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Oral history recording in English with Maria Marenghi. 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 4 (AV 11432 - AV 11435).

Summary covering AV 11432, AV 11433, AV 11434 and AV 11435: Maria is an articulate second generation Italian, who feels deeply connected to Italy and to her Italian identity. Like her brother Antonio, she has enjoyed going back to Felignano, in Campobasso and to Piacenza in North Italy, where the family has relatives. The story of her family is quite remarkable. Maria’s grandparents left Felignano at the beginning of the last century and walked all the way to Russia, with their child Luigina (Maria’s mother), who was just 6 years of age. When Luigina was 15 the Russian revolution erupted, with devastating consequences. Her family, along with the families of many other emigrants, had to endure terrible hunger and continuous persecution. They managed to escape the killings and the many executions by walking over the frozen northern sea to Helsinki, in Finland. Maria and Antonio recall what their mother had told them about that particular journey. She remembered being chased by hungry bears as they were making their escape away from Russia. In Helsinki, Luigina’s mother died during her pregnancy, she was only 37.

Soon after, the Finnish government pushed many emigrants to go back to their own countries. Luigina went back to Italy, but only for a short while. Her cousin, who lived in Scotland, invited her to go to live there and so she emigrated again one last time. By then, Luigina, who had never received any formal education in her life, could speak five languages fluently! In London she met the musician Giuseppe Fiorentini, who in 1922 became her husband. Giuseppe had formed a band and had a great success playing at many high class venues in the UK. He was truly a virtuoso of the Piano Accordion and in the 30s, he launched the Argentinean Tango, which because the new craze in the city of London. Giuseppe formed the ‘Fiorenti Gauchos’ band and often his two children, Mario and Antonio, would play with him.

Maria and Antonio talk with great love and affection of their parents. They go on reminiscing of the terrible times in London during the war, the closeness of the Italian community when they were growing up as teenagers, the post-war socialising and the well-respected codes of ‘good’ behaviour, which, Maria comments, seemed to be so uniquely distinctive of many Italian families of the time. Young Italian boys and girls were encouraged to marry within their national and cultural sphere, and indeed, both Maria and Antonio married into other Italian families. Antonio and Maria draws a comparison of their lives between London and Wales. They both came to find the Welsh people more welcoming and generally warmer. On the other hand, the reverse seemed to be true for the Italian community of 30/40 years ago. In London, Italian families were very supportive of one another. In Wales, Antonio stresses out, ‘Italians were very monetary’, it was more like ‘ how much?’ rather than ‘how are you’? Maria found that there was much jealousy amongst various families all very much centred on the success of their own businesses (this was particularly true for the ice cream business). Even the local church life wasn’t exempt from this frosty atmosphere.

Today Antonio and Maria are both living comfortable lives in Wales. They occasionally go back to London, on a ‘memory lane’ journey. Much more often they go back to Italy. More recently however, travelling has become difficult for Maria on the account of her husband’s ill health. Yet, like many Welsh Italians of their generation, they are in the happy position of ‘cherry picking’ the best of both lifestyles and cultures and although, as Antonio cheerfully explains, they ‘feel’ English in Italy and Italian in Britain, they are, all the same, perfectly adjusted to both worlds.