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Oral history recording with Mario Subacchi. 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 1 of 3 (AV 11487-11489)

00.20 Mario was born on 16th May 1923 in Bardi. He lost his parents Carlo Subacchi Teresa Priza [ph] at seven years old. His family had an Ironmonger business in Bardi; they sold stoves, steel pipes, lead, ploughs. He and his brothers were put in a private school, after nine years he left and returned to Bardi. He recalls how his tutor took him back to see his old house for the first time. He was employed in land surveying for the government for a while, yet after 12 months war broke out and work was stopped. He then joined the army and was captured in Tunisia in 1943. He went in a prisoner of war camp until the end of 1944 and then joined the British pioneer corp. In 1947 he discharged himself and went back to Italy.

04.01 Mario describes Bardi, from where many Italians emigrated to Wales. The main industry then was agriculture, but it was very difficult to survive on that after the war. Now, however, Bardi is very different; Italians that moved away have returned and built huge houses there with the money earned abroad. He left Bardi at the age of seven and most of his life was spent in Cremona at school. He remembers his parents and still has a big family photo in his workshop, however his memories of live in Bardi are, he says, ‘like smoke’. Mario’s paternal grandfather travelled to Bardi from Genoa, and was a Stagecoach driver. On his mother’s side, her father managed land for a landowner. He goes on to explain the Mezzadria sharecropping system in Italy. He was privileged to have a foreman job and so didn’t have to emigrate. He then opened a pub in Bardi La Bardigiana when he retired, which is still there.