Mr and Mrs Wilfred (Pip) Walter’s dearest wish was that their second baby should be a boy – a brother for their three-years-old daughter, Marilyn.

That wish came true.

It was a boy – Mark Anthony. But it was Mark Anthony’s arrival into the world which makes the headlines. Scene was 3 Barton Cottages, Abbotsham. Time was the early hours of the morning. Storyteller is Mr Wilfred Walter, 28-years-old farm worker. In an interview with a Bideford Gazette reporter, he said: ‘My wife Pat told me it was time I got her to the hospital so I dressed and went to fetch the car in the village, leaving her alone. ‘I was only away about twenty minutes but when I got back I received the shock of my life. The baby had arrived and Pat had done everything herself. I telephoned for a doctor and an ambulance because as you can well imagine I was running around in circles. Then Pat and the baby were taken in to a Bideford nursing home. Pat and the boy are doing very well and all being well, I am expecting them home again at the end of this week.’Concluded Wilfred with a smile: ‘We certainly got our wish but we never dreamt that it would happen like it did.’

Of course, the centre of attraction in the nursing home was Pat, aged 28, and her son. 

Gazette article dated 2 May 1958