Dear William I came to Wgtn on the same boat (Captain Cook) as Paddy in Oct 1953. I remember Paddy’s fascination with the showers, under which he spent a considerable amount of time. He told me he had never seen showers before! We were allocated to the P & T Dept to work on the cable laying gang and were housed at the P&T huts at Trentham. On arriving at the Melling yard on Monday morning we were sorted out into gangs and ours was under a foreman named Clarrie and consisted of myself, Geoff, Paddy, Gordon, Peter, Hans and Carl. Paddy was the youngest on the gang and as tradition decrees he got to be teaboy. Our first job was ‘main line inspection’ and comprised inspecting the main phone line for broken insulators, rotten cross arms, unsafe poles etc. This was wonderful with glorious weather and working high on the hills overlooking Wellington Harbour. The pine trees were so thick we could scramble from tree to tree to reach the lines without hauling the heavy extension ladders around. Paddy was a handsome lad; you would probably guess he was Irish with his jet black hair, green eyes and endearing grin. I don’t know how old he was but I doubt if he would have been out of his teens. He could take a joke against himself without rancour and loved it when he could get a joke on someone else. Somewhat naïve, I got the impression he probably came from some small rural village. He certainly didn’t seem used to city life. I can’t remember exactly when Paddy left Wellington but it must have been 18 months later that I read that Paddy had been arrested for murder. As I recall, he had stabbed somebody with the steak knife whilst eating his dinner in an Auckland café. The details were sparse but I can imagine some smart alec making a derogatory remark and Paddy being Paddy, would have swung at him. Probably not even realising he had a knife in his hand. He must have had a lousy lawyer – I mean, a young lad, no previous convictions, certainly not street wise, not pre-meditated and given a death sentence? Ted Hardy