Har Mitchell pays a visit

Recently home from England was Harold Mitchell, who has been working and living in Reading since the late 50s.

"I was working in the Ropes in Newbridge at the time and I went over to England on a holiday to Anthony O'Sullivan, and said to myself I'd like to come back here," he recalled to the Diary. "So when I came home, I only stayed a few months before leaving the Ropes and heading back."

But when he arrived at Anthony's place, he found his friend had gone to America, so he went to Slough and found digs and a job. Then, like so many Kilcullenites before him, he got to work with the legendary Matty Aspell in Reading, who virtually built a corner of England with the help of fellow Kilcullen lads.

"He was up in Slough one night and I met him and he told me I should come down to Reading, because I'd know all the lads there. So I did, and that was it."

The Kilcullen he left then and the Kilcullen of now is very much changed, he admits. "There's a lot of people I don't know, but apart from that it's still nice to come out for a beer. I always come back."

He has, of course, a place to come back to in the family home in Nicholastown, where brothers John and Paddy live.

Har and his partner have one son, and they have three grandchildren.

Brian Byrne.