22nd Sep 2023 12:48PMWaverley Council Oral History of Waverley Beach Inspectors Early 1900’s.
Interview with Pellicciari Family – Guido’s Famous Gelato
Interviewee 1: Gianni Pellicciari (GP)
Interviewee 2: Anne Pellicciari (AP)
Interviewee 3: Nadia Pellicciari (NP)
Interviewee 4: Mario Pellicciari (MP)
Interviewer 1: Lawrie Williams (LW)
Interviewer 2: Kimberly O’Sullivan Steward (KOS)
KOS: So this is an interview with Gianni and it is 14 January 2008, and we are at his
apartment in [Spencer] Street at Rose Bay. And also involved in the interview is
members of his family, and Lawrie Williams. My name is Kimberly O’Sullivan Steward.
So, would you like to just introduce yourself?
GP: My name is Gianni Pellicciari.
KOS: Oh, that’s good. Anne.
AP: Yes, I’m Anne Pellicciari, ah, ex-wife of Gianni, and um, yes, what else can I say?
KOS: Nadia?
NP: Nadia [Piave] neé Pellicciari, daughter.
KOS: And Mario?
MP: I’m Mario Pellicciari, Anne and John’s son.
KOS: Very good. We’re going to jump right into it now and one of the main reasons
we’re talking to you is about the Gelato bar. So, it’s Guido’s Gelato Bar. Is that its, its
correct title?
MP: That is its correct title [ ].
GP: Yes, correct, correct title, but we used to have factory in Alexandria too.
NP: Was it not, sorry I need to say, because was there ever actually Guido’s Gelato Bar?
Wasn’t it actually just Guido’s Famous Gelato?
AP: Just Guido’s Famous Gelato. There was no Gelato Bar.
GP: Yes. Guido’s.
NP: Guido’s Famous Gelato.
KOS: There wasn’t? Okay, yeh. I just wanted to get the correct title of it.
AP: Guido’s Famous Gelato.
KOS: Guido’s Famous Gelato. Which of course begs the question – who was Guido?
GP: Guido was my late brother.
NP: Maybe tell Kimberly that he came out here…
GP: Well, he came here, my brother, in Australia in 1950-51, I can’t remember exactly.
50-51.
KOS: Did he come by himself?
GP: Yes, he come by himself. Then he come in Melbourne, and he start to work in
Melbourne, in Lygon Street, Melbourne. Then he work in what was it, Grace Brothers
originally, Grace Brothers in Melbourne, making gelato. Think was Grace Brothers, he
was, in Melbourne. Then from Melbourne he came to Sydney, and then he used to work
in Sydney, in King Street, Sydney for somebody else. Then from somebody else he start
himself. In North Sydney, Harbour Bridge. And from Harbour Bridge he came to Bondi
Beach. And then that was our – exposure - exposure.
MP: How did he get to Bondi beach? How did he find Bondi beach?
GP: Well, he found Bondi Beach due to, through [pictures].
AP: What happened, I do remember very distinctly. He went into the Bondi Pavilion.
And a fellow by the name of [Dick Parter]…
GP: [Dick Parter].
AP: … had the lease. Guido walked in, introduced himself and said to him, “Look, I can
make Italian gelato. Can you give me a little section here, I don’t need too much space”,
so [Dick Parter] said ‘yes’.
KOS: So, I’m presuming they didn’t build retail space. Was the retail space already
there?
AP: Yes, it was already there, that’s the photo that I have. And they used to sell out the
window.
KOS: Anne’s just showing me a black and white photo which I’ll copy to the collection,
and it’s showing 3 men, at a bar being fairly formally attired in a bow tie for down at the
beach and it’s an open window from the Pavilion, out to the promenade?
AP: To the veranda of the Pavilion.
KOS: And, so you could sell gelato straight out there, as well as coming inside?
AP: No, only straight out.
KOS: They only went straight out the window.
LW: You know when they built the Pavilion in 1928, the plans do show that end was
always dedicated to food vending. Sargent’s pies had the head lease there for many years.
So from the moment it was built, that end where John, Anne and Guido ended up was
always dedicated as a refreshment room. Then later, whatever -- whatever.
KOS: Who’s in there now?
LW: There is a number down there now, there’s Nick Restaurant in there. Part of what
these guys had is also Surfish.
KOS: Right.
LW: So their specific area is now Surfish-
KOS: Surfish… yes.
LW: - fish and chips, and then Nick’s Restaurant.
(Noise of young child in background)
KOS: I’m just getting, trying to get a sense of how big that space was. But that’s really
interesting, and something to note, to need to follow up there. Actually the food licensees
over time there, that’s quite, quite interesting…
LW: The sign writing over the arch actually is right where their café…
KOS: Was that…?
LW: …[whatever it was, taverna] over the years… that’s where the start [was, right
there.]
KOS: Ok. So that was the beginning of it, and then it goes back towards Nick’s.
LW: It goes north…
KOS: Yes, north.
LW: …toward the very end of the Pavilion.
KOS: That’s great. You said that Guido was making Gelato in Grace Brothers in
Melbourne, and then he came to Sydney and he showed – he was making gelato in King
Street, and then in Harbord. So, all this time he was in Australia he was a gelato maker.
NP: Yes.
KOS: So I’m presuming, or is that a wrong presumption, that when he came to Australia
he was already skilled as a gelato maker.
GP: Yes, he used to work in Rome, in Rome, I can’t remember the company, and there he
start from young fellow, young boy, to make gelato []. Then happened came in Australia,
and in Australia he develop quite big way.
KOS: Did he ever talk to you about making gelato in a different kind of way, here? Did
he use any local ingredients, or he did kind of make them [an] Australian type of gelato.
Or was it still a traditional Italian gelato as you would eat in Rome?
GP: Yes, perfectly yes, yes it was a traditional kind of, some ingredients he used to
import it from, example stabilizer, is a powder.
KOS: Yes.
GP: To keep the product together.
KOS: Yes.
GP: He used to import it from Italy.
KOS: So he had to import that, he couldn’t source that locally.
GP: Well, at that time, at that time. Maybe was existing here, but we didn’t have much
experience about this country.
KOS: About sourcing those products.
GP: Yes.
KOS: When he, so it was really when Anne was saying that when Guido came to Bondi,
that’s when it took off, that’s when the business really took off.
AP: Yes.
KOS: Did he ever say to you why that was? Was it just that he was in the right place or
was it the right time?
AP: I think what happened…
KOS: Or, was he kind of coming into his own, in terms of ‘what do Australians want to
buy’, you know, ‘what’s available, what can I make’, sometimes it takes you a while to
work into the local market.
AP: No – yes, no, he saw the potential of Bondi Beach. I can remember we came for a
drive once, I think Nadia was a baby, you, Guido, and myself, and Nadia as a baby, and
he decided there and then that is where he wanted to be, and as I said before, he walked
in and introduced himself and said ‘I have this, this and this’, and he got the space for it.
NP: Also, Gelato in Italy is sold traditionally always at a beach side venue, you know,
that’s what it is, so, that’s what he knew and came here. It’s not like here, for example
now you’ll have an ice cream shop in a village or something like that. In Italy, you have,
to have an ice-cream business you have it somewhere, or a successful one…
GP: []
AP: You have it near the beach.
NP: …you have it near the beach.
GP: [Summer for] that too.
NP: And yeh. So…
KOS: That makes sense too, often because you’re often looking to reproduce what you
know and…
NP: Yes…
KOS: …an environment that you know. So, do we have a date, a close date when
Guido’s opened?
AP: At Bondi?
GP: Oh my god…
KOS: Yes.
AP: December 1961.
KOS: December 1961, and when did Guido’s close?
AP: Um…
MP: Ah, when did the Pellicciari’s leave Bondi Pavilion?
KOS: Yes, because…
LW: 2000.
MP: 2001.
AP: 2002.
LW: Oh, you came back, didn’t you?
AP: 2002.
MP: Yes. After the Olympics.
LW: You did.
AP: Yes. 2002.
KOS: 41 years.
AP: 30th, no, 23rd June, 2002 was the day we closed our doors.
KOS: When Guido’s opened, what was Guido selling? Was it just gelato?
AP: Just gelato.
KOS: Only gelato.
AP: As a matter of fact, the first year…
GP: []
AP: The first year they hardly sold anything…and…
NP: …and Mr – what was that other soft serve? That was down []
AP: Dairy Queen?
MP: Mr Whippy?
AP: It was one of those…
NP: Dairy Queen.
GP: Dairy Queen. []
AP: …and they were doing a roaring trade. They used to be in where the beach inspectors
when we were there []. Then Guido decided, “ah ah, I have to get those customers”, so he
also, anyone that we knew, even myself included, we would walk along eating this
coloured ice cream and people would ask “where did you get that from?” You know.
That was our advertising at the time.
GP: Yes.
KOS: Really? You’d walk along…
AP: Along the promenade, or anywhere where there were people. [].
KOS: So the Dairy Queen was just the white kind of, Mr Whippy kind of, and you had
the bright coloured… and people actually would ask…
AP: … and people actually asked. And we’d say ‘oh, just up there at the window.’
KOS: Do you know how many varieties of gelato he had at the beginning?
GP: My god, plenty.
KOS: So there were []
GP: Every existing fruit, we used to make gelato. Every fruit exist, we used to squeeze it,
it was [ready, we make] gelato.
KOS: Did you use any particular popular Australian fruit, I’m thinking about pineapple?
GP: Yes, mango.
AP: Oh yes, yes.
GP: Mango. Pineapple…
KOS: Mango that might not have been a common one in Rome. Yeh?
GP: Papaya, New Zealand papaya. Yes, we make all that sort of…
MP: At the time also, you had to be a little kind of, um, early 60’s. Things like spaghetti
were a novelty, coffee was a novelty, so if you came out with a flavor that was sort of
unheard of, people backed away from it, they were scared of it. Now, we’re still talking
about a generation that just thought, you know, you ate meat pies, and that was it. So, you
know, simple flavours, that today are probably seen as ‘tired’, orange, lemon, ah, you
know, mandarin was exotic, today you’d think oh, mandarin, I don’t want that, it’s
boring. But at the time, so you had to sort of, stay within that, that realm, so yes
pineapple orange, lemon, mandarin, a few other flavours, a few other fruits, banana of
course, um, but…
NP: Strawberry.
MP: Yes Strawberries, but to go to even something like raspberries, was like ‘oh jeez,
raspberries’ [].
LW: The cultural cringe still existed []…
AP: Mmm.
NP: Yes []
MP: Mmm.
KOS: And also too, people didn’t eat raspberries. I mean, now they have fresh
raspberries.
AP: []
KOS: But, I remember when berries suddenly appeared. You know, there weren’t fresh
blueberries, or else there was blueberry flavoured, or raspberry flavoured…
MP: That’s right.
KOS: …but they weren’t actually the raspberries.
NP: It was also that it was the nature of the product. It was gelato, especially and the
lemon gelato, we were very famous for the lemon gelato, because of what it was; it was
icy, it was, ah, as opposed to ice cream which is what you would buy anywhere else. So
this was a water based product, it was refreshing and people found even that a novelty,
the fact that it was a different kind of product.
AP: But, then there were people, that were, it was so new, that they’d try it and they’d say
‘oh, but it’s watery, it’s not creamy. It’s not ice cream.”
MP: “It doesn’t taste like ice-cream”, “It’s not right”.
GP: Yes, not fattening.
AP: …saying, you know, ‘No, it’s not ice cream. It’s gelato’.
NP: So there was a certain amount of education.
AP: Yes.
KOS: Absolutely. And how did you sell them on Gelato, when they said “Oh, it’s not
creamy”. What did you say, how did you say…?”
GP: It’s water based, and ah, it’s not fattening. Especially girls…
KOS: That’s a good thing to say at a beach…
LW: []
KOS: …when everyone’s kind of going, doing their confronting, their swim suit season
thing. So you’d say, it’s not fattening…
GP: So it wasn’t [fattening]…
NP: Yes.
GP: Yes, ‘look at them’.
KOS: …it’s refreshing.
LW: [] not genetics.
NP: Yes. I mean it was a big pull for people, to be able to go down there and get the low
fat gelato. There were a lot of people that used to come down and specifically,
specifically for that reason, that it was seen at a low fat product.
KOS: Summer’s obviously a big booming time for ice cream or gelato. But was Guido’s
open all year round?
GP: All year round.
KOS: Not just in the swimming season?
GP: No. We used to, we open 24 –
NP: Seven.
AP: Seven…
GP: 7 days a week, what… [12 days]
LW: []
AP: 12 months
NP: Twelve months sometimes.
GP: Sorry 12 months.
