Jody described Walker as a \u201cbeautiful, quiet, humble, caring, kind man\u201d who was well respected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no one in my world who had that many skills and talents like him, I\u2019m truly blessed to have been raised by a dad like him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jody and her four siblings shared a great love for their father, who also had 10 mokopuna and six great-grandchildren, as well as nieces and nephews.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe kept us safe, he cared for us, and he was always there for us, even as adults,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Peter Walker was described as a loving family man by his daughter Jody Walker.<\/p>\n
Walker was born at the Wairoa hospital on July 30, 1956. He attended Te Mahia School, then Wairoa College. <\/p>\n
He grew up in what Jody described as a \u201cshack hut\u201d. It had a dirt floor, and cooking was done over a fire. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause they lived remotely, living off the land was an essential part of survival,\u201d she said of her dad\u2019s childhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cGathering seafood, gathering fruit from the fruit trees and a massive vege garden.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gathering kaimoana had been apart of Peter Walkers life since childhood.<\/p>\n
Walker\u2019s job as a child had been to milk the cow every morning before breakfast.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the kids would walk up the Wainuiorangi Rd to catch the bus, and dad was always the last to leave the house, but he would most of the time be the first to reach the top where the bus stop was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jody said her dad had been a hard-working man.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad would say, \u2018be a Walker, not a talker\u2019. It\u2019d crack us up.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said his work ethic of \u201chead down – tail up\u201d came from his childhood living in Taiwananga.<\/p>\n
Walker\u2019s sister Suzanne McGregor had gifted some land at Taiwananga to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cA gift my dad is truly grateful for. He would always come back to Taiwananga and slowly built his home and then built his kids and mokos a home to always come back to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jody Walker said Peter’s Whare would be a legacy enjoyed by his family for years to come.<\/p>\n
Jody said Walker saw the beauty of the sea and the land, and had always wanted to return to the area to live.<\/p>\n
Jody said that as a child it was easy for her father to gather seafood because there had been plenty of kaimoana. <\/p>\n
\u201cDiving and gathering seafood for dad became a natural to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her dad\u2019s favourite seafood had been kina. <\/p>\n
Back on land, Walker had played rugby for Paremata-Plimmerton in Porirua, where they lived when Jody was a child. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was 16, we moved to Mahia for a year to look after Nanny Diana\u2019s house,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad was a wh\u0101ngai by Diana Ehu and Paora Rangi Ehu, who lived in Taiwananga. Diana Ehu (nee Walker) was his aunt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her father\u2019s name was actually Reece Peter Walker, but he went by Peter.<\/p>\n
\u201cNanny Diana couldn\u2019t say Reece, so she called him Peter, and the name stuck his whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jody said her family had later moved to Maraenui, where Walker reconnected with his Maraenui rugby club mates and his second family.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying for the Maraenui rugby club was one of his biggest honours in his rugby career.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jody said that during his time with the club, he learned an appreciation for te reo M\u0101ori and tikanga M\u0101ori through rugby events, which included hosting other teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was so quiet, his rugby team, Maraenui Rugby Club, gave him the nickname \u2018Hush\u2019 … as captain, you have to get up and say a speech, and dad could hardly be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jody said their wh\u0101nau legacy now was to continue with what he started at Taiwananga.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep returning home, bring our kids back here to enjoy the peace, go fishing, diving and all the family holiday activities that come with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michaela Gower joined Hawke\u2019s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke\u2019s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jody described Walker as a \u201cbeautiful, quiet, humble, caring, kind man\u201d who was well respected. \u201cThere\u2019s no one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,95,806,1561,32530,14032,40869,6179,13208,2209,1976,1345,57910,75407,5158,3180,111,43,139,69,5413,9617,15120,6327,312,12628,57698,6123],"class_list":["post-245754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-and","tag-as","tag-bay","tag-caring","tag-daughter","tag-dedicated","tag-died","tag-diving","tag-father","tag-hawkes","tag-home","tag-humble","tag-loving","tag-man","tag-near","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peter","tag-player","tag-remembered","tag-rugby","tag-says","tag-tragedy","tag-walker","tag-while"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}