My name is Ann Griffiths and I am conducting this interview on Thursday 25 May 2017 with Tom Callaghan on behalf of Penielands Camp 22 project.
Thank you Tom for allowing me to come to your home to interview you. Would you like to confirm your name?
Tom Callaghan sorry.
Your age?
73.
And your year of birth?
44.
Thank you, Tom.
What's your connection to the Penalyn's camp?
We moved there in November 1948,
just prior to me starting school in the March, the following year.
I think, if I...
Where did you move from?
Stewardham.
Lancent Street in Stewardham.
Why did you come from Stewardham to Awkenlec to Penalyn's?
Mae'n byw foddu, mae'n budd tr Оio, pan ff announcementau i'r cymddincціeb.
Felly nad yna'n ASR 남 am gyflennu Adem Sobra cambio.
Gail goeth.
Felly mae yn hawdd y pryd� as-stau.
Felly'n cas, rwy'n f
trefamasio'n station ni.
Hwyddiwch yn fawr o'u casau!
Rydw i fel psychosaeth fawr o'i cael math!
Ychwaneg o edrych ynhaing, ysgr 이후 arnod?
Rwy'n meddwl un i ffordd
be
rwy'n meddwl i'r gw professors
eich gyfredysgr Weil Connect
indirect
ar menyd o'i'r ddoech
kyda o resació
mae'n gwahonoant du peitiau
gwahShof
rhan o'r aer
gyda'nogi lefrd Adam
yn faired cyского Mewn
Dwi cybodystol 재all
rwy'n maeshe wyr i'r aws
ac mae'n gy aquarium
venue
gan yn chweithio'r d assumption ei gyfrunon� exclusive ar y cônio ymarfer,
oedd annyngtwro dim gyda wentlu idd fel Gymdeithasydd.
Den i ddarcer hwyl aftero้n, ver fundament sy'n cres y Smith y myselfr Fe Hy Plus,
iawn y gallwch yhai den yn llЛ
Birthday was Adam in my Mum's bedroom it was at the back so you had the whole
of the building you didn't share your calories, why did Adam not go back to
Poland, I think because of the Soviet block the fact that they weren't, I don't
think he had any family after, I think his family all died during the war.
He had no reason to go back but again I think there was the fear of going back
Leínhe a'r Zaimd Person yn yanbeth i morisi o rę� cishw painyn.
It was an engineer to trade so I think he had a value, I suppose,
and I've got his record there,
he started work as a boiler
fireman at barone, but thebes
had been nationalised then in47,
which I suppose created the interest in this area
I suppose created the interest in this area for work.
Llywydd, rym ni'n deall wychtwn fyw iddyn nhw wnaeth
Dyma pwy stori♡
Ni allan gwahani gobyr lly heltol.
Dechrau bwysig ac mae'ręthau allan wedi os公 mentЯ
ac mae'r corren maen nhw i ddigon fel newydd.
So gyn rozes bike thicknessa.
Mae'r thai carefullyn yn vo aten byw.
Wrth gael ddigon yn dgwyp немohed yn dod eich newydd i ddefnynnyddu.
Dw i'r rhaid o'i gwahaniaeth rhai dau.
Not really no we only knew the people who were there.
The people in the orchard, Sammy Paul, I remember him.
One or two others, George the love.
There are a few names, Sam, Peter Loy and a number of guys.
Even Billy McEwen, I don't remember if that was him.
No, Maconnell. Billy Mcconnell.
Mae le, releases that's where things happen.
What do you do with your parents?
That brings in something new.
Maybe they've never found ways for you to be here.
Your parents chord in,
your peers should know about your hustle.
Your Missouri administration has to check that out?
Un gong-, chwini yn rhan hefyd, nifer iawn gofio, fel wnaeth ymaヨucannau ewa hwn yn ffrindwyd,
rhaid i gydau deimlo eu cyfan – DNAs yn c STEA, mi'n cael gallwn enyfyn ni'n brifau.
Yw'r prydau werth yna, dwi'n faithful o'i gweithio, byddai'n baconicken o'r rhan hefyd.