KOS: And what did you do in the winter? Did you sell anything else, like anything warm
like coffee or hot chocolate?
AP: Not when we first started.
KOS: No, just the, just the gelato.
GP: After, yes, we served some coffee too.
KOS: And when did you start, how long did you remember just being purely gelato, and
when did you start doing some other things?
AP: When the lease came up, after John Flemington.
GP: After John Flemington, right.
MP: ’69 wasn’t it?
AP: Um…
GP: Can’t remember.
AP: No, 70-…
NP: About 73…?
AP: ’75 I think…
MP: Oh yeh. Exactly, yes. It might have been that late?
NP: Yeh.
AP: Wait a minute I have to think, yes, because you opened the factory in ’69, and poor
Guido passed away in ’69, then I went down and looked after the Pavilion, at the gelato
down at the Pavilion whilst you had the factory. Then the lease came up,’74 I think, I’m
not sure – it’s in one of these papers here – and we applied for the lease and we got it.
LW: How long was it for, do you know, the lease? Initially.
AP: Oh yes, initially it was 20 years, wasn’t it.
LW: That’s right, I remember that.
GP: Twenty, twenty-one, something, 20 years.
KOS: That’s a big lease.
GP: Yes at the time, yes.
KOS: They obviously… so that was in the 70’s?
AP: Yes.
MP: Yes.
KOS: Mid 70’s. So they know you by then, they knew you… They knew you.
AP: Oh yes, we had a good reputation, you know, for example -
KOS: If you turned up all during winter, and you kept on opening when it was freezing,
and you sold 2 gelatos…
AP: Well, the thing was also, we encouraged the tour buses. Out of this window, you
know, we convinced, like maybe one bus turned up. And for some reason the driver
stopped. Now, down there at the Pavilion there was nothing at the time.
MP: In the winter.
AP: Even Flemington’s, they never opened their section. I would be down there on my
own, you know, just with this one window. And this bus turned up, tourist bus, and the
driver got out and they came in, or to the window and then I offered him a gelato, and he
tried it and he got all his passengers to buy one, and then the word went around, from
[this] one driver, he passed the word along to all the tour buses.
MP: At that time you could drive through…
LW: QED
MP: [the hospital]… Yes, Queen Elizabeth Drive, it wasn’t – it didn’t have boom gates,
wasn’t a parking set up that there is now.
LW: And the buses used to line…
AP: Line up, you remember that…
LW: Down the left hand side and the right hand side…
GP: Yes…
MP: It started out, it kind of grew… it grew too big for itself. It started out maybe one or
two buses a day would come down. Then it turned into 5-10 buses a day, and then it
turned into 50 buses in a morning…
AP: Yes.
MP: … would turn up… []
LW: You couldn’t see the beach from the Pavilion for buses, and their motors were
always running to keep the air con going, there was this constant hum.
MP: Mmm. And then it just… ah, yeh, then the council decided no more buses along the
beach front, that’s why they all go up around the back now. I think they still go round the
back of it?
LW: They do.
KOS: So, when you got the new lease, that’s when Guido’s started to sell some more
products?
AP: Yes. Oh, yes.
KOS: And what, what did you first expand into?
AP: Um, more or less just…
NP: Pizza… pizza and coffee…
AP: Pizza. Pizza, coffee.
NP: Pizza slabs.
AP: Yes, the big trays…
GP: A metre - we used to call Pizza [almetto] – by metre, about a tray that long, and that
wide and we used to cut slices…
KOS: So, people could buy an individual slice?
GP: Yes, [small] slice like that. I can’t remember…
AP: Square.
GP: How much we charge, I can’t remember. We couldn’t make enough.
KOS: Really?
GP: Yes, we used to work day and night to make the bloody pizza.
KOS: So you used to make the pizza on…On site?
NP: On the premises.
KOS: On the premises. So you had, you had …
AP: A proper oven - a proper pizza oven.
KOS: A proper pizza oven, so you were able to cook properly.
LW: The beach inspectors had a funny nickname for it, and this was Brad Mays…
MP: I know Brad.
LW: …he used to call it ‘death slice’. (Laughter) Everyone ate it, we all enjoyed it.
KOS: Why was it called the ‘death slice’?
MP: I don’t know, they was so big, they were heavy.
NP: There was a lot of stuff and if you had to go and save somebody, I could imagine,
you’d get a cramp.
MP: Oh yeh. Honestly. Yeh.
NP: You’d have a cramp.
LW: Be the death of you. Yeh
MP: It’d be the death of you, yeh. Because they were big, they were thick, they were like
(indicated shape), like that…
NP: They were like that (indicated shape). They were a meal.
MP: They were half a size of a pizza today, and it was just a slice. That was the size of it.
KOS: And it was just one…
GP: It was about this size, approximately.
KOS: And was there just one flavor?
AP: Oh, no, no…
KOS: Oh, you made all different kinds…
NP: Yes.
GP: Sometime in a big tray, we used to do even half, for example half for one flavor and
half the other flavor.
MP: And in the height of summer, when you could say that the pizza was going at its
strongest…
GP: []
NP: []
MP: …we’d be in there at 7 o’clock in the morning, the pizza oven was turned on at 7
o’clock in the morning. The first trays were out by 7.30, this is in the morning and you
just would not stop, making tray after tray after tray until 9 o’clock -10 o’clock at night.
So you’d be making over 100 and something trays, just one after the other as quick as
you could.
NP: Do we know that was one day there was a record…
MP: Oh, yeh.
NP: .. of how many trays…
MP: [] What did we []… 140 something a day
NP: That’s right, that’s right. Yes, we had to []
(voices talking over each other)
KOS: A tray being a metre long?
AP: Wasn’t that a festival?
GP: Yes, a meter long tray, that long and that wide.
NP: 18 slices or 24 slices or something and I remember, I think that was the day people
were booking their pizzas before they were even made.
AP: Wasn’t that a Brazilian festival?
NP: Yes. I think it was.
LW: A South American festival – still going.
AP: Is it?
KOS: Tell me about the life guards and how much they loved Guido’s – that’s one of the
reasons we’re doing the interview, because it fits in with a big oral history program that
Lawrie and I are doing, interviewing retired life guards about their times on the beach. So
it was the death slice []
LW: When we came along, there was already, George Quigly was the boss when I started
in 1978, George had been there since 76. He was then boss at Bondi so they’d already
established a good relationship with the Pellicciari’s. So we know, we were living right
next door, that’s where the police room was, the old first aid room, and the beach
inspector one-in-all rooms, locker room-office, so we were constantly in there, especially
on wet days, you know, with buckets of chips with pepper on top, whatever you were
into, the death slice, whatever. Gelato, they used to make for us, I remember we would
get it soft serve, so before it even, you know when you used to get it, was really an
emulsion…[]
NP: You just made it, it was just out of the machine so it was still lovely and soft, it was
beautiful.
LW: Yes, so we were really treated well, so John would always, John and Anne would
always provide, you know slabs of soft drink that we’d keep in the office. And part of our
unofficial role with them was they had at that time, they had the head lease, if you like,
on not just of the Pavilion but all the vending on the beach. So all the guys went around
with the trays…
MP: []
LW:…Yes, that’s right, slung over their neck, which you used to keep in the southern
tunnel which is now the lifeguard tunnel?
Female voice: Yes, yes…
LW: John had all of his stuff where there is a workshop now, that was all the mobile
stuff, but our job would be, if someone turned up down there with a rogue ice cream
truck or whatever, we would go up, we’d approach them and we’d say I’m sorry, you’ve
got to move on because the Pellicciari’s have got the gig down here, they’ve got the…
But we had a really good relationship, these guys would put on a Christmas party for us
every year, we used to go [on] the old Taverna, very early days, and we have some great
memories, so all the lifeguard team, you know there’d only be 6-8 of us, but we had a
really good working relationship for many, many years. In fact, right until they shut their
doors which, ironically in 2002 was when Lawrie Williams shut his doors as the beach
inspector. That was when I resigned that year. No relationship.
KOS: No relationship. What do you remember about the life guard Christmas party?
AP: Me?
KOS: Mmm.
AP: Oh! Well…
KOS: And where was the taverna?
AP: Actually, well, um they’d come, we’d all sort of get together and wish one another
Happy Christmas and everything. But then whoever was on duty on Christmas day, I
would do Christmas lunch for us, the family but any of the beach inspectors that
happened to be on duty, and nine times out of ten it rained on Christmas day, and so
they’d come in and join us for Christmas lunch.
KOS: So you would do a family Christmas lunch…
AP: Down there, yes…
KOS: …in Guido’s on the beach…
AP: Yes. And then it would depend on the weather as to what time we would decide to
open the doors… you know…
KOS: Right.
AP: I can remember one day it rained and rained in the morning and we thought, no,
there is not a living soul around, ok change the time for opening till say 2oclock, and it
was still raining, and these two people, husband and wife, at the time, Campbell Parade,
there was nothing open up there, and this husband and wife had come to see if they could
… the sign, but then they came back and the sign had changed and I felt so sorry for them
I opened the door and I said ‘”would you like to come and join us?” (Laughter) And we
had a lovely Christmas that time! []
LW: The taverna was great, wasn’t it. It was very rarely used…
AP: Yes, cosy.
LW: …but it was cosy.
AP: Yeh.
LW: It was really nice…
KOS: Tell me about the Taverna.
AP: Well, that was where…
LW: Nicks is there now…
AP: Right.
LW: …it occupies most of that space, and where you made the pizzas, Nicks from
memory is there now, where the pizzas were made, and then the tavern lead off that.
AP: Yes, yes.
MP: When you go back to the early part of the history…
AP: So, it used be to the men’s shower…
MP: …it was the old shower block.
KOS: Right.
AP: Yes.
LW: So the tunnel below…
MP: Below, yeh…
LW: …came straight out of the men’s change rooms under QED and came out where
McDonalds, in the olden days…
AP: Yes.
MP: Yes That’s right. [] Then ah, there was a short period there where I think the
[Leichhardt’s] had their room around that corner.
LW: You’re spot on, it was.
AP: [That’s right.]
MP: So anyway, that room that was the shower block became, it became a store room for
a long time, just a big store room and then when Anne and Dad got the um – got the
lease, then they decided to put in a proper restaurant. Converted it from a shower block to
a store room, then into a restaurant.
LW: Must be sometime we had our, not all of them but one or two occasion, we always
had an end-of-season party, the beach inspectors back then, well, the lifeguards now, and
I recall sitting around with Pearce Byram, Lloyd Byram…
MP: Gees, Pearce!
LW: …um, George Quigley, myself, whoever was working at the time, just sitting
around the big table and these guys would lay it all on for us…
Voices in the background
LW: It was cosy, it was a great room.
KOS: And that Taverna, was that part of the lease? Did you control that or was that, was
it a separate business?
NP: No no, it was all, it was all…
MP: All one…
KOS: It was all yours. And Anne is just showing me some photos, which show me the
taverna.
AP: I am looking for one, I have somewhere, where, remember we had all of those
bottles hanging out…
MP: Over the bar?
KOS: Chianti Bottles?
Voices in background
LW: Of course I do. That was part of the charm of the place.
MP: Over the bar.
KOS: So you had, you were doing the Chianti bottle thing…
MP: Yeh, that’s right.
AP: They must be in []
GP: []
KOS: So, 7 days a week down there? Wow!
AP: Yes, 7 days.
KOS: Did you, you told me about the pizza you made on site, were you making the
gelato on site, where was the gelato…[]
AP: It was being made on site as well.
LW: To put that in context, where that now is, where the gelato is made now is where
Surfish, the fish and chip place is, that’s where…
KOS: That’s where…
LW: …Because I can remember the configuration as it changed.
KOS: So that’s where that is now. You mentioned about having a factory at some stage.
GP: Yeh.
KOS: When did you open your factory?
GP: When was that?
AP: 1969.
GP: 69?
AP: Yes.
GP. Yes
KOS: And why did you open your factory?
GP: Because I had an ambition to…
AP: You and Guido, and Guido died then…
GP: That’s right, my brother and I, and my brother he pass away, then I had an ambition
to supply, I used supply Grace Brothers, Farmers, Coles [] and so on and so on. We used
to have seven trucks on the road at the time…
KOS: Wow.
GP: …and then Guido []…
MP: At the time, Bondi couldn’t handle that kind of capacity.
KOS: That’s what I was going to say, so did…
GP: (crying)
AP: That’s okay, Gianni
KOS: Was that business on the back of the fame of Guido’s? It became so well known…
NP: Famous! Yes.
KOS: I mentioned it to two people this weekend, somebody who was a kid at North
Bondi and someone else who grew up in Dover Heights, and went “Guido’s!” They knew
it straight away.
