of his return': Except for a Sed daughter, all his family are „, Petone at the present time., He is 4J years of age, and is at present in Petone. -