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User:Xemenendura [CC BY-SA 2.1 Es (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/es/deed.en)]
User:Xemenendura [CC BY-SA 2.1 Es (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/es/deed.en)]
Stramma plant used in basket making
Map Of Italy
Map of Italy
User:Xemenendura [CC BY-SA 2.1 Es (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/es/deed.en)]Map Of Italy

The Story of three of the Ricciardo sisters – life in Italy

Dora Ricciardo was born on the 22 August 1929, in a village called Avezzano about one and a half miles from Sessa Aurunca. The village is under a mountain, called Massico, and near the sea, about 40 miles from Naples. Her father, Guiseppe, worked over a wide area visiting other villages and assessing the value of their olive and grape crops. He also owned fields that grew olives and grapes and with the people he employed to farm these crops he followed the system known as Mezzadria (half and half) where the profits from the crops were shared between the land owner and those planting and harvesting the crops. Dora’s father only took one third of the profits.  Guiseppe’s business also used the harvested grasses or stramma that grew in abundance on the mountain side. The smaller bushes and narrow stalks were used for basket and rope making and the larger bushes, with wide stalks, were used for mattress filling. The stramma for basket making was beaten with a tool like a large rolling pin, a mazzuco, to soften it and this stramma was also pulled into twine and plaited for rope making. As all the members of the family worked with this, it proved to have developed skills useful to the textile industry in the UK.

Dora was one of 9 children, but had little memory of the Second World War, other than a memory of the celebrations when the Italian armistice was agreed in 1943. In those days no–one bought ready-made clothes. Everyone bought material and all clothes were hand-made. After the War, Italy’s economy was in a very parlous state and Guisppe lost his business leaving the family with very little income. Dora’s brother, who was attending University in a nearby town called Caserta had heard from a man from thier village, Pietro Tuozzi that some English textile companies were seeking ‘girls’ to work in their mills and he had told him that for the girls selected, the fares and costs would all be paid for by the recruiting firms. Being able to weave grasses and to make ropes, Dora and her sister Velia had experience in pulling and twisting twine with electric machinery.

They went to the labour exchange in Caserta and were allowed to travel to Naples to be interviewed by two people from England. Two hundred women from around the area attended these interviews that were conducted over two days. They all stayed in a camp just outside Naples – it was like a holiday camp in some ways. They had to undergo X-ray examinations, blood tests, eye tests and other medical examinations and answer many questions about their families.  Around seven different doctors examined the girls and they found the experience a bit degrading.

When this process was completed, they returned home and waited for a telegram to inform them whether they had been accepted. In this case, the sisters were included in a group of just 16 chosen girls. The telegram arrived on a Wednesday and they had to leave home on the following Sunday. They were 27 and 25 years of age. They travelled to Milan by train and had to be medically examined again to check they weren’t pregnant.  From Milan they caught a train that took them to Calais, France, then by ferry to Dover. They arrived at a hostel on Otley Road, Shipley, at 10pm on a Wednesday night, March 1957. Although the two sisters arrived then, another sister Margherita had also wanted to come to work in England but was too young being at 19 years of age. Once the two sisters received a contract from the mill however, it was possible for Margherita to come also as Dora and Velia could take responsibility for her.

Dora’s story continues in a separate post (available from 29 April 2019)

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