LW: There is a group of women…
AP: And a lot of people also referred to Gianni as Guido, you know, so many.
KOS: Is that because…
AP: He had that name
KOS: …he was so well known there that people assumed you must be Guido.
AP: Yes
GP: I used to be there 7 days a week and I used to know whole Sydney plus Melbourne.
God knows how many people I used to know.
KOS: Just to get this right for the history, on the basis that the business has going so well
at the beach, and Guido’s Famous Gelato was becoming so well known that you could
see there could be a retail demand.
GP: That’s right, that’s why…
KOS: So you needed to start a factory to manufacture gelato on a more, on a retail level,
at a much greater quantity, so you could, you could supply, um….
NP: Supermarkets…
KOS: Supermarkets, I was just saying, can you tell me again who you used to supply?
GP: Grace Brothers, David Jones, Farmers, Woolworths, [] Centre, plus many, many,
many, I couldn’t remember every…
NP: There were restaurants.
KOS: I was going to say, Restaurants.
GP: Yes, Restaurants.
KOS: And was it always called Guido’s? Did you use any other brand names?
GP: No, Guido’s
KOS: Always Guido’s.
GP: –G-U-I-D-O’s, Guido’s.
AP: That was the label that we used to put on various things.
KOS: So it was always [] – I just asked because sometimes people use other retail names.
AP: No. No.
LW: [- Ice cream]
MP: I remember delivering myself and we had to use a heap of dry ice, up to Kerry
Packer…
NP: [] But I haven’t got a copy…
KOS: I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you one of those Harry’s café []
questions [], you know, they have the pictures there of famous people…[]
MP: Famous people, oh god.
KOS: I was going to, that’s coming up, anyway seeing you mentioned that, maybe we’ll
jump to that. The famous people who came to Guido’s.
GP: Kerry…
AP: We never worried about taking photos…
GP: Kerry Packer used to come down there.
MP: Kerry used to come all the time…
KOS: …and what did Kerry order? Did he have a set thing that he ordered?
MP: No, well, I know when I had to take, when I had to deliver up to his compound, um
it was… (end tape)
KOS: Just continuing, Mario is going to be back in a moment. He is going to tell us that
Kerry Packer’s favourite Gelato was lemon. Anne, you were saying, and Gianni, many
famous people came past the Guido’s window. I know it’s sometimes hard to recognize
them. I have an accidental photo of Bondi Beach in the 70’s, and it just says ‘early
morning swimmers and joggers on Bondi Beach’ and right there in the centre of the
photo I kind of peered in, there’s Kerry Packer and James Packer, but they are almost
just…
Voices in background
KOS: …[] they were going past in the crowd. And, of course we know certainly that was
something that they did in the morning.
Voices in the background
GP: Andy Harwood.
NP: That’s right.
GP: Andy Harwood used to come. Andy Harwood.
NP: Andrew.
KOS: Andrew Harwood. Yes.
GP: Yes, he used to read the news. You know,
KOS: Yes.
GP: [and [] was the other one.]
KOS: Did he bring his mother, Ena Harwood?
GP: Yes, that’s right.
KOS: Did she come?
GP: Yes, his mother, she used to come down []. What was the other one, Anne…?
AP: What was the Australian actor who came to the breakfast?
NP: Jack Thompson.
AP: Jack Thompson.
KOS: Oh, Jack Thompson was a Guido’s fan.
NP: He used to come down all the time. There were a few people that used to, that
popped in, I mean, celebrities that’s I supposed, but as for regulars. I don’t know.
AP: I can’t, I can’t.
KOS: Who were some of the celebrities that you served even if it was only a couple of
times?
NP: Well, I certainly served Mel Gibson…
KOS: Oh?!
GP: Ah, Mel Gibson
NP: …before he was the big Mel Gibson, as he is today.
KOS: Before he was the Big M-Big G.
NP: That’s right. Who else… David Bowie.
KOS: Oh, my God!
NP: He was in there once!
KOS: I am seriously impressed. Do you remember which gelato he had?
NP: Hah, no I don’t, I think I was more startled than anything…
KOS: Yes, it kind of wasn’t his image to be kind of bronzed and on the beach…
NP: No…
KOS: You just don’t think of him in a kind of an ocean setting, do you?
NP: Yes, yeh, that was quite []. Bryan Browne was down once with Richard E Grant and
they bought ice cream, I remember that.
GP: Not ice cream, Gelato.
NP: Gelato, you’re right. And we used to have backpackers come in, and working during
the summer and I remember once Ray Davies from the Kinks…
KOS: I loved the Kinks.
NP: …was there, and I [] remember a couple of these backpackers just went nuts! You
know, just left everything and had to run after him and find out what he wanted. He had
pizza but he was vegetarian, so we had to pull all the meat off the pizza but he wanted it
anyway, because he heard it was great. I can’t think who else. I mean, in the last 10 yrs of
when we were down there, Bondi had started to become, you know, a place for the
beautiful people. So, there were lots of people that would come and buy shakes, we used
to do Gelato shakes… we became…quite famous for… the smoothie before the
smoothie.
AP: It just became, you just serve them as normal people.
KOS: Oh yeah, of course.
AP: …and it didn’t register, especially with me.
NP: Especially when you are busy and you’re five deep and you don’t care if they’re a
celebrity or not…
AP: []
KOS: …and when somebody is looking fairly casual, too you may not pick them.
NP: Yes.
KOS: So you said you went to Gelato shakes. What was in a gelato shake?
NP: It was just, it was just gelato and milk, and it was something that…
AP: You didn’t need to use any flavouring?
NP: No, that’s right.
AP: Just Gelato. But if you wanted a strawberry one, it was made with strawberry gelato.
KOS: And just milk? Just regular milk? And whizzed up…
MP: …and just whizzed up in a milkshake maker. A lot of motors burned out though.
KOS: Were there any other foods or drinks you expanded to?
MP: We became very well known for the coffee. The coffee was really good.
AP: …and the cakes. The apple crumble, no, what was that…
NP: That’s right, we had the world’s biggest, the world’s loveliest lemon meringue pie
and the world’s evilest chocolate cake.
KOS: That’s wonderful. So lemon meringue pie, you were saying, and apple
crumble…Anne…
NP: …apple crumble, and the world’s evilest chocolate.
KOS: …and the world’s evilest chocolate cake.
NP: They were really in the last 10 yrs.
KOS: Okay, the cakes were really in the last 10 years, Nadia’s telling me, and who made
the cakes?
AP: Oh, some we brought in, and some I made.
KOS: You made some…
AP: Some…
KOS: …and some were brought in. So, just getting a sense, you were making your own
gelato, first on the premises. And then after 1969, is that right, at the factory?
NP: No, no… always made…
Both voices together.
MP: No, no, we still made it on the premises as well.
KOS: Oh. So, you still made the localised for Bondi on the premises. You weren’t
bringing it in from the factory. You were making your own pizza on the premises.
Obviously you were whizzing your own shakes on the premises, Anne was making some
of the cakes and some of them you were buying in. So, that’s quite unusual, you know,
for a small business. You wouldn’t be doing the food manufacturing on the premises as
well. So, to make gelato, tell me a little about how you make gelato.
GP: Basic, water, [] sugar, stabilizer, and then sometime milk, sometime.
KOS: Yes, yes, yes.
AP: Usually, skim powdered milk.
GP: Skim powdered milk.
AP: Skim powder. And if we wanted, like we were doing something like hazelnut, or
pistachio, or chocolate, we used some powdered full cream milk.
KOS: Then your fruit or your…
GP: For fruit base, we use fruit, example strawberry, pure strawberry. Because…
AP: We used to pulverize them.
KOS: Oh. Right.
GP: Yes, we used to have a machine which was called emulsifier. Used to break the [skin
of the] because [] has skin, and when the skin was broken in the [] we used to incorporate
all the solids, the solids they are strawberry, the fruits, equals all the fruits, and in the []
again, we homogenate… correct my English, we homogenate…
NP: Homogenise.
GP: No
NP: Is that what you’re trying… emulsify.
GP: No. Homogenate err, to give []
AP: Amalgamate.
NP: Amalgamate.
GP: Amalgamate, amalgamate, sorry. Then ah, that’s it, put it through the machine,
machine used to freeze it, mix it, freeze, mix, freeze, freeze, we used to call it gelato.
Like that.
KOS: Wow. So what time did you get into Guido’s in the morning? What, when did your
mornings start?
GP: Yeh, well… Many, many, many mornings, five o’clock.
KOS: So you’d be there at five?
(child noise in background)
GP: So [] used to get up at 4o’clock in the morning.
KOS: So you’d get up at 4 to be there at 5?
GP: Five, to start to prepare the product, for the [] around 9.30-10 o clock.
MP: Oh, Dad. No, contradict yourself there. In the early days, used to get up really early,
4-5 o’clock, without a doubt. Probably over the last say 20 years, then um, let’s say,
probably from about the early 80s, early 90s, yes, nearly 20 years, we pretty much set, for
ourselves we set a time, so it would be open at 7, the doors open at 7, we don’t get there
at 7, we open the doors at 7. So then we’d say we’d have to be there by at least 6.
KOS: Because you’re doing so much manufacturing on site, and that’s a high work load,
I mean for a lot of businesses, what you’re just basically doing is unpacking and you’re
stocking shelves, and that kind of thing, but you’re creating your own food on the fresh
basis. To do that and open early, that’s a big…
MP: That’s right.
KOS: …run in time.
MP: We’d also have periods where, an exceptionally busy week, say that Christmas
week, Christmas right through to New Year’s, meant that for example, making gelato we
would actually be making gelato all day, because we’d be selling it as quickly as we were
making it. So then we’d have to make it - ‘oh tomorrow’s going to be another hot day’, so
we’d have to stay there till 8-9-10 o’clock at night, making gelato so that we had enough
for the next day. Get there the next day, ‘oh its going to be another hot day’, have to keep
making again throughout the day, so it was very labour intensive. It wasn’t like you could
sort of set aside two hours, and then sit back and just sell your product. No, you had to
keep going.
KOS: Yes. Or you might say, now, its going to be a hot day, you get on the phone to the
supplier, and they come and all you’re doing is unloading from their truck to the freezer.
MP: I mean, we could do that to a degree, with people like for example soft drink
manufacturers like coca cola. So yes, the truck would turn up and we could get that in,
but then again, it was difficult. Bondi is a very, very difficult place, where you think,
alright, the weather forecast tells me it’s going to be hot for three days. So I am going to
need at least three days worth of stock of coca cola. And then it rains for three days
instead. So then you think ‘ah, well I didn’t need that stock’. But then the next 3 days are
hot, and coca cola’s ringing you up and saying ‘do you need more stock for next week or
not’, so you were always having to plan at least, at least 5 days - 5 days ahead… if not
you know, longer.
KOS: You also had to put that time in, to make what you were famous for, why people
were coming to you. Tell me about, Gianni, tell me about starting the factory. Was that
Guido’s idea to start the factory, or did you open that together?
GP: No, my brother already passed away, I did open it myself, we was talking about it.
NP: Mum, is that right, did the factory open - Guido had already died before you opened?
AP: No.
GP: Huh?
AP: Oh, yes sorry. Guido passed away when, just around the time when you were about
to sign the lease. For the Factory.
KOS: What year would that have been?
AP: 1969.
KOS: So 1969 Guido passed away.
AP: 1st April, 1969
KOS: 1st April. And it was after that, that Gianni…
AP: Gianni continued on. He wanted to continue.
GP: Continue… I actually opened the factory.
KOS: Tell me about your factory. Where was it?
GP: It was in Alexandria, Belmont Street Alexandria.
KOS: Oh, I know Belmont Street.
GP: Yeh, it was down there next to a big carpet shop. Then start to supply - I used to have
7 trucks.
KOS: Seven Trucks.
GP: And I used to supply all these - Grace Brothers, David Jones, Farmers, []…
MP: [He was gone through the day]
KOS: And did you find it easy to get those retail contracts because you were known at
Bondi, or did you really have to sell …
AP: I remember you used to get dressed up, and you had a brief case –
GP: And I use to sell it myself.
AP: He used to go as his own salesman.
GP: My English was not - at that time was worse than now.
AP: That’s right and he used to introduce himself and say to them straight away “My
English is not so very good, so you have to be patient and understand.”
NP: Isn’t there a nice story that you actually had, you had employed the sales person and
this person wasn’t able to get the DJ’s contract…
AP: That’s right.
NP: …and my Dad was determined to get the DJ contract and he said “Well, I’ll go. And
I’m going to get it.” And isn’t part of the story that you stuffed the briefcase full of
newspapers just to make it look full.
AP: Yes.
GP: Yes, that’s right.
