QUAINT PERSONALITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26558, 5 September 1947, Page 6

QUAINT PERSONALITY

DEATH OF ELDERLY WOMAN TRAPPED IN BURNING COTTAGE P.A. WELLINGTON, Sept. 4. One of Petone’s quaintest figures, the, 72-year-old Miss Hilda Peach Manning, lost her life when she was trapped in her burning cottage at Campbell terrace this morning. Petone firemen, breaking into the cottage a few minutes after the alarm, found her lying just inside the door, which it seemed she had tried to open when she collapsed, overcome by smoke. Ten minutes later she died. The interior of the cottage presented an extraordinary scene. Practically the whole of the dilapidated .little building was filled with pile after pile of newspapers, in some cases leaving only a narrow passage from a small heater to the door of the room.' Miss Manning had collected them over her nearly half-century of residence alone there. Long rumoured to possess much wealth hidden in the cottage, Miss Manning was well known not only in Petone, but in Wellington. She was frequently known to walk along the Hutt road into the. city even in heavy rain, oddly conspicuous in black cotton stockings and men’s white tennis shoes, obviously too largp. The fire is believed to have originated near the fireplace in which a fire was burning close to a heap of paper which ignited. The firemen had difficulty in opening the door, and were unable to enter by the window, which was also blocked by stacks of paper. In spite bf the paper, however, the brigade saved most of the cottage from destruction. Miss Manning was a member of a pioneer Petone family. She had been visited twice daily by a relative living not far away.