Yn gywa'n mewn ei eich grobl.
Ormai'n shrine o gwyddi ddechrau, neu gallai'n daristan o'n dweud i si memes i temper erbyn.
Rhaid i Swissf hotels wedi gwneud yr ardal fel dzaffol, ardal erbyn chi.
What age were you when they moved?
When I moved down to camp, four and a half
Four and a half
And did you have any siblings?
Yes, a younger brother, was two and a half years younger than me
And an older brother who is again two and a half years older.
And what about friends in the camp? Did you make friends with pub smoothies?
Yeah with many friends, you can not remember all their names
yes, we did great flowering trees and swimming in the river
Fe Alon Drewynau – fi hafnodi arnyn o hyn.
Byddwch chi'n fewn d nurt hwn wedi gweld cymorthquaghraface yma yna!,
ac myfnwnaeth yma r fod wedi'i Gwneith Shrap Corell.
Ym ddweud gwyddon ni yn allu yard User board –
byddwn ni'n eisiau gweld wir ac yn llangiedd,
nid yw'r gceptach pwy à mor hyn gyda rom yn wenhaid.
The new house got the scrap man down and that gave us a wee bit of extra money, I suppose.
Aha, aha.
Adam was superb.
He could do plumbing, joinery work, cut out a wall on the side of the hut.
Not the hut, sorry, it's stone built.
He cut a hole out and stuck a window in.
They got from one of the huts and sealed it up with putty or whatever.
There was no silicon in them days.
That gave us light into the hut when the gable ended. In fact, he fitted a toilet just beyond that.
He put an outside toilet.
How did your mum get on with the rationing?
How did you cope getting provisions and making do?
Do you remember that?
We had a wee bit of assistance there and as much as I suppose
when my granny and grandpa had to shop and stew it and they would from time to time bring stuff down.
So we managed fine.
Having said that, Adam was good at catching fish, so we would catch pike.
You wouldn't eat pike nowadays, but we would catch pike in the lugar and ready it.
My mother would get a chicken for somewhere or as I remember it was a hen.
My brother knew more about this than I did, but apparently, and this was down the bottom of the camp,
I think they'd put me away out and Clark was encouraged to hold the hen's head.
Well, my mother chopped it off, but I didn't physically see that.
Apparently, the hen ran around the floor, still running without a head.
Can you remember anybody coming in with vans and things?
No, we used to get the fillycum round in the big canisters, if you like, in the back of a van.
We had to fill it in a horsey cart. They had the same thing, but they would deliver the milk or they sold the milk
and they would fill it into your jug, if you like.
So I don't know whether it was a pint or two pints.
You were buying it at a time. It was just a big metal jug that was chipped.
So we would buy milk there. The baker would come.
What was his name again? Oh, the electric baker.
There was a baker van came and then a grocer by what they called Hopkins.
I think they had the fritters. They came with a horsey cart for a wee while.
So I know you were well provided for. I remember Billy Buck, the barber. He was just a grocer.
So what about education? You were at the age of needing to be educated.
Was there anything at the camp for children? Nothing, no.
So had you to go to Aachenleck?
To go to Aachenleck, I don't remember the early days buses being on, but there were buses on eventually.
You had fratt at you to walk to school, but then there were buses on, but you didn't get a bus home.
You only got a bus to take you to school, so you had to walk home.
So did it come into the camp?
It came into the camp and turned at the very bottom, just near to where you were.
No, not the roundabout. Just at the bottom of that road, where it just turned and sat there.
And then, well, we came through that. It was a wee slip path, if you like.
So did the children go to both schools from the camp?
That, I don't remember. I only remember we went to the school road.
The boys growing as we grew older, some of the boys that went to college go, but I don't know if they lived in the camp or not.
What about social life?
There was a cinema, believe it or not. It didn't show films every week or anything,
but occasionally it was just down the bottom, near the bottom that goes to that roundabout that I was telling you about.
There was a cinema there. Now it might have been just one of the huts that had been used.
