An Italian Adventurer

"I've known you since you were three years old. I watched you work on the farm through your childhood. I know you'll work hard and succeed if it's at all possible. Now that you are married and starting on your own, I'll lend you the money without your father being guarantor."

Gay Fialla was greatly relieved at her bank managers words. She had been petrified approaching him for the loan of 300 pounds*. (*I don't know if it's possible to find the symbol for pounds on a computer-- for anyone too young to know, a pound was money before the introduction of decimal currency in 1966. A pound was the equivalent of $2 at the changeover. I would guess allowing for inflation 300 pounds would be worth $50,000 plus today. When talking of pounds I usually use the slang word 'quid' to avoid confusion with the imperial weight scale but this doesn't seem appropriate relating Gay's story. She didn't use the word quid.) This was the early 1960's when bank managers often stayed at a branch, and money was hard to borrow.

The bank was in Emerald where Gay grew up, living on a farm about opposite to where the secondary college now stands. Gay and husband Bart made no profit on their first crop, the spud price was poor that year. Gay fronted up to the bank manager again the next year. Again he lent the necessary 300 pounds. The second year was also a bad year, the price again poor. They couldn't pay the bank debt. Gay and Bart were ready to walk away with nothing, Then Bart said one night, "Let's give it one more go. Go and see the bank manager and see if he'll lend us more money." Bart knew nothing but growing spuds.

To Gay's amazement, the bank manager lent them more money. Maybe he saw it as the best way of getting a return on the bank's money in the end. The spud crops were on land owned by Gay's father at Gembrook. The third year was the bonanza crop and price of '65/66, (previously recorded in this blog when Julian Dyer married and made enough money to pay for his first house). Gay and Bart paid their debt to the bank and purchased their own farm in Gembrook.

I enjoyed coffee and cake in Gay's kitchen as she told me this story. One of her daughters, a nurse, is doing a cake decorating course as a hobby and the cake was one of her projects. It was superb cake. I asked Gay when her family first came to Australia as I find the Italian influence on the district a fascinating story.

Gay's maiden name was Deluniversity (pardon please if spelling is incorrect). Her father worked initially for the Falcone's in Emerald, and met and married Gay's mother, a Galenti, who came to Australia with her parents as a thirteen year old girl. Her father, Gay's grandfather Galenti, must have been a bit of an adventurer, and first came to Australia almost a hundred years ago. He made 4 trips to America and three to Australia, each time returning to his wife in their village in Italy.

After returning home the last time, having lost a 27 year old daughter to illness while he was away, he said to his wife he was going back to Australia to live permanently. He was tiring of the travel and two of his sons had migrated to Australia, living I think on a farm at Corinella. His wife didn't want to leave Italy so they more or less agreed on a permanent separation. After this decision was made, Gay's grandmother overheard neighbours discussing it and one of them said something to this effect, "Oh well, it won't be long after he's gone, she won't bother to cook and she'll lose her other daughter." This galvanized Gay's grandmother to pack up and leave her village and accompany her husband to Australia. I wondered, on hearing this, if the lost daughter suffered anorexia, which would not have been undersood then.

The Galenti history is recorded in the Pakenham library, if I'd like to find it, Gay told me. Her grandfather worked at the spud farms around Corinella, then hitched rides on trains to Queensland with his swag on his back to work on the canefields. The Italian workers, she said, got on well in Australia because they didn't take offence at the dago and wog jokes and took it all in good fun, and worked hard.

I will follow it up in the library one day. I only wish Gay's grandfather wrote a book about his travels through America and Australia. He must have been an amazing fellow.