AP: So you looked as though you had a bag full of stuff.
GP: Used to pretend I was a big salesman, you know. But between us, I couldn’t even
write… signature
AP: He couldn’t, he could sign his name.
GP: You know, I mean, my education very limited, and ehr, that’s it.
KOS: Did you sell them by saying ‘come to Guido’s and try the product’?
AP: No, no, he used to go with samples in, with dry ice.
GP: Yes. I used to take…
KOS: I was going to say, how did you carry Gelato in your brief case?
AP: Always with dry ice.
GP: I used to have my little bag or something, I used to have 2-3 container full of dry ice,
[] and I used to go to the bosses, I used to go to the office, you know, meet them. John
Saywell [] he was the head boss of Grace Brothers, John Saywell, Seawell [] anyway.
AP: [Some name] like that.
GP: Yeh and ah, I used to take, ‘please you try, very good very’, you know my English,
‘you try’ ‘very good, very good’. He used to say, ‘Mmm, I like it’ ‘oh very good, sir,
thank you very much sir’, my English was at that time was like this, and then ah, ‘okay,
we give you a ring in about 2-3 days, 4 days, you know, and he used to ring, and used to
say ‘could we have 10 dozen of sample of this, 2 dozen of that, 2 dozen of this…’
AP: And they used to pack it in pails, you know with the little buckets…
NP: That’s right.
GP: Yes.
AP: …that was a selling point as well.
KOS: Oh, so that’s what they looked like. Can you just describe what it would look like?
So a little, like…
AP: A little bucket, with a lid and a little - and a handle.
NP: Was it a litre?
GP: No, it was less than a litre.
AP: No, less, less.
NP: Half a litre?
GP: Yes – about.
AP: About that.
GP: Can’t remember exactly, and used it as a bucket, for the kids to go to the beach.
AP: And these labels went on top of the lid.
KOS: So there was a round label that reads “Guido’s Famous Gelato and Co, p/l ph 515
881,”
AP: And it was one quart.
KOS: And it was one quart.
GP: One quart.
KOS: Guido’s Famous Gelato ice confection, and then there was a little space where
you’d have the flavor, and the round sticker would go on the lid, and you’d keep the
bucket – and could you use that on the beach?
GP: Yeh…[]
NP: If you want to…
KOS: Oh, and the lid clipped back on.
AP: Oh yeh, great storage.
NP: That was great packaging.
GP: Used to take it home for the kids.
KOS: That’s a great idea. Whose idea was it for the packaging?
GP: It was mine, I think. Mine.
AP: Yeh, I think it was.
GP: For the handle… used to say, when is empty give it to your kids to go to the beach
and play with the sand. Sometime, I think, we used to…
KOS: That’s a great device.
GP: … we used to give even a little spoon, like a little shovel for the kids to play in the
sand.
AP: No.[]
GP: No? That was my idea.
AP: I think, yes, I think you’re getting a bit carried away.
GP: No, not carried away. I’m thinking…you know…
AP: No…we never gave them…
KOS: That’s sounds great, and that also would differentiate Guido’s Gelato, to be quite
identifiable.
AP: Oh, yes.
GP: Why were you so determined to get into David Jones? Was it because David Jones’
Food Hall is fairly prestigious place for food?
GP: It was a big company.
KOS: Or it was a big - Or it would have been a big order.
GP: Of course
KOS: A big client.
GP: A big company and plus we would [] a substantial order – a good order.
AP: And I remember I used to go – remember when I used to go and do the
demonstrations?
NP: That’s right.
GP: Yes
AP: …and I’d go along with some tubs of gelatos, and I would be there with little
containers, and people could have a free tasting. You know of various, and I’d sort of –
and they’d have me where the freezer was. I quite enjoyed doing that, actually.
KOS: Just like the people now in the supermarket that you see…
AP: They stand there and they’ve got – yes, I used to do that.
[small child calling out repeated noise in the background]
KOS: Whereabouts did you do that.
AP: Did it in David Jones in the city – I remember that very clearly. Because I was
demonstrating there and it was nearly time for school to go back…
[small child calling out repeated noise in the background]
…I went up and bought and Nadia’s school uniforms and…
[small child calling out repeated noise in the background]
…I just happened to mention that ‘Oh, I’m the lady with the demonstrations for the
gelato’ and I was entitled to this fantastic discount.
NP: [laughter] The works, the perks.
AP: I remember that so well. Then I did, um – gosh I don’t remember the name of those
supermarkets, they’re not in existence anymore. He sent me way out – I’d never been out
there.
[child yelling]
GP: Wollongong, Port Kembla, []
AP: No no.West. No, west.
NP: Could have been Campbelltown? Penrith?
AP: Could have been Penrith, or one of those places.
GP: We used to buy… []
NP: [Red S]
KOS: So you were really, Gianni was saying you were going as far north as… where?
GP: Far north – we used to go down to…
MP: Far North – Newcastle.
GP: Newcastle, yeh. No…
MP: I remember sitting in the truck with whathisname?
NP: Frank?
MP: Frank.
GP: Yes, we used to go to Newcastle, that’s right, Newcastle.
KOS: And ah, Wollongong?
GP: Yeh, Wollongong, Port Kembla, Wollongong.
KOS: I was just thinking of all that coast line, []
GP: Yeh. Yeh.
KOS: …and out to the Blue Mountains.[]
MP: I don’t remember going to the Blue Mountains, but I do remember going out the,
like, in those days… when I was a little kid…
NP: []
MP: …out west and it was hot.
KOS: Kind of Penrith-y way…
MP: [] Campbelltown, Penrith, that sort of.
(Mario talking to child)
KOS: So that was, so you were really getting the market then …outside.
GP: Yes.
KOS: Tell me about staff – in an early photo that Anne’s shown me [] I can see the three
men there…
AP: I remember that.
KOS: …and I’ll get her to I.D who these people are.
AP: In the middle is Guido, to my right is Gianni, and this fellow’s name was Fred,
remember?
GP: Fred, yes.
AP: Yes.
KOS: And was Fred…
AP: He was an employee.
KOS: …from the family, he was employed?
AP: Yeh..
KOS: I’d like to know about people working there, so when you started was it just a
family run business, or did you always, did Fred come along early…?
AP: Fred came along through um, Guido, I don’t know how Guido got Fred?
GP: Can’t remember either…
AP: Whether or not you working at the EPT at the time, I don’t recall…
GP: Yes. I used to work with EPT and…
AP: and on the weekend go down to Bondi.
GP: And I used to do transport.
KOS: Who was EPT?
GP: Electric Power Transmission. Was a big Italian company, they used to build and
make those electric towers.
AP: Those towers you see []
KOS: Oh yes.
GP: For electricity – you see them on television…
KOS: The giant…
GP: I used to, I used transport steel for [] from the station to the bush. They used to pay
me good money, why not. And after that, very briefly, after that I left and came with my
brother Guido.
KOS: To work full time at Guido’s.
GP: Yes.
KOS: So when Guido’s opened, was it just Guido or did he have anyone else helping
him?
GP: When he opened, well, actually he start in Melbourne. Originally.
KOS: So, the first actual Guido’s was in Melbourne.
GP: Yes, was in Melbourne, and I remember in Lygon Street.
NP: Wasn’t he working for somebody?
GP: Yes he used to work for…
NP: So he was working for someone, he didn’t actually have his own business. []
GP: That’s right.
AP: No, he first opened his own business at Harbord.
KOS: So the first one was at Harbord, so he was at Harbord for a couple of years?
AP: No, no.
KOS: Very briefly.
AP: Very briefly.
GP: When you say, briefly – I think it was about a year and a half? No?
NP: 6 months?
AP: May be nine months.
NP: Does that mean he took a lease on a place?
AP: Yes it was a little old place, a broken-down old place. Remember?
GP Harbord?
AP: Harbord, yes, and it was before you were born. But um… let me think now – you
were born…
GP: Good God, we [talk about] fifty years ago.
AP: He could have been there about 9 months. I’d say. Nine months
KOS: Do you know why he left Harbord and he came to Bondi?
AP: Oh yes. Harbord was much harder to get people… they were very, very, ah – pardon
the expression – very ‘ocker’ they didn’t want to change their way of thinking, you know.
Whereas Bondi was becoming…
GP: Was more international.
AP: Yes
KOS: … always has been more international –
GP: That’s right.
KOS: The first European refugees come actually in the – just after World War One, []
World War Two, but by the twenties you were getting a really significant European
population at Bondi Beach, so that comes very early and Bondi is quite different to the
other beaches in that regard…
GP: Very []
KOS: …and it is still a very international destination, quite distinctly there, as opposed to
even next door, even at Bronte, even at Tamarama, it’s always – always has a population,
a European population that lived there, and so of course because it’s a community, people
come to the community, and it’s kind of self-perpetuating and self-growing.
AP: The other thing that helped with building up the gelato business at Bondi as you say
was community. But there was a very strong community of Hungarians, you know. And
they loved the fact that they could have their gelato.
GP: Can we reveal – sorry – can we reveal my secret?
KOS: Please!
GP: []
MP: ah aha ah ah (no)
KOS: Okay, I am going on (Tape interrupted). … (tape restarts) Gianni was saying, who
came to your place at Bondi?
GP: Eric Walter.
NP: Eric was a fairly high profile…
MP: Eric Walters?
NP: …newsreader…
MP: Television.
KOS: Oh, yes.
NP: …back in the 70s.
KOS: A news [anchor]. And you were saying Kerry Packer with his lemon gelato.
MP: Kerry Packer used to, and his son, I mean if we were still there, his son would still
be coming by. James, Jamie Packer. He used to come by all the time, because he was []…
KOS: I saw recently something in the paper, I thought he was gone from Bondi, but
apparently he still has an apartment there at Bondi.
GP: Yeh, at [Campbell] Parade.
KOS: Yeh, so, that was good.
MP: Gyng- Gyngell.
KOS: Oh, yeh. David Gyngell?
NP: Bruce.
MP: Gyngell. [].
KOS: Oh, wow, that was good.
MP: …His old man []…
KOS: Tell me about, Mario, about you were saying you drove the trucks, you were
involved in the []
MP: Oh, I was a kid. I wasn’t old enough to drive. I was just a kid.
KOS: Tell me about your involvement and what you did?
MP: Involved in the Pavilion?
KOS: Yes, involved in Guido’s.
MP: Well they basically opened the business before I was born, I was born in 62, and
they would have been there since ’61. So I grew up around –
AP: On Bondi beach…
MP: …around the business and on Bondi Beach, I used to go and help out after school,
during school holidays. And I have to admit when the surf was good you couldn’t find
me in the shop. I’d be out…
KOS: Would you run away?
MP: I’d run away,[], they’d try to find me.
KOS: Did you try to find him?
AP: Oh look, we’d say to the beach inspectors…and especially…
KOS: “If you see my son, tell him to get back here…”
AP: Yes, ‘if you see Mario could you please tell him to come back’. He’d just go with his
surfboard.
MP: Up until I was probably, just old enough to sort of be more mature about it, I guess.
NP: I would say you’d be in your twenties.
MP: Yes, Probably
AP: Easy.
MP: I mean, yes I left school and got immediately involved in the business, and then
when Dad retired out of the business, I took over making the gelato.
KOS: So you learned to do all that, just on the spot from there.
MP: Not on the spot, I learned it off Dad.
KOS: And did you learn from Guido?
GP: Yes, I did.
KOS: I wonder who taught Guido?
GP: Guido – he learned in Rome.
KOS: So, he would have been like an apprentice?
GP: Yes, he used to work in Rome in a very, very famous place which called [Gigi Fasi.
Gigi Fasi]. Used to be big, big gelato bars in Rome. Everywhere
KOS: That’s really interesting because if he learned there, in that traditional way, and you
learned from him and Mario learned from Gianni, and…
AP: and I learned from Gianni, and then Nadia… Nadia…
KOS: So that’s kind of a direct line back to those Roman Gelato makers because you’re
learning…
GP: That’s correct.
KOS: …as um Guido learned originally…which is really nice…
MP: []
KOS: – because it would probably be quite different than if you were learning here in a
different way.
GP: [] of course it would have been different.
MP: I mean, we learned in a very traditional manner. Pardon me, um, you know, there
wasn’t, - there was, it was hands on, you learned hands on – you didn’t learn by text
book, you learned by the feel, you learned by taste, you learned by texture, you learned
by the seat of your pants, so to speak. You had to learn how to do it the right way. The
only way you really knew was by the end product – and trial and error.
