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PADDY
KENNEDY
Born:
Connah's Quay,
Flintshire, 1924
Lived:
Dulverton
Recording made: 1999
Length of recording:
1 hr 34 mins
To read a summary of the contents of the oral history recordings click CD1 or CD2.
Listen to an audio clip by clicking wma or mp3. (Click here for information about downloading audio clips)
Paddy Kennedy was nine when his father, who was a groom, moved to Dulverton with his employer. When he left school he went to work at Pixton as a carpenter, one of 17 or 18 estate workers. The estate had its own sawmills and a smithy at Bury, where the blacksmith made him blow the bellows to hurry things along.
He worked on everything, from farm buildings to cottage maintenance. Inside Pixton house itself, he redecorated and renovated and periodically helped Mrs Herbert change the pictures and furniture around to stop it getting boring. He'd been there six years when the evacuees came, taking over the top floor. He made beds for the children's mattresses and the government fixed canvas shutes to their windows, so they could escape in an emergency.
When he retired, 50 years later, the house had been sold, the estate split up and he was the only worker left.
postscript - Paddy Kennedy died in June 2001