Dr Walter Percy Yates was born in Yorkshire. He came to Western Australia in 1912 and first set up a practice in York. Then he worked for a short time at Woodman Point Quarantine Station. After the war, he came to Busselton and was appointed Government Medical Officer for the district in 1922, a position he held until 1955.

Farming was very hard work here in the early days. I remember Norm Crowe - he lost his arm in a chaff cutting accident. He could do anything, with just one arm. I've seen him yoke up a team of eight horses, putting collars and hames on them, which is a big job with 2 arms. He'd push the collar up, with the two straps to buckle up and he'd grab them and hold them in his teeth, until he could do them up. He lost his arm in a portable chaff cutter, when he was about 20, might have been a bit more. He was working for people named Dowling.