Doing it, it’s the sort of thing that I guess when you grow up with it, and you see it every
day and you’re a part of it every day it becomes second nature, so learning how to do it
wasn’t, for me, wasn’t that difficult because it had been slowly ingrained into me, for you
know, 15 years before I actually was, you know, given permission to ‘right, you make
this’. I spent, as a kid I was, had to clean the containers, that was my job, so of course I
always wanted to get to the container before they were empty so that I could eat what was
in the…what was left.
KOS: I was going to ask you about that and about eating your products.
MP: Mmm – so it was a very high grounding into…
AP: []
MP: …very high grounding what it was meant to taste like.
AP: [I loved it].
MP: Yeh.
KOS: And did you learn to make pizza as well?
MP: Yes, we learned to make pizza as well. I think Nadia learned as well.
KOS: And what was your involvement?
NP: I was definitely front-of-house, so yes as the businesses had different – had gone
through different changes, there was a period where yeh, I was reluctantly involved,
because I thought I wanted to go off and do other things. And then there was a period
where I left the business to pursue more or less what I do now, and then I came back and
when I came back I got very involved in things like the staff relations, and setting up a
system so that staff, you know, like colour coding instructions, and just creating a system,
because it had been a family business, which you know when you have a business that
you don’t have a system of manuals and things like that, the business had just gotten so
big that it started to need that, so I got involved with things like that. And marketing, you
know the direct marketing of the business there on the beach, um, and menu ideas, so I
was very much a front-of-house person you know, direct connection with the customer as
opposed to anything behind the scenes.
KOS: Did you stay till Guido’s closed?
NP: Yes, yeh, right to the last day.
KOS: And did you stay Mario, till Guido’s closed?
MP: Absolutely. I was called the chief furniture removalist. The day it closed we were
still there, - I mean, when we left the Pavilion…
(Gianni talking in background)
MP: … we were giving instructions by Waverley Council that it was to be returned to its
original condition. Which I found rather ironic, and almost impossible, because when we
took it over it was full of birds nests, it was totally dilapidated, so we just cleaned the
place up the way we thought was best fitting for how we wanted it to look.
GP: []
KOS: Tell me a little bit about the end of Guido’s. I believe that you closed, then you
reopened?
NP: Yes, can I just ask – can I just ask because we need to clarify something for
Kimberly here because of the Guido name, the business has actually had three different
incarnations.
KOS: Oh, if you could tell me about those that would be great. Yes, just to be clear.
NP: Because that is important, because we were Guido’s to start with. Does Kimberly
need to know about when you were involved with Tom…
MP: Tom… the name changes
GP: Tom Hughs.
NP: …because then somebody else was selling the Guido’s product, weren’t they?
AP: That’s right…
MP: For a period of time.
NP: So Kimberly needs to know that.
AP: For a short period of time.
NP: For a short period somebody else was selling, just, it was a legal thing…
GP: Using the name abusively.
KOS: Really? Just started selling gelato and calling it Guido’s.
NP: Calling it Guido’s – it was little more complex than that. Anyway, so that
happened…
KOS: Was there a legal action about that to get control back over the name?
MP: Yep, yes, for a long time.
NP: And so there was a period where it was operating as Gianni’s – wasn’t it? Gianni’s
Beach House…
AP: Yes, it was written on, - you’ll see it on photos somewhere.
KOS: The person selling the early gelato… this is tape 2 of the interview about Guido’s
Gelato and it gets a little bit complicated toward the end, a rival business opened in
Campbell Parade?
MP: A rival business [] tried to open in Campbell Parade.
NP: And it wasn’t actually toward the end, we should specify that.
MP: No it was nearly the mid 80s to…
NP: I thought it was the 70’s wasn’t it. That’s why you called the place Gianni’s Beach
House when you had the lease?
AP: Did you – did something with the factory to Tom Hughs, what was there?
GP: Tom Hughs was my factory.
NP: It was something to do with goodwill. When you’d sold the goodwill you didn’t
realize you were selling the name.
MP: Yes, something like that.
NP: Classic mistake that a lot of people make.
KOS: Sure and that was, was that because you sold the factory?
NP: That’s right. Mum, are you - this is important information.
KOS: So you sold the factory?
AP: Yes.
KOS: Why did you sell the factory?
AP: Ah, because the, it was the time when the lease came up, so 1974 it was.
NP: So you needed finance?
AP: No, I needed, Mr P needed to come down to Bondi.
NP: Oh right, ok.
AP: He needed to be there…because we wanted to…
NP: So you really needed to unburden yourself, from the factory, that’s why you sold it…
oh I didn’t know that.
KOS: Ok, so it got sold. And, did you retain any interest in it? Or was it just a straight
sale.
GP: No, it was straight out.
KOS: …and you came back to the beach.
GP: We sold it to this fellow in [music]
AP: Yes, Tom Hughs.
GP: Tom Hughs
NP: Not the QC.
KOS: I was going to say
GP: [] Who is he?
NP: Famous barrister
KOS: Famous barrister.
MP: No, it’s not that one.
KOS: So, then this rival business tries to start in Campbell Parade and call itself Guido’s
and there is an issue of whether it can or not. So then, for a period of time Guido’s
changes names, same business, same people, same family but it becomes Gianni’s. Do
you when, what period of time it became Gianni’s?
MP: It was Gianni’s…
AP: From 1974.
MP: ’74 to 80-… 89-90. Yet, ironically everyone still called it Guido’s.
NP/AP: Yes.
KOS: That’s probably be - they know it as Guido’s, they see a G, and an Italian name –
Gianni – Guido whatever, we don’t care, as long as it’s still selling the gelato and the
pizza…
MP: That’s right. It was still, the same faces, the same family still running it, no-one ever,
noticed the name was different above the door, everyone still called it Guido’s. And then
when Dad retired out of the business completely in ’94…
AP: 94.
MP: …then we changed, we took away the Gianni’s, and just called it our surname,
Pellicciari’s and yet still everyone called it Guido’s.
AP: So that’s when we decided to re-put Guido’s, didn’t we.
MP: That’s when we put Guido’s up.
NP: That’s right. It dawned on me that maybe the name was still available so I went in
and I just registered it, Guido’s gelato – Guido’s Famous Gelato, so we had it again.
KOS: And what had happened in the meanwhile to the business on Bondi Beach…
MP: The one who tried to use the name?
KOS: Yes.
MP: …went out of business.
KOS: Oh, right.
MP: I mean, we spent a lot of time and legal [] – trying to get literally Dad’s brother’s
name back, and that took nearly 20 years to get the name back.
AP: Oh we don’t know, I mean the legal thing didn’t take 20 years but they went broke.
Our customers, they weren’t going up there to Campbell Parade, they knew where to go
to get their gelato. So it wouldn’t have mattered if we had no name there…
NP: The point was…
AP: The face was there…
NP: We just kept using the Gianni’s, or the Pellicciari’s, because nobody thought
otherwise, right, but we decided that we did still want the product that we were making.
Because at this stage, the business had become much more than just an ice-cream place,
in fact from a historical point of view, it probably started to become – we had our regular
customers for the gelato, and the gelato was always there, but the place became really
well known for its coffee, for its pizza, for the mix, you know, the menu mix that we had,
to be able to supply a beach venue. But, we were really good at it, you know.
KOS: So what was that menu mix towards the end of the business?
NP: Well, it was the coffee and desserts, cakes aside from gelato, there were the pizza
and we did, we got very much into the foccacias, and it was at a time Turkish bread
sandwiches, at a time when Sydney wasn’t quite as flooded as it is now with the café latte
society, and I think we were one of the first places maybe [Pellusi] was doing it as well,
that actually put a café latte in a glass. You know, this kind of thing and that was in the
80’s sometime and then of course there was a café everywhere, and a lot of people were
doing very good coffee. We just had a really good reliable – we provided a really good
reliable refreshment experience for people who came to the beach.
KOS: I see the tables outside there, and the checked table cloths, when did you start
having the tables outside?
MP: Ah…
AP: Well, when we first opened…
KOS: Right from the beginning?
AP: 1974. Yeh.
KOS: You had the tables outside?
NP: Yes.
MP: Yeh.
GP: Yeh.
KOS: So, you could sit out here and eat, right from the beginning?
GP: We tried to imitate a European style []
KOS: Yeh.
NP: Kimberly, I was just going to say is there an opportunity where we could meet,
because…
KOS: Yes.
NP: …do you remember when I had that photographer come down in the last couple of
weeks, I’ve got a fantastic set of A4, a lot of great black and white photos of what we
used to sell so much coffee, and our chief barista, gorgeous Michele, twelve coffees lined
up and she’s pouring them and it was just –
KOS: That would be fantastic.
NP: …there’s great images…
KOS: …Yes, we’ll definitely organize that.
NP: …because they are really good and you’d see the lemon meringue pies and we used
to have them, twelve set up, and they would just walk out the door. They’re fabulous
images.
AP: I remember that but I never saw them.
NP: Well, they are at my place. So…we must do that.
KOS: We’ll make a time, we’ll make a time.
NP: They’re worth seeing. They’re good.
KOS: So Guido’s, the name Guido’s comes back again.
AP: Yes, Nadia went and discovered …
NP: Well, nobody was using it –
AP: …it was available.
NP: So I thought I want to grab that.
GP: Of course it was available. Like a [machine]
KOS: And um, about what year was that?
NP: That was in the 90’s.
KOS: That was in the 90’s.
NP: In 91-92, something like that. 94…
AP: Around 95.
NP: Okay, 94-95.
GP: []
KOS: 94-95 – so then tell me about – you closed temporarily around the Olympics, what
was that story?
AP: Oh, well, we didn’t really have any choice. They wanted the Pavilion, they wanted to
use the Pavilion and it was all going to be…
NP: SOCOG.
AP: Yes, yes.
KOS: SOCOG - So it was SOCOG.
AP: Yes.
MP: SOCOG enforced closure upon us for a period of about four months, while they -
remember when they built the stadium in front of it? That actually meant that we were
inside a construction zone, which meant the public weren’t able to get to us so SOCOG
said ‘well, we’ve got shut you down.’ Got to close us down.
KOS: Were you given any compensation?
AP: Yes.
MP: We were compensated for that down period.
KOS: The down period… and so…
MP: Which is a shame because it was a giant opportunity missed for us.
KOS: It would have been fantastic – people could have just gone straight…
MP: Giant…
KOS: …down the bleachers, got their gelato and gone straight –
MP: Giant… [] For us, really regretful that we weren’t able to…
NP: Fight it…
MP: …to um, to have that moment, to have that, that period of time, to be open and
running…
KOS: Even if you weren’t there while they built the bleachers and the stadium, but when
the games were on, you were actually inside the beach volleyball stadium.
AP: But the thing was they also, um, wanted the whole area for the, ah…
MP: They wanted it for the VIP’s…
AP: …the VIPs and the athletes and it all had to be specially organized food…
KOS: Because there’s big companies that had the contracts…
MP: That’s right…
KOS: …like Coca Cola were a major sponsor of the Olympic Games so they’re the only
cola drink that sold, there might have been some company of confectionery ice cream
people that have a contract to sell…
AP: [Up the streets - be one of them]
KOS: Might have been some []
GP: Can we mention – sorry - Can we mention when Alitalia the air plane, – they used to
fly to Australia, Sydney, all the pilots and the hostesses, they used to come and Bondi
Beach Pavilion to have our gelato. Yes.
KOS: Oh, no, that is a wonderful story. Did they?
GP: Yes. Yes.
KOS: Did they?
GP: Yes, and then I don’t know what happened to Alitalia, they went broke, or what. No
I think they still in Europe.
KOS: Wow. So how did they know? Just word of mouth in the community?
GP: Well, of course. Of course. Maybe…
KOS: Isn’t that great. So, they, were they identifiably pilots or stewards?
GP: Yeh, they used to say ‘I am the steward, and…
(child noise in background)
…that one is the captain of Alitalia, and that one is so-and-so pilot…’ and they used to
say hello, how are you, nice to have you here, have a gelato, and your gelato is better, the
best one in the world…you know, we used to…
KOS: How lovely.
NP: What’s really interesting also, Kimberly, is that our family was never actually, like
didn’t fit into the whole Italian community thing. So, I think that is kind of interesting
too. That we built up a business…
(significant child noise in background and foreground)
…that was there, for everyone, we didn’t actually have a network…
KOS: So you didn’t promote it within the Italian community?
(significant child noise in background)
NP: Not necessarily.
AP: No, not at all.
KOS: Was that a deliberate decision, that that wasn’t a market you were after, or it just
didn’t occur to you?
NP: It just didn’t happen.
AP: It just didn’t happen.
NP: It didn’t occur. We were on the beach, we had clientele that was there. In fact, we
were probably more of the Hungarian and Jewish communities than we were of the
Italian community.
