The Gieves flask he carried and which was used in his narrative to aid an injured seaman. Attached to it are his own personal I/D discs. A hatband from an ordinary seamans headgear for HMS Warrior. The booklet for the order of service held at Westminster Abbey complete with black borders. We also have the report he typed up for their Lordships detailing the events he was involved in. His medals are mounted with a picture of him and show six small silver bars for areas where he served staring with Mediterranean then North Sea and then Jutland.
My Grandfather Fleet Paymaster R.P. Walker was on board HMS Warrior at Jutland. When not dealing with pay matters his job at action stations was to supervise the coding and decyphering of messages. When the action started at Jutland HMS Warrior was involved early on with the shelling of two German cruisers one of which sank. Shortly after coming out of the mist and gloom they were suddenly confronted by considerably heavier German units which started to shell them. Not being able to avoid the action Warrior took a lot of punishment and was severly damaged. In fact she had been mortally wounded and was abandoned after all survivors had been taken off by the sea-plane carrier Engadine. After return to base he was involved with writing a report on the action as he had witnessed it for their Lordships. They had lost some 70 men killed and during the later part of the action he had helped look after some of the most seriously injured even to giving some brandy from his hip flask to a badly injured seaman. He describes in detail the damage he saw when examining the ship at the after end where he was stationed. He accounted for no less than a dozen large shell hits some of which had punched right through their weak armour belt and left neat holes of roughly a foot in diameter. One shell had even traversed the ship and embedded itself in the armour on the far side but without actually exploding. As with all things Naval since he was in charge of all the ships monies which had been accounted for before the action had started he now had to write a report on where the cash had gone so it could be safely written off.!! In the main safe which had been damaged sufficienlty to prevent its opening was all the cash, two fine shotguns of his and the family stamp collection. The Warrior was taken in tow by Engadine but the weather deteriorated and the tow was dropped. The survivors were taken to the nearest port but next day ships went out with the intention of regaining the tow but could find no trace of Warrior, she had slipped below the waves sometime during the night. Her exact location is not known. Among the memorabilia he kept after the war was his Gieves flask with his personal I/D discs attached, a seamans hatband with the words HMS Warrior and a copy of the order of service for the memorial service which claimed a victory in the engagements. He was an extremely lucky man because the area around him was badly damaged by the shelling but he was not hit. Officers at the time were allowed to mount small silver bars on medals at their own expense. His medals awarded later show one such bar with the words Jutland May 31st 1916.