Interview with Leon Bernardi [sound recording] / Interviewer : Madeleine Regan, Part 1 of 2

Leon outlines his family background and provides details of his mother and father's families who had lived in rural areas on small farms in the province of Treviso in the north-east of Italy. All his father's siblings migrated to Australia between 1926 and 1948. His mother was one of eight Rossetto siblings to migrate to Australia. Leon also talks about his father's role as a contractor for the Government building roads in Karoonda from the late 1920s and his sponsorship of men who worked for him; his father's movements between Italy and Australia (he arrived in 1926 and returned to Italy three times before settling in Australia permanently from 1956 until his death in 1969); his parents' marriage in 1933 and the conditions they lived in at Karoonda with a small baby; Leon's childhood and education and completion of three years of high school which was unusual in his village of Caerano; his decision to migrate to Australia in 1958 when he was 16 years; his first months in Adelaide with his father and their accommodation in the railway carriage owned by the Tonellato family who were market gardeners at Lockleys; support from relatives to settle into life in Adelaide; his experience of life in Adelaide as a young Italian man who felt different from many other Italians he met because of his education which enabled him to learn English quite easily; his first jobs and his social life; the arrival of his mother and brother in 1959 and the purchase of the new family home at Gilberton; working for his aunt, Carmela Rossetto, in her grocery shop in Hindley Street from 1959 to 1961; experience of working as a waiter in an early city coffee lounge co-owned by his cousin, Johnny in the late 1950s; his employment at David Jones from 1961, participation in the Junior Executive Training Scheme and trainee in a program in Sydney for a year when he was 23 years old; his return to Adelaide in 1965 and five years as a buyer at David Jones; how he met Jo Walker, his wife, and their marriage in 1965; various businesses he owned after leaving David Jones in 1971; 30 year business partnership with his cousin Guido Rebuli; and reflections on his 80 years.

No restrictions on copying or publication except acknowledging State Library of South Australia OH 872/65 if published.