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Oral history recording in English with Antonio Marchesi. 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 2 of 6 (AV 11426-11431)

00:00:01 When the interviewer asks Antonio to describe his experiences he talks about the Balilla, and about how proud he felt going on marches and holding a wooden gun. Even more when he became an avanguardista he felt as if he was almost a man and having to carry out training made him gave him sense of strength and importance. When he left the country for Russia, he understood how difficult the military life was and how difficult the relations were between the fascist army and the King’s army. As a child, however, he saw Mussolini as a sort of Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. He was a superman for Antonio and he gave give the possibility to go to school and escape from being illiterate which happened a lot to the youth of that time.

00:08:33 The interviewer then asks Antonio to talk about the first time he met his wife. He saw her for the first time crossing the road and immediately wanted to meet her. However, in those days he first had to write a letter of introduction to her family in order to meet her. He did so with the help of his sister in law. After eight months they were married and in order to support his new family Antonio decided to go and work in the mines.

00:14:07 He remembers it as a difficult and straining job, which he endured for around three years. He subsequently returned to Sassari to be with his wife and after trying various jobs, he started to work as an electrician. However, even then things didn’t go to plan and so he applied to emigrate to Switzerland and Great Britain for work, and would take whichever offer arrived first, which in the end was the British application in 1951. That’s when his adventure started. For the first nine months he lived in Maltby in Yorkshire where the climate was completely different from the Sardinian climate; cold and snowy. He started English classes there and then moved to Scotland where he started his first job in Britain. Unfortunately he didn’t get on well with the Scottish people or the climate and eventually his boss recommended a transfer to South Wales where he could work in the mines and carry out a mechanics course. He then started to work for the tinplate factory in Swansea.