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If it wasn’t for Hitler I wouldn’t be here!

This is the story of Paddy Maloney and Ada Mitchell my Father and Mother
During the latter days of the war.

December 1942-January 1943

My Dad decided that he had had enough of scraping a living on a small holding in Ireland and decided with a mate to come to ‘England’ for a better way of life.
It was an enormous decision for a young naive Irish lad of 25 years of age. He had to apply through his local bank who in turn applied to the British Police. He had to get references from his local employer (who didn’t really want him to leave) and his local Parish Priest. He eventually acquired all the necessary papers including an Irish passport that got his name wrong, a fact that he is still worried about today at the grand old age of 87. He was going to work for the War Agricultural Executive Committee in South Wales in a town he had never heard of called Swansea.

He travelled by train from his home town of Foxford in Co. Mayo in the west of Ireland up to Dublin and caught the ferry to Holyhead. He then thought he was going to travel to Swansea, but the train was stopped at a small station that he has never been able to remember the name of except that it was on the way to Crewe. He spent most of the night on the train until eventually someone told all of the people on the train that Hitler had decided to Bomb Swansea and therefore they had to go somewhere else.

That somewhere else happened to be for some of the passengers, including my Dad, was a small town in the Brecon Beacons called Talgarth. The journey to Talgarth from Crewe was arduous by today’s standards to say the least, including a very slow train journey as the train was diverted several times and by the time they arrived in Talgarth it had taken them nearly three days from Foxford.

The WARAG as they called it had set up a hostel in Talgarth for workers in the War Effort. Their job was to convert common land up in the Beacons (Hay Common) to potatoe fields.
The hostel was big enough for about 40 men, in two dormitories, and, as you can imagine, all the facilities were communal. To help these ‘poor helpless’ men in a strange place the WARAG employed four or five local women to run the hostel and look after the men by cooking and cleaning and doing their washing for them.

Amongst these women was a young girl by the name of Ada Mitchell. She was there reluctantly because she wanted to join the WRAF but she was turned down and was sent to work at the hostel. Ada has her own tales to tell later.

My Dad stayed at the hostel and worked on the Common for about a year, firstly clearing the land of small bushes and other undergrowth, spreading lime and fertiliser and then in early spring planting acres and acres of potatoes. The men worked hard all of the time but they also had a good time visiting the local hostelries for drinking and dancing and as good catholic Irish boys going to Mass on Sundays.

During this time Paddy and Ada became good friends and eventually they fell in love and got engaged.
There was then a little scare in their relationship however when my Dad was told he had been reposted to work in a small town called Usk in South Monmouthshire. He was still going to be working for the WARAG but working in and around Usk Agricultural College in the orchards and farm land attached to the college producing food for the War effort.
This move meant that Paddy and Ada would be separated and in those days those 30 miles may as well have been 3000 miles.
However my Dad’s boss at the time could see their plight and using his influence he managed to get Ada a job working as a house keeper for a local household in Usk.

They were again within courting distance, their relationship blossomed and they agreed to get married.
They wedding took place on June 19th 1946 and in 1947 and 1949 they had their two sons, my brother and I.

So if Hitler had not decided to bomb Swansea my Dad would not have been diverted to Talgarth, he would not have met my mum and I would not be here!

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