Casgliadau Arlein
Amgueddfa Cymru
Chwilio Uwch
Recordiad sain / Audio recording: Paolo Cavarra
Oral history recording with Paolo Cavarra. Part 3 of 3 (AV 11376, AV 11377, AV 11378). Recorded as part of the Italian Memories in Wales project (2008-10), delivered by ACLI-ENAIP and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
00:00:09 Paolo returns to talking about his life in Italy. He went to school in Priolo but had to start work at 11 years of age. After the war, food was hard to come by; German soldiers occupying the area set fire to a shop full of food. He recalls that the soldiers shot at crowds of people as they tried to salvage food from the fire. His brother also worked at the age of seven, in return for food. They looked after goats, grew beans and chickpeas, tomatoes, fennel, peppers and he recalls carrying 100kg weights of food. People were working the land, finding food where they could.
00:04:30 Paolo’s father worked for money. After some time agriculture got better, and there was more food to be found yet they still worked 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. Paolo decided to emigrate on seeing posters in the Town Hall advertising for workers to move to ‘England’, not Great Britain or Wales. He didn’t carry out a lot of preparation; his mother only knew he was leaving the day he left. His father had to sign a form to say that he could work abroad because he was only 20 years old. For that reason he was also paid less than the other workers. He tells a story of how his father put a cross instead of a signature on the form as he was illiterate, when his mother found out she could have killed him. They took the train from Siracusa, when it passed by Priolo he tells how his mother nearly threw herself under the train. He talks of returning home as beautiful, but also painful. He is very emotional and the interview ends.