Miner Writes Poetry

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 175, 27 July 1935, Page 14

Miner Writes Poetry

PLUCKY FIGHT WINS SUCCESS. A young Yorkshir’o miner, faced with unemployment owing to ill-hcaltli caused by his gallant rescue of 18 colleagues in a pit, determined to make a living by writing poems and selling them in the streets.

To-day, at tho age of 31, ho has written more# than 400 poems and sold thousands of copies of them. The hero of this struggle is Mr. Walter Brooke, of Acton, London W. Some years ago he was working as a ropo boy in a pit when eighteen miners were in danger of being crushed by some falling buckets of coal. Ho pulled a lever to divert the falling coal into his own shaft and was severely injured.

When he recovered lie was unable to continue work in the mine and decided to travel to London to write and sell verse.

‘ ‘ The first seven years were the worst,” said Mr. Brooke to an interviewer. “My publishers failed and now I publish and peddle my own poems myself. Tho proudest moment in my life was when I was asked to read some of my poems to a congregation of 5000 in York Minister.”