My great grandfather’s match in wartime Paris · England v Wales •He played for Swansea and...

My great grandfather’s match in wartime Paris

By Matthew Tilley

This is my great grandfather, Idwal

Davies

• He was a rugby union international for Wales and also played rugby league as a professional for Leeds.

• He was a teacher andjournalist, and was bornin 1915. He died in 1990.

England v Wales

• He played for Swansea and made his debut for Wales at Twickenham in 1939. The next day he signed as a professional rugby league player for Leeds and could never play rugby union again.

His cap

• He was proud of his cap. But he was banned from going into rugby union grounds because he had left to join league. But he was allowed in to work as a rugby reporter for The Sun, although people refused to talk to him.

RAF v French Armed Services• The only game of rugby

union he played again was a special match for the RAF in Paris onNovember 11 1944. Paris had just been liberated from the Germans. The team were flown in secretly and treated like heroes by the French.

Seeing Churchill

• The team were there when Churchill walked the streets with Charles de Gaulle. When I wasresearching this game Ifound a website describing the event that my family had never seen. They were very emotional.