KOS: So it wasn’t – did you feel – other than the Alitalia staff, did you have a sense that
the Italian community sought you out?
NP: No, but that’s probably to do with the location because we were on Bondi Beach,
you know and communities, and ghettos – when I say ghettos but ghettos you know what
I mean, they just stay where they are, and that community was Leichhardt, Haberfield…
AP: Leichhardt.
KOS: Kings Cross.
NP: Yes, all of that, in fact [Celussi/Pelussi] probably had more Italians going to him
than we did, but that’s just simply the location…
(child noise in background)
KOS: Yes certainly, there was an Italian community in Kings Cross in the early days…
and in the fifties -
GP: [The Calussi - the Boxer]
KOS: That’s where you get the first spaghetti places, and the first European style
espresso bar.
NP: And also, as my Dad just said, because Luigi [Calussi] – no, what was his name –
GP: Yeh, Luigi…
NP: Yes, Luigi, he was a, actually quite a high-profile Italian boxer… so there was that…
thing as well.
GP: He was a big European champion, he was champion.
KOS: So his name, people would know him.
NP: Can I just go back a little bit, you said, and I didn’t know this, you said that Guido
worked in a café in King Street.
AP: Mars.
GP: Mars bar.
AP: Mars - that was the name of it.
KOS: Mars M-A…
AP: M-A-R-S
KOS: Oh, Mars m-a-r-s – like the planet Mars.
GP: Yes, right, the planet Mars –
KOS: In King Street.
AP: Yes in King Street. In the city.
NP: I know there was a very famous sort-of, Euro-style retro café that Max Dupain took a
very famous photo of, and it was in King Street, and I’m just wondering if it might have
been that one.
KOS: If it was Mars…?
NP: Yes, it’s an extraordinary…
GP: In King Street…
NP: It was in King Street.
KOS: That’s kind of interesting, because DeLucas was in King Street, and I remember
Delucas as a child, my father taking me to DeLucas and going in [whispering] – just the
fruit…
MP: []
NP: Fruit.
KOS: [] it was like heaven, you walk in and smell mandarin… mango…
MP: Fruit Salad…
KOS: …and fruit Salad, I think it was a fruit salad bar where you sat, and you could get
these beautiful fresh fruit salad and things were a little bit unusual then like fresh
pineapple in fruit salad, and mango – I don’t know if they had ice cream or gelato there.
NP: [whispering in background]
GP: [talking in foreground]
MP: I don’t know if they had ice cream or gelato there but they were huge on fruit salad.
And on their Christmas hampers.
GP: [talking in foreground]
NP: [talking in background]
KOS: Yes and you…
GP: [talking in foreground]
KOS: …they had a specialized section where you could send…
GP: [talking in foreground]
KOS: … fruit and hampers to the hospital, and that kind of thing. So, that wasn’t related
to that. No, that was in King Street, so it wasn’t that site…
NP: No, No.
KOS: …because I remember where that was.
NP: This was a coffee bar – I don’t know if it’s the same one, but I know it is very
famous, Max Dupain took this photo of this coffee bar, you’ve got to see it, it’s like
nothing else and it would certainly fit in with the time…[and the… the waiters… ]
KOS: I wonder if it was … I might go and have a little look, you never know, Guido
might turn up in the background of the Mars café photo. If Dupain and people like Sam
[Ford] photographed extensively around Sydney at that time, and all their photographs
are in the Mitchell Library and a lot of them are on line now, you can actually search, I
mean a lot of them are not, it’s almost like there isn’t a major institution in Sydney in a
cultural sense that either Dupain or Sam didn’t photograph.
AP: Talking about online, just by mistake, because you know how I am not good at
“googling”, or any… um, I put my name in for something and it came up August
Pellicciari. Do you know online you can get – from someone that must have been in
Bondi when we closed and there’s a big article, it’s from a London newspaper –
MP: Yes, I’ve seen that.
AP: Have you seen it?
MP: Yes.
AP: Yeh?
KOS: About the closure?
AP: Yes!
MP: Yes.
KOS: Fabulous – I’m going to go back and do that.
NP: There must be a thousand backpackers who all did their ‘apprenticeship’ – spent a
summer working for us.
MP: Yes…
KOS: Tell me about that – tell me about backpackers as employees.
MP: Staff – staff, when we – when we moved – okay, gosh interesting staff, we actually
had, one of the most interesting staff that we had right back in the early days was an –
and I was [when I learned] this…
GP: Fritz… Fritz
MP: We had a young guy who had a long ponytail – turned out that he was the drummer
in a band at the time called… oh and they had a one-hit wonder, a huge one-hit wonder –
NP: []
AP: A local guy…or a backpacker?
MP: Oh, God, what was his name? Hope it’ll come to me, and I’ll tell you, this was like a
sort of 70’s hit, it was kind of around the same time of Russell Morris type sort of, this
guy worked for us, and he was hardly ever there, and if he was there, he was usually
either hung over from his gig the night before, or he’d be there tapping away all the time..
yeh…I remember him…
KOS: If you remember later on in the interview, yeh, let me know.
MP: Yeh, anyway, other interesting staff… well, Larry, Larry, – did Larry ever work for
us?
AP: Who?
MP: Larry Emdur?
NP: No, he used to hang around.
MP: His sister.
AP: His sister.
MP: Yeh, ah…the one that’s the artist now…
AP: Oh, she was an artist.
MP: Martine.
AP: Martine. Did she work for us - or was she…?
NP: No, she used to just hang around – she did the sign…
MP: []
AP: That’s right, no, she didn’t …
MP: She was just another one that used to hang around… um, but, gosh, so many English
backpackers.
AP: I just – can I just say one thing? The reason at the time that we used to take these
backpackers, we would always be looking for locals, Australians, - they did not want to
work, you remember?
MP: Yeh.
GP: That’s right.
AP: And the only people we could get were, could get to work were backpackers.
KOS: So what happened if you needed staff? Did you put up a sign?
MP: Yes.
AP: Yep, just put up a sign in the window.
NP: We’d put up a sign in the window. Then we started using – there were a few
agencies, like job search places, and look, like anything, we had a very, very low
turnover. Which was great. People liked it, they liked working there. Little Japanese boy
– remember? I don’t remember his name, but he had the gloves. And he was the best
washer-upper in the world, he was so fast…
AP: Oh, yes. I don’t remember his name either
NP: …he was superb – so there were people that really embraced their job. Because we
started, because the business was big, we started the notion of a work station. So people
became – you know, we engendered a sense of loyalty to your work station and we had
people – the experienced staff who would using a buddy system and guiding the staff and
so, yeh, we can be really proud of the fact that we had – had a really low turnover, in fact
if I can just mention this – the place where I go all the time for my coffee, it reminds me
of what we did because they have an extraordinarily low turnover and they have
incredible loyalty from their staff and I’ve often said to them your boss must be fabulous
because –what are – this is the café business and you’re all still here.
I don’t think people don’t get paid huge amounts of money because its that kind of
industry. But they love it and it’s really true that if you take care of your staff that money
is not the lure – feeling like you are part of the team is the lure, and that’s what we
actually had - we had a great team.
KOS: So that’s really interesting, that you did that consciously, yeh, because that’s
certainly now, people are often assumed to move for money and now it’s shown that they
don’t do that at all. And certainly, that’s true for me, I get a public librarian’s wage and
I’ve seen double what I’m earning now freelancing, as a historian that kind of thing, but I
love my work, I love my boss, and they treat me superbly…
(child noise)
KOS:… they give me heaps of freedom to do whatever I want, and lots of creatively and
the conditions are fantastic and so… that’s important.
MP: If I can just add something as well… I think when Nadia was – when she was sort
of leaving school, a lot of her school friends from the school that she went to, their first
job was working at Bondi Pavilion, at Guido’s.
KOS: Really?
NP: Same as your…!
MP: Same with me – a lot of my friends at around 16-17 years of age, first job.
KOS: So did your friends say “can your Mum and Dad get me a job down at Guido’s” or
get me a job down the beach?
MP: Oh yeh, it always happened.
KOS: And plus, it’s a great environment… to be in, down on the beach…
NP: That’s right, that’s it. Yeh.
KOS: That’s pretty fabulous… before and after…
MP: That’s right, so there was that sort of… our friends had jobs, a lot of kids in the
eastern suburbs especially around sort of, you know, from Rosebay, Bellevue Hill, Bondi,
Vaucluse, a lot of kids kind of had their… I mean I still had a lot of friends, that – I don’t
know that well, but ‘oh yeh, I can find time to fit in, I can work for your Mum and Dad
for the summer’. Or something like that…
KOS: Hmm. Yes.
MP: You know, and when you think about the business in terms of its growth, when you
go right back to 61, and there were literally maybe just Mum and Dad and Guido, and
even sometimes, maybe just one of them, up to at our busiest, when we’d grown as big as
we got, we were about 50 staff…
KOS: Wow, that’s big staff…
AP: That’s not all year.
MP: Not all the time.
KOS: You’d have a lot of seasonal staff, would you?
AP: Yes, yes. Usually in the winter our permanent staff, maximum we got to about 6…
MP: Yes 6-8. In winter, then in summer it was – but we had 7-8, 6-7-8 guys just on the
beach, just walking along the sand, up and down the sand, then we had another couple of
people on the promenade itself, [with those − trolleys] then you had on the gelato, just
selling gelato, at least, minimum two people sometimes four…
AP: Four…
MP: …sometimes even 5. Then, you had maybe myself and someone else out the back
just making gelato, then you went to the coffee section, two coffee machines going nonstop.
Ah…that could be up to four…
NP: Two –three ‘group’ coffees machines – you need to say that…
MP: Three group coffee machines - going nonstop…
NP: Three group coffees, so there were 12 coffees being made at a time nonstop - so a lot
of coffee.
MP: Then go to the kitchen. We have the guy washing up…
AP: Are you talking about before we [got rid of that] …
MP: I’m talking about when we still had the restaurant…
AP: Oh, right, yeh…
MP: You had the staff in the restaurant, you had the staff in the kitchen, you had the staff
doing the table []…
NP: Ok, you need to tell Kimberly that when you’re talking about the restaurant at this
stage, we’re talking about the huge refurbishment that we did in 94-
AP: 95
MP: Forgot about that, yeh.
NP: 95 - and ah, it became just a really, in fact yeh, it was just called Pellicciari’s, and um
it became a sort of a, what do you call it like a bistro, modern style… gee that’s a worry,
isn’t it…
KOS: [] it’s unbelievable how…
NP: Yeh, yeh, let me close the doors.
(child sound, NP laughing.)
KOS: []
NP: And um, so the taverna was no more but in that same area was the restaurant, so um,
it became a little more up-market, um also I guess in a way it was the thing that taught us
that the restaurant business…
(child noise crying)
NP: … was a different kettle of fish
KOS: A whole kettle of fish…
NP: Yes it’s a whole different game.
KOS: …so for a while there you had the restaurant and that was yeh…
NP: It was a, um… and dealing with that kind of staff as well, is a very different game.
KOS: That is…
NP: To working in a café. A takeaway environment.
KOS: Yes it is a different dynamic…
(child speaking in the background calling out)
NP: And I’ve got to tell you, most people…
(child calling out)
NP:…what transpires, everybody wants a take away, even the chefs used to fantasize…
(child calling out)
NP:…about having a takeaway, because they knew that’s where the bucks were, that
running a restaurant’s too hard… you know, unless you’re one of those places that
you’ve got this kind of experience, where you a restaurateur, and you grew up in a
restaurant when you eight years old, bussing tables, and you know the industry that well,
don’t go there! It’s too hard.
KOS: It’s interesting, isn’t it, that it is very distinct, that kind of thing, and that takeaway
is so different to a restaurant, and you’ve got to find your niche, and your market… and
things like that.
NP: And take away is so much fun. That’s the thing, that’s the big thing. Take away is
fun.
KOS: I could imagine that running a restaurant wouldn’t be a lot of fun.
NP: Oh!
KOS: It’s not…
NP: It’s hard, it’s not it’s really not, take away is fast, fun, it’s more smiles, you know, in
takeaway than there ever is in anything else.
KOS: It’s interesting isn’t it, people - I have a girlfriend who comes from a long line of
newsagent family and they swear by they’d never have anything else… and that is a very
distinct type of market…
(repeated child noise interruption – constant crying, calling out – other voice
offering to quiet her)
KOS: … you have to be very, open very early, but you close, and there is a very distinct
way people buy in a newsagent…
(repeated child noise interruption)
KOS: …and very much your regulars…
(voice noise interruption – child and MP)
KOS: …and people want you to speak to them, it’s really important you chat to people as
it’s often the first place they go in the morning. And…
(severe noise interruption – child crying and calling)
KOS: …that’s interesting, isn’t it.
