It’s fifty years this year since Nanna Francesca and Nonno Anni took their ‘big trip’ overseas. And what a trip it was – to several countries in Europe and the UK as well as America. It was also the first holiday they treated themselves to after decades working in their fruit shop and milk bar every day from 7am until 10 or 11pm, with only Easter and Christmas days off.
A crowd of us farewelled them at the airport, as you did in those days (me a little kid on my uncle’s shoulders and amazed to see the planes!) This printed photo from when they were boarding is also fifty years old now, taken by Nonno Anni (and actually one of his better ones considering his big hands weren’t quite suited to Nanna Francesca’s little camera with the flash bulb cubes on it!) 😊 Perhaps now and then over this year, I’ll share some more from their 1975 travels, including those when Nonno Anni pressed the camera button too hard! 😊
I can’t imagine how it must’ve been for them both to be returning to Italy for the first time in 1975 after they’d each left in the 1930s. Back when they’d emigrated, neither of them had ever been on a ship before and they travelled to Australia by sea over many weeks. This time, on their return, they hadn’t yet flown in a plane before and the long flights in different planes over the next twenty-four hours must have been quite the experience too. Each time, wondering what they’d find on their arrival. It’s hard to see but I’m pretty sure Nanna Francesca is smiling (though knowing her she was hiding a bit of nervousness too). Until the next instalment… Buon Viaggio! 💛🌠
It was actually Nonno Anni who originally gave me the idea for, The Proxy Bride. When I was talking to him about his life for Joe’s, he mentioned by chance that during WW2 when he and other Italian men were taken from farms around Stanthorpe and sent to internment camps, the women and children suddenly left alone did it very tough. He later heard they were given no assistance and with curfews and restrictions weren’t allowed to drive, many didn’t know how to use the farm equipment or ride a horse and faced poverty and starvation. He mentioned this group of women who banded together to keep their farms going. That really struck me and I felt I’d come back and write about it. When I learnt that some of these women were also proxy brides, it opened up more to the story.
Zoë Boccabella 