“My father was an Italian prisoner of war.”

- Mike Mazzoleni, former Llanwern steel worker (Whitson)

▶ Watch interview with Mike Mazzoleni

“My father was an Italian prisoner of war and he was brought over to Llantarnam, a large Italian POW camp, after being captured in Europe somewhere. Every day the prisoners would be allocated to certain farms in this area. And after several appearances on Court Farm here in Whitson, they decided to keep him. So he never returned to Italy. And then that’s when he met my mother at the local dance down at the Farmer’s Arms in Goldcliff, and that’s how I came to be in Whitson today.”

Mike followed in his father’s footsteps by also working at Court Farm, Whitson, as a young man: “I’ve followed in his footsteps. I loved to work. I used to work on Court Farm… we could start baling at 8 o’clock in the evening. Oh my god it was hard work. I didn’t need anything to put me to sleep in those days, I was so tired. I had a job to climb the stairs… looking back on it, we had nothing, but god, I loved it.”

“All of a sudden in the 1950s they decided to build Llanwern [steelworks] and Court Farm was compulsory purchased… the saddest day of my life because they had an auction. I had to go back in the evening to open the gates… and it was silent. No cows, no chickens, and I cried like a baby.

“Strange thing is I started working at Llanwern. My dad made a few calls to some Italian friends in Newport, and I found my way into the steelworks.”