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Oral history recording with Francesco Laforges. Recorded as part of the Italian Memories in Wales project (2008-10), delivered by ACLI-ENAIP and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Part 3 of 4 (AV 11418--11421)

00:00:20 When the British left Bari to go north they pushed the Germans North, he would see planes heading for Montecassino. An oil ship was also blown up by the Germans. He describes what the shelters were like and remembers his fear as a child. He continues to talk about the bombings, no lights were allowed.

00:06:37 Francesco was thirteen when the war ended and his town didn’t change a lot before he left at nineteen. He recalls going back in Morris Minor in 1959 and there only being a couple of cars in the village. There was still a lot of poverty; yet going back he could afford a lot of things due to the strength of the pound. Leaving his country was necessary due to unemployment yet when people ask if he wants to move back he replies that now his family are here. Francesco never had a job in Italy, apart from odd jobs and daily work carried out in the fields.

00:11:35 When he first thought of leaving Italy Francesco didn’t know that Wales existed. The Welsh Coal Board was looking for men between 18 and 30 to work in the coal mine. At the same time he put his name down for that, he had a medical for the army. He failed that medical but was accepted by the Coal Board; he recalls the testing, preparation and interview stages in Milan.

00:16:48 They were sent to Yorkshire to work in mines but hostilities there meant that Italian workers could no longer work in the mine. They were offered work in mines in Belgium or £25 to leave the job. Francesco eventually found building work for an Italian family in Wales, with the Sidoli ice cream business and then at Iron Ore mine in Llanharry.