(severe noise interruption – child)
KOS: Now back to…
(child noise increasing)
KOS: …the, toward the end of Guido’s – so there’s a [kicker] that happens around the
Sydney Olympic Games because of the building of the beach volleyball stadium.
NP: Kimberly, when you say Guido’s, you’re just talking generically about the family…
(child crying close to microphone – interrupting clarity of conversation)
KOS: Generically Guido’s. But it was…
NP: It was Pellicciari’s, then.
KOS: It was Pellicciari’s that actually closed during the Olympics. Sorry, thanks for
making that clear to me, so Pellicciari’s closed during the Olympics, and that was about a
four month period as I think you were saying, and so then the Olympics came and went
and the volleyball stadium is dismantled, and everything is back and you re-open again,
so that would have been late 2000?
NP: Yes.
KOS: I can’t remember how long the dismantling actually took after the Olympics…
NP: I think yeh, it was pretty quick. I mean the moment you could start to get people in
there, we got them in.
KOS: So late 2000… so things – you’re Pellicciari’s…and then at some stage you go
back to being Guido’s.
NP: No, the gelato, the profile of the gelato up again as Guido’s and that’s also because
of the fact that I registered the name and I thought, this is worth [it], people need to see
the name. It’s also and this is really interesting, I had actually registered the Gelatissimo
name – that was my invention, in 1998…
KOS: Oh my god!
NP: And um, I thought, no one is ever going to use this name, who’d use the word
Gelatissimo.
GP: There is one in Bondi Junction.
NP: Yes, but it’s ok, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. But it was just a cute thing I still
remember, I am still convinced, that the Lepresci family had come down and seen the
word, you know, and they saw it – and our solicitor then said to me, next time you have a
great idea hang on to – it neither here nor there, it was a name.
KOS: Did you register the name…
NP: Yes I registered…
KOS: You didn’t…?
NP: No, I let it lapse…
KOS: I was going to say, did you sell it to them…
NP: No, no, no… I let it lapse, because then we closed, and I had gone to reregister it,
because I had for a really short time a little business of my own, a little gelato business
and I had a review in the 2005 good food guide so it []…
(child noise running through room)
NP: (talking to child) Oi – Matilda
(child crying loudly)
NP: … Um, but… but as soon as I let it go, they snapped it up. So they were obviously
waiting for it to come up, or they noticed, because they knew it was a good name…
KOS: That’s interesting… tell me about your little business that you had yourself.
NP: Well, I actually called my little business “Little Guido’s” because the name was
really important… and I thought, yes. So, I…it was only a short time. Why I chose this
location, I don’t know. Um, it was a really huge business learning curve for me, because
what we had at Bondi was completely unique, and I thought I could sort of transfer that
into something of my own. It was up in Taylor Square, and what I learned was there are
some things you have to let them go, when they’re gone, they’re gone.
KOS: Absolutely.
NP: I didn’t know that, but that’s ok. That story in itself is pretty extraordinary. My time
up there was unbelievable, because it’s the shadow side of Sydney up there…
KOS: Yes, it’s the underbelly.
NP: Totally, totally. and it got worse… you know, it was at the time when City of Sydney
was promoting Taylor Square, like doing it up, and promoting it as the jewel in the crown
of Sydney… bla bla. Not true. When a place already has an identity like Taylor Square
has, it’s not going to change…
KOS: So did you start that after Guido’s closed…
NP: Yes.
KOS: So, that’s a bit, your journey…
NP: Yes it’s a different… []
KOS: Exactly. So tell me about the end of Guido’s at Bondi Beach. So, you’re back, the
Olympics are over, it’s back to normal… (tape ends)… I was just asking, tell me about
the last couple of years of Guido’s.
AP: Ah, well the last couple of years, we ah… when we came back from after the
Olympics, I did spend a bit of money renova- doing the gelato section and everything,
with the hopes that we would be able to get a new lease, when our lease was up.
KOS: And when was the lease due to run out?
AP: 2002 -
GP: 2002
KOS: That must be around 2002…
AP: And ah, yes we put in an application and we didn’t get it, as simple as that.
KOS: How extraordinary.
AP: Well I mean…
KOS: Did you know why?
NP: We could only probably think that it was just that somebody had… well, I don’t
know.
GP: [] to think somebody offered []
KOS: It is very, it’s very strange, given that you were so well known, so iconic…
GP: That’s it, that’s it.
AP: Well I do think that possibly the council felt that it was time for a change, there was
probably – well, I know when I went to see, I’ve only been there once since, but the
design of one of the areas is just so similar to what we had put in, it’s not funny. You
know.
KOS: So you put it in, did you just expect to just get another lease?
AP: Well… we didn’t…
NP: We thought we had a pretty good chance.
AP: …we did think we had a good chance yes.
NP: We had the record and everything…
KOS: So how did you find out that you hadn’t got the lease?
AP: Didn’t we get something in the mail? []
GP: I think the letter is wrong. Can’t remember, exactly.
KOS: (softly spoken in the background)
NP: Wasn’t it just a basic thing that somebody just offered more money? It was a tender
process wasn’t there.
GP: Well, that’s it.
NP: I am not saying that should be the criteria. But maybe in that case maybe it was the
criteria.
GP: Yes, sure. Somebody offered extra.
NP: Somebody’s offered extra. But you could do, because I don’t want to say anything,
or make any suggestions…
KOS: I can look it up.
NP:…but you could investigate the article…
KOS: Yeh, I can do that.
NP: …because there was, Elizabeth – journalist – Elizabeth Win-? Wynhausen, I think?
KOS: Wynhausen – from the Herald?
NP: Yes, from the herald, she investigated some stuff…
KOS: Oh good, no, that’s helpful to tell me that because I can go away and search that
article.
NP: You can go away and search that because a few things transpired that meant there
was a second tender process. Wasn’t there? Remember, we had to tender again. So, I’ll
leave that for you…
KOS: Sure I can look that up.
AP: But you know, what can I say? If you don’t get it, you don’t get it. It’s as simple as
that.
KOS: So you don’t remember, and you didn’t get in that second tender process?
NP: We put a bid in.
AP: We put it in.
NP: …but we didn’t get that. Um, I guess, what, yeh, we were disappointed. We
thought…
KOS: It’s a huge thing. Yeh.
NP: … with the second tender because you need to know that the first tender was thrown
out. Okay, so they had awarded it to someone else, but then stuff transpired…
KOS: Questions, yeh.
NP: …and it was thrown out. So anybody who wanted to tender again could, and we did.
We did think twice about it, because we came up second, because we had then decided to
start up a process tendering for the Boy Charlton swimming pool, and we came in second
for that. Somebody else, another company got the tender but City of Sydney did let us
know we were second choice. Anyway, anyway…that’s that…
GP: []
NP: But, we had heard that…
GP: You know that []
NP: Hang on just a second. We heard that the tender process had just been thrown out.
And if we wanted to tender again for Bondi, we thought, ‘yeh, let’s do that’. And, and we
didn’t. I don’t know why we didn’t get it for any particular given reason. But then it
could well have been that they wanted more tenants. Instead of having one tenant, they
just decided ‘we don’t want the one tenant.’
AP: We didn’t even tender, though, for an exclusive…
NP: That’s right, no, we tendered only for a small, only for a small space. Yeh.
AP: Only for the area where we had the gelato –
NP: The gelato, yeh.
AP: …and into the coffee area…
NP: That’s right.
AP: The space that we had when we closed, because the rest was the - []
NP: [] Yes, that’s right. That’s right.
AP: So we only tendered for…
NP: …what we had been running really, really effectively for the past 5-10 yrs, 6 years.
AP: Yes something like that.
KOS: So, you knew that you didn’t get the tender. So you knew you had a closing date,
which would have been the end of your lease. How long before that did you know? That
you’re lease was up in six months?
AP: Oh no. No, it was not long. Was it? I think it was only about a month.
NP: Wasn’t a long time.
KOS: That’s not - I was just thinking, too, the business stuff is one thing. But there’s a lot
of that emotionally preparing yourself, not just as a person, but as a family. To not be
there... That’. I’m just wondering about…
NP: Oh, yeh, yeh.
AP: It was only about a month. It was not a long time.
NP: …and probably in a way, there might have been an underlying feeling that after 41
years ah, ‘maybe, maybe we’ve done enough. Maybe we’ve done our dash’. Or, my Mum
moved to the Hunter Valley, my Dad was retired, I had my own career…
AP: But I only moved to the Hunter Valley after we knew that we didn’t get the lease.
NP: Well that’s true.
KOS: So that was the reason for you to think ‘do I want to stay in Sydney?’, or do I want
to…
AP: And my partner at the time, he wanted to open a cancer, a skin cancer clinic in
Singleton but we had already built a []
(Gianni coughing, clearing throat)
KOS: And did you retire then, Gianni?
AP: No. Gianni was already retired.
KOS: You were already retired.
AP: In 94.
KOS: So, 94 you retired.
GP: Yeh I do believe.
NP: Guido’s Gelato Café. That’s what we… we were running the business as two kind of
entities. One was Pellicciari’s, doing coffees and the foccacias and all the savoury foods.
Which had its own kind of identity, because we had a particular staff member there,
Michelle, who was kind of very pivotal. And then we had gelato, Guido’s Gelato Café
which did desserts, coffee, gelato. So they had two kind of separate entities. So that’s the
story, there… One of them.
KOS: Yes, that’s great, thanks, I can track that story down. So, who was there on the last
day, do you remember the date – so it was ah, it would have been July.
AP: No, I think it was the 30th June.
NP: Here it is.
KOS: End of the financial year.
AP: Is that the date there? []
NP: Yes, 30th June.
KOS: 3-30 2002 June, that’s interesting…
AP: You know - there were thousands of signatures…
NP: We put out a book and asked people to sign…
KOS: Yes, Nadia’s just showing me a book, can you just turn it around, and it was
something they created and on the cover it says “we’re going but we won’t go quietly”.
Pellicari’s (pronouncing incorrectly)
NP: Pellicciari’s of Bondi…
KOS: Pellicciari’s (pronouncing incorrectly) - Sorry – my bad pronunciation –
‘Pellicciari’s of Bondi Beach will cease trading on June 30, 2002. Please feel free to
register your comments. Thanks for your support and thoughts.’ And that was just a
photocopied sheet on top of a stapled wall. White paper with people’s comments about
how they feel. That’s wonderful that you kept that.
AP: []
KOS: There’s about a ream of paper, all with comments and quotes and people’s
thoughts about the closure. Do you remember that last day?
AP: Oh, absolutely.
KOS: Who was there?
NP: We were there, um…
KOS: Was Mario there?
AP: Mario.
NP: Yeh.
KOS: Mario, you. Gianni, did you come down on the last day?
AP: No.
GP: I don’t remember…
AP: No, you didn’t.
KOS: You were there, Anne?
AP: Yeh.
NP: Michelle was there.
AP: Michelle.
NP: Michelle was worth mentioning. She was a little girl who came to us from when she
was fourteen and she, look, there are some people in life who are just so gifted. And she
had a gift and she had her own person- she’s a bit of ah- she’s known in Bondi,
everybody knows Michelle, and her Mum, Barbara. And she worked with us… anyway
when I show you photos as well, the big black and whites, there’s lots of them of
Michelle there.
KOS: What did Michelle do?
NP: She was really, chief barista, she made sensational coffee, sensational in the
kitchen…
KOS: Did she have any training?
AP: Only what she learned from us.
NP: Yeh.
KOS: Wow, because now you go off and do the barista course…
NP: And, yeh, that’s right. No, she just learned from us, she was very proactive though.
She had done her sugar, you know, her cake making course, and I think she might have
gone off and done a barista course, somewhere but she was already making coffee, she
could line up 15 coffees. I’ve got a photo…
KOS: She was just in her niche.
NP: Yeh, totally.
KOS: And she was there on the last day.
AP: On the last day, yeh.
NP: Yeh
KOS: What do you remember about that last day?
AP: A lot of people coming and wishing us well.
NP: A lot of people not believing, that it was actually going to happen. A lot of people
sort of expecting to be able to come in and get their regular, whatever it was that they
had. We had, it was one of those places, I mean there’s lots of them around, but people
would come and they just knew that all they had to do like a little great bar, walk in and
we knew what they were having, you know, and their order was ready. It was that kind of
place.
GP: Why do you think – why do you think the council they wouldn’t give us another
lease? Why?
NP: I don’t know? Why do you think?
GP: Me – and I am 99.9 right – and I am willing to fight with anybody – or argue with
anybody…
NP: Well, we don’t want that to happen, but anyway…
GP: Not fight, but argue – Corruzione- in Italian is Corruzione, in English is corruption.
