After getting his uniform, Chas went into training at the racecourse before going toWellington to board the troop ship.
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The troop ship he was on met up with the Australian troop ships to travel in convoy.
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Levin's first car was owned by Dr McKenzie. Chas recalls meeting Bernard Freyberg and men going off to the Boer War.
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He came from a long-lived family - sister in Sydney at 97, Charles at 95, sister, May, in Levin aged 89.
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They did't know where they were headed for, but finally they disembarked at Port Sayed. From there they travelled by train to camp near Cairo and started training.
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Chas talks about his mother and brother.
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Chas came to Levin as a baby, the family settling near the mill by the lake.
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Written on back with blue ballpoint pen: “A school group. On the names could be about 1898. Charles Welby would have started school about 1897 at the Queen st. School. Fred ferris was in his late teens in a photo of the Donny at the cross-roads series in 1912.”
Written on piece of paper with black ballpoint pen: “Class of Horowhenua School, Beach Rd. at the Weraroa Town hall (tempory school room). Was sited where the Cosmopoliton Club’s Ward St. car park is now 1990. Photo c. 1898. 1898-c.1914”
Written on another piece of paper (both sides) with blue & black ballpoint pens: “c.1898 not earlier. Class at Weraroa Town Hall (built 1896, demolished) c.1914. The Cosmopoliton Club Ward St. carpark & entrance). Identification other side. Original Mavis Whiley, 8 Roslyn Rd. & Charles Welby, War Vets Home.”
Back Row – Harry Bolton, Hurst, Phil Goldsmith, Alec Adsett, King, Strawbridge, Bill Hanson, Banks, Partridge, Neville Winiata, , Hirst, King, Goldsmith. 2nd Row – ? Hurst, Alick Goldsmith, Chris Akenson, Daphne Inder, ..... Charlotte Adsett, Elsie Adsett, ........ Strawbridge, Bolton, Teacher – Miss Howan. 3rd Row – Bill Henson, Wood, Prior, ? , Wood, ? , Akenson, Sis Welby, Rhodes, ? , ? , ? , Sid Welby, Eti Riki, , B. Strawbridge. Front Row – Chas Williams, Strawbridge, Fred Ferris, Hurst, Charles Welby. Names given by Chas Welby, Mavis Whiley & handed on by Mrs Mavis Whiley.
Children fromHorowhenua,when the school was temporarily situated at the Weraroa Town Hall c.1898. 48 pupils fromthe school which was normally operated from a Beach Road site, are pictured with their lady teacher Miss Howan. The school at Weraroa was built in 1896 and demolished around 1914, and was situated where the Cosmopolitan Club carpark now has its entrance in Ward Street.
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They went to the Suez Canal to repel the Turks.
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Talks about early lighting in Levin - kerosene, gas arrived in 1913 and electricity in 1923 or 1924.
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Chas went to work at the Coachbuilders at the age of 13 but got lead poisoning so had to leave and take up a job on a farm.
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05 In 1892 his father won a ballot for 5 acres in the Horowhenua Village Block, on the main road south of Levin. Here they built a house.
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School recollections - Charles started school by the Government Experimental Farm. They walked to and from school - not getting his first pair of shoes until the age of 10. Mr Cole was the schoolmaster.
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War broke out when Chas was in Masterton, so he enlisted there. The girls went down to Wellington to work - one in nursing the other doing office work.
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08 Left school before 14 years old. Talks about living on the 5 acres where they had cows, aclves and pigs. His father used to walk to work at the mill. He remembers 1st bicycle his family had - his mother rode it and it smelled of rubber.
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His brother, Sydney, went to the Wairarapa where he was killed in an accident.
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His father died aged 46 leaving his mother with 6 children aged 12 and under. They got a grant of 5/- per week plus his mother went out to work to support the family.
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Recalls Worth's circus visiting Levin and the pygmy who stayed on in Levin.
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Chas was accepted into the Army despite missing a finger lost in a childhood accident.
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Chas remembers his happy childhood - mother working, school and other picnics.
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Chas was not posted anywhere outside Egypt.
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Chas worked as a prison guard at the German prisoner of war camp at Tauherenikau.
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Back in New Zealand, he recovered from the 'Curse of Egypt'. He was posted to Buckle Street, Wellington.
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Next morning he was struck down by a mystery illness which landed him in hospital for 2 to 3 weeks. Eventually he was sent home on a hospital ship.
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Chas and a mate visited the City of the Dead to dig for buried treasure ... They found beads, scarabs and bracelets in an underground chamber.
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Inscription on reverse reads: “1908”
Workers from the W.B.MacIntosh Coach, Carriage and Wagon Factory stand outside their place of work c.1908. The young man to the left of the photograph is Charles Welby, a lifetime resident of Levin. This factory was on the site now (2001) occupied by Writeprice supermarket in Queen Street.
According to The Chronicle's 75th Jubilee Supplement (published in March 1981)
"Back to 1905 and the horse and buggy days. It is the coachbuilding and blacksmith premises of the late Mr W.B. Macintosh in Queen Street. Mr Macintosh, incidentally, died in Auckland in 1963. Left to right in the old photograph are five members of the staff of those days, Messrs C.A. Welby, apprentice painter (then 13); W. Alloway, a coach builder; W. Wilton, a journeyman painter; A. Brown, a blacksmith's striker; and W. Bilderbeck, a blacksmith. The building was on the site of Bonners' Garage."
Any use of this image must be accompanied by the credit “Horowhenua Historical Society Inc.”