Interview with Mel Recchi [sound recording] / interviewer, Madeleine Regan, Part 1 of 5

Mel and his twin sister, Adelaide, were born in 1938 after their parents married by proxy in 1937. He begins the interview by speaking about his family background: his parents came from different regions in Italy and his father wroked for a landholder in the Paradise area and by 1937 had built his own house there. Mel covers the following themes: family and relatives; their working life and family occasions; his father's generosity to others; his parents' decision in 1946 to move to Lockleys where they leased nin acres and grew vegetables in glasshouses and also outside. Mel describes the locality of Flinders Park and Lockleys in the late 1940s; opportunities for market gardeners on the western side of the city; accommodation in the area; growing tomates and beans in six glasshouses and also celery and potatoes; his parents' purchase of nine acres in 1953 for 670 pound and acre. Other areas include: Mel's schooling; jobs in the market garden; his mother's role in the garden; assisting his parents with the finances of the business; his first job selling building materials at 16 years old; social life as a young man and his membership of a 'gang' who went to dances together; having suits custom-made; his sister's wedding with over 700 guests; being called up for National Service in 1957 then working for five years with his father in the market garden; leasing an additional ten acres of land with his father for about six years on Valette Road next door to the West family. Mel's second interview covers the family move from Paradise to Flinders Park in 1946; the establishment of the family market garden on the then River Road (now Findon Road); the landscape at that time which included market gardens and a small number of houses; means of watering; the new family home built about 1953 on Findon Road. In the second part of the interview Mel describes every market garden identified on an aerial map of the area dated 1949 and provided by the City of Charles Sturt. He refers to the map and begins his descriptions at the River Torrens following the eastern side of Findon Road to Grange Road recalling the families, use of land and size of market gardens. Mel describes the western side of Findon Road and the market gardens, people, land, houses, and boyhood; features on the northern side of Grange Road; motorcycle track. He talks about the southern side of Grange Road between Findon and Frogmore Road; then about Frogmore Road and Valetta Road; the Chinese men who had market gardens on Findon and Valetta Roads. Mel also talks of the use of draught horses and the milking cow, and the strong sense of the close neighbourhood as he was growing up.

No restrictions on copying or publication except acknowledging State Library of South Australia OH 872/31 if published.