He was born in Plymouth on 5 March 1895, the son of Robert Alfred John Walling and his wife, Florence Victoria Greet.
He was educated at Plymouth Grammar School and was a junior reporter on the Western Daily Mercury from 1912 to 1914.
A Captain in the Territorial branch of the Royal Garrison Artillery, he served in France during the First World War and was wounded at the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917.
[1] It was during spells in military hospitals that he produced his illustrated manuscript magazine An Houlsedhas ('The West') in the Cornish language.
[2] Walling features as one of the main characters in the 2009 play Surfing Tommies by Cornish playwright, Alan M. Kent.