I would assume during the time that the soldiers were there.
So they would bring a projector and set it up and have the films and so on.
Because I remember we would see the path and use and all that sort of stuff.
So they were obviously showing something fairly current.
Would that be the group within the camp?
It might have been. I really don't know, to say it.
It was shown in the main films, so that was for the benefit of the adults.
Because I remember where my mum and I were at the pictures, we were left to our own devices.
There was none of this, that your kids are too young to be left alone in the MDs.
You were optimistic about that, yes.
The various celebrations in the year Easter, Christmas, birthdays, Halloween and things,
was there a lot of celebrations for these things?
I don't remember them. I don't think, if I remember right, there's no such thing as public holidays that I was aware of or anything.
The one thing I do remember is because Adam was a Catholic and my mother was a Catholic,
they did celebrate Christmas or there was always something happening for Christmas.
They would make an effort. The first year we were there, if I remember right,
but I'm sure it was the first year. Santa Claus arrived and I'd never seen him.
In the red suit, we were quite weird.
Here, I'd give us cranes and culling invooks and an apple and an orange,
or an apple and an orange and something like that.
Obviously, that was, as you say, maybe the camp people getting together,
noticed there's someone new moved into number 66 or whatever the house, the hut number was.
There was a spirit of, we're all here together and we're making the best of it.
Which is why, as you say, people helped one another.
If someone was putting their coal in, they got their free delivery of coal,
but it was dumped in the streets, so if you were putting the coal in, you got help.
So they got their tonne of coal.
Something like six or seven tonne a year.
How did most people get tuned from the camp?
He walked to, there was no public transport.
He just walked up into Elgin Lake or you'd catch a bus, maybe in Barney Road,
coming from Oho Tree or something to take you wherever.
Was there anybody, anybody had a car or a motorbike or a bicycle?
One or two people, George I love, he had a motorbike.
I remember him. I don't think there were many cars though.
If there were, they were a few and far between.
I know we didn't have a car so.
We were there and I think we were doing the camp until after the coronation.
The reason I remember that is my mum was taken into Sanatorium
and Adam couldn't cope with us so he took us up to our dad who was in Dorsiloch
and basically dumped us.
Our coronation mugs went with us, which is why I remember that.
So it must have been 53.
What's your most vivid memory of living in the camp?
If somebody says penelins, what immediately comes to mind?
I think the pubs, irls and all that sort of stuff
whoop in and swoop in low because as I say there was no light.
I'll tell you what it did for me.
It's given me exceptionally good night vision.
I can see great, even my wife, she can't see in the dark and I can see in the dark.
So whether it's just something that you adapted to that I could see perfectly,
you just need moonlight and some sort of light
and you could see down the camp there was nothing, there was no straight light
and especially down the estate if you're down the estate.
So that's probably my earliest is that as children you were adapting to,
well at that age I knew nothing else anyway so it didn't matter to me,
I had no electricity, I didn't miss the microwave oven
and all the things it would take were granted.
Is there anything else that we haven't covered that you would like to add?
Not really, other than it's a shame, I would add it's a shame that they've actually changed it.
That is a shame because I did enjoy and I've been down many times,
I've taken family over the past 40 or 50 years down there
and I don't think it's a change for the better
but that's because it spoiled my memory if you like.
I think it would be better as it was, I think it would be better left as it was.
I enjoy history and I enjoy going to see the Parthenon
and the Acropolis and all that sort of stuff
and I like to see something that's been unchanged
and I think they've changed it, I don't think they've changed it for the better.
For my memory they should have left the camp.
I've got photographs of my grandchildren standing in the foundations that we had at the top
and that's great, I used to know the size, I don't know the size of it,
whether it's six metres by three metres or something the size of the hut
so when you look at the accommodation we've had nowadays
and you think we've crammed ourselves into,
it's a shame we've lost it I think, visually, visually it was nice to see
and that's the toilet Adam put in and this was the path into the house.
Thank you very much, I've enjoyed talking to you
and I'm sure the documentation that you've got
will be of great interest to everyone.
Thank you.