Means…
NP: Oh, I didn’t want to here that.
GP: I know. Means – means, you give one thing to me, I give one thing to you. You
understand.
NP: Maybe we shouldn’t go there, it happened – they made the decision they made… end
of story.
KOS: That’s fine. The - So on the last day, were there tears?
AP: Oh, yeh.
KOS: I bet there were lots of tears.
GP: Of course.
KOS: Tears from - Who cried?
NP: My Mum!
AP: Just about everybody.
KOS: You cried, the people in there cried.
GP: []
KOS: Do you remember the last order?
AP: No…
KOS: It might sound a funny question but I had a researcher in recently, who used to go
very regularly to Bates milk bar, and loved Bates milk bar and was so upset when it was
closing that he said he went in there and he asked them when they were closing, 5 or 6 or
7, and he said he went in and he bought a can of drink and he sat and waited and then
somebody came and bought something else, and he went and bought something else and
said ‘I bought the last thing’…
NP: He wanted to be the last customer…
KOS: That’s right, he said I was the last customer he said it just like a can of coca cola or
some soft drink and the owner said ‘right that’s it’ and he opened the till, he said ‘now,
I’m pushing it closed,’ and he was there when he closed the door… and that was just his
kind of lasting memory he wanted, and I’ve only ever had []
NP: Well, what we did do, because we had a lot of stock you know like perishable
stock…
AP: [quiet voice in background] Giving away for free, weren’t we?
NP: Well, there was gelato, and we put signs up saying look just come and bring your
containers and we’ll fill it up with ice cream and take it. So we had um, we had a lot of
people doing that and they were really grateful – families with a lot of kids and a lot of
single mothers and things, you know ‘is this for real, we bring along a container and
you’ll fill it up with ice cream and I can take it home?’ – yeh, a lot of things like that.
KOS: Yes, so you had to empty your stock?
NP: Yeh, ice cream.
KOS: Do people ask you, who know you or recognize you from your time at the beach,
do you get asked ‘are you going to reopen, will you reopen’?
(telephone ringing)
NP: Ah. No, I did just have somebody ring me this morning…
GP: Hello?
NP: …because you know I teach...
(GP on telephone in foreground)
NP: [] I teach singing… at the Sydney Conservatorium []
KOS: …that’s right
(GP on telephone in foreground)
NP: …– your father said you were an opera singer…
NP: …and I had someone ring me about singing lessons and they said, ‘I had worked a
summer at your café at Bondi’ and I kind of had to go, ‘huh…oh’, so that’s kind of
funny, because it happened this morning, so it still now how ever many years – 6 yrs after
we’ve closed – there is still that reference point.
KOS: …and people knew you even though – do you have a different name for…?
NP: No, no, I was Nadia Piave then…
(AP heard talking quietly in background)
NP: (answering a question from in background) Kimberly…
(tape stops and restarts)
NP: …When we decided that being restaurateurs was not for us, we sold that part of the
business, and that’s when, and Danny’s from La Perouse took it, so that’s the restaurant
end. And where we did the take away pizza and –
AP: Can I just interrupt there?
NP: …sure?
AP: We didn’t actually sell it to Danny’s.
NP: Well, what…?
AP: We sold it back to the council because the council wouldn’t let me sell it myself…
NP: That’s right -
KOS: Wouldn’t sell it… yeh.
AP: Yeh
NP: Yeh.
AP: They bought it back… and they then they leased it…
NP: They leased it to Danny’s, right. Right.
GP: They bought it back? We gave it back free of charge.
AP: No, Gianni, you weren’t there [].
NP: Yeh, that’s right. So the really rocket operation was the one that was the take away,
the foccacias, and the breakfasts…
KOS: It seems that that’s where the heart was…
NP: Yep, totally…
KOS: … the heart of the business was in that take away and that gelato, and you did addons
and you did extra services but the heart was really there, because that’s where the
people were, weren’t you saying that’s where the return people were, that’s where the
creativity was, that’s where it begun, that was kind of your core of what you did…
NP: Absolutely…
KOS: …and even opening up the factory and having that successful retail, that
successful you know, wholesaling business to the shops and the supermarkets, when that
closed you still had that heart and you kept coming back to that heart of the business.
NP: Yep.
KOS: Because that was where it was, and where you were saying that was where the fun
was, that was where the loyalty was and that was a very different dynamic to, to being a
restaurateur…
NP: Yes…
KOS: … or that kind of thing and almost that was where the heritage was, and that was
where the European heritage was still at that heart, that’s was kind of interesting…
NP: Hearing it all makes me want to do it all over again…
AP: Yes, me too!
NP: Because it was just, it was so much fun, like we had fun. We used to work really
hard and…
AP: But then…
NP: There was just this energy in the place, you had people like Michelle, you had the
little Japanese guy who just became his ‘[reson detre]’, he was the washer-upper and he
was sensational; you had busboys who loved being busboys, and everybody had a
role…it was wonderful…
KOS: Any scriptwriters in the family – it’s a great - I am just seeing ABC…
AP: – Any scriptwriter []?
NP: [What a media -] really
KOS: It’s a classic ABC doco-, isn’t it? It’s just so, because it ties in with post-war
migration and Bondi Beach is an international and kind of iconic tourist place, family
businesses, it’s so visual. It just, it’d just be a gorgeous ABC documentary. I meant it is
just, I can see it straight away, you walking along, kind of with the coloured ice cream…
do you know what I mean. It’s just any script writer in the family, I just think it’s kind of
waiting []…
NP: Well, someone who could collaborate… I’m a good collaborator.
AP: Yes, Nadia is the one.
KOS: So going back, I just want to take you before we finish, because I do want to get
this part of the story, right back to Rome…
GP: To Rome?
KOS: To Rome.
NP: To Guido.
KOS: To Guido. Guido, how old was Guido when he left Rome to come to Australia?
GP: Approximately, approximately was 25--27, I’m not sure…
KOS: Yeh, about mid-twenties. Can you remind me again, what year was that when he
came to Australia, to []
GP: I can’t remember myself, about 1953? My brother [] 50.
KOS: About 1950.
GP: Yes, sorry, 1950.
KOS: Why does Guido get on a boat and come to Australia in 1950, what was happening
in Italy?
GP: Because he can see the potential… because in Italy they used to [the Australian]
newspaper.
AP: Can I just interrupt something? This is a really old thing on [Guido] but the date is
1956, and I think Guido might have come here in about 1954 and you came about 195-
something… 59?
GP: I don’t think so.
KOS: I am just interested about why he comes, what is not happening…
GP: Why my brother comes?
KOS: What is not happening for him in Italy, that makes uprooting yourself, going to a
country on the other side of the earth, the other side of the world, where you don’t speak
the language unless you spoke English – that’s a big leap to make as a young man – what
was he looking for in Australia or what was he going from in Italy?
GP: In Rome, at that time if you was a worker, you be a worker for long, long time.
NP: It’s a different system.
GP: Here, you could see new country…
AP: Opportunity.
GP: Opportunity, he could see, trying to [] gelato, gelato in Italy, is consider nothing
because is all just [Captain Cook, you know the boat]. And ah, he said, try – [to try, you
know], he keep try. One plus one, is two and so on. And so on and so on and we succeed.
KOS: Did you have family here? Did he come to anyone? Did he know people here?
NP: No.
KOS: He didn’t?
GP: He had woman here. From [] – []
AP: He didn’t meet her till later. He didn’t come here with her…
GP: No, no, no… He met…
AP: He came on his own.
KOS: He came on his own.
GP: Yes.
KOS: Often people come because you know…
AP: Yes, because there are family.
KOS: …there’s friends, there’s cousins, whatever going, and those really important parts
of those letters back ‘this place is fantastic, if you come I can get you a job, it’s great’,
and those kinds of letters back were a big incentive to migration…
GP: [], sorry.
KOS: People come and you know, or people send back photos, ‘look at my house, my
car, I got a job in my first week’ and that’s a big pull that brings people over and often
they would turn up with sponsors.
NP: No, Guido was your classic – out to…
AP: Adventure – and out to Australia, a new country…
NP: …adventure on his own, completely
AP: …because you’ve got to remember after the war, as well, you know…
KOS: Europe’s fairly devastated…
AP: Exactly.
KOS: …by a second…
GP: Especially –
KOS: …a second European war in less than 40 years and I know there was a lot of
despair in Europe after the war but people – how long before there is another European
war, you know, they’d just done WWI and WWII and people felt they wanted out. And
there was a lot of that. Certainly for the Greeks a little bit more, they went straight into a
civil war in Greece, and people went, there’s no hope
GP: That’s it.
KOS: … so they left in big way.
NP: …and I think it’s also, part of the interesting thing about this family story is that my
Uncle Guido really would have, if he’d lived, would have been one of Sydney’s great
restaurateur. Really would have been…
GP: Was good, Guido.
NP: He knew the industry - he grew up in – had an apprenticeship in the really great café.
[Gigi Fasi] very, very famous place, very, very famous.
KOS: Mmm.
NP: And um, he had the training, the training as an apprentice there and came, the thing
you get from that photograph, he’s wearing a bow tie, his workers are wearing bow ties,
sort of something that is kind of like ‘wow- this is sharp’...
AP: Do you know Guido could make gelato all day and never get a spot on his white
shirt. Always as you see him, always, lovely spotless white shirt…
GP: Yes, he did.
KOS: That was probably kind of the…
GP: He did work with the tie on, you know…
KOS: …with the tie.
GP: (crying…)
KOS: Did he marry at any time?
AP: He had, ah well, from when I knew him, he had a lady friend. Eventually they were
married, then eventually they also divorced.
KOS: Did they have any children?
AP: No.
KOS: There aren’t any descendents of Guido. One of the really nice things, Gianni, about
oral history and about the work that I do, is that Guido won’t be forgotten now – you
know… he lives on in your memories of him, and but he also like, for me, he lives on,
he’s part of the history, and your family is part of the history of Bondi Beach.
So that’s my job is to capture and record this, and there’s this, it’s great to get these
secondary documentary sources but to actually get your voices, and I have a commitment
to always transcribe oral history] because that’s an important part of making them
available so that they don’t just sit there on tape. But also your voices…
AP: The other thing that’s interesting, you said, did Guido have any children – Guido
couldn’t have any children, yet amazingly he was at the birth of both my children. He
was the one that took me to hospital and stayed until I had, you know, and his name was
Pellicciari, you know, so they assumed that he was their father, at the hospital, so he was
allowed not in those days you couldn’t go into the theatre, but he was allowed to stay
there and wait, and they came out and tell him, you know, ‘you’ve got a daughter’.
NP: How [exciting].
KOS: What you think about Guido now, what do you remember? Gianni, you say you
remember just this immaculate white shirt, and he could make gelatos all day and work
with food in white which you would think would be a bit of a nightmare, and yet get
nothing on him… and… what do you remember about him?
AP: I remember his kindness and his joviality…
KOS: Was he good to you?
AP: He was always very, very good… he was very good to me and both the children.
KOS: What do you remember?
NP: Um… his… Yeh, he was the uncle… he was the favourite, favourite uncle.
KOS: He was the favourite uncle.
NP: Yeh.
KOS: Did he look like your Dad?
AP: He was a happy person.
NP: Yeh.
KOS: Did he look like you?
GP: (crying a lot) Yeh.
AP: Yeh, you’ll be able to see in the photo.
NP: Something I think is interesting too, kind of from a business person’s point of view,
is that when my uncle Guido died, my Dad, who, it’s alright to say this, bit of a larrikin,
been a bit of a larrikin, right, it’s the truth, yeh, bit of a wild one, - you – he got landed
with this business that he thought would always be driven by Guido…
KOS: I was going to ask about the handover, that was my next question – I mean how
did, did he die suddenly, had he been sick?
AP: He’d been ill, he had cancer…
KOS: Did you talk about a handover and what would happen with the business…?
AP: Not really, because we didn’t think it was going to happen, it was diagnosed in
March, early March…
GP: Professor [Pozan].
AP: And Professor Pozan said he felt that he’d had the cancer for a long time and had
never been picked up… and he died on the first of April. So the professor said to us, look,
let’s hope it doesn’t linger on, because if, they had to open the back of his neck to try and
slow it down but it’s also, once they opened it they said no, he’s just not going to make it.
KOS: What kind of cancer had it been?
AP: Lung cancer.
KOS: Oh, had lung cancer.
GP: Used to smoke.
KOS: That’s right, we had the conversation about that he had been a heavy smoker.
GP: He was heavy smoker, 20 years ago he left.
KOS: How old was he when he died?
GP: Forty-four.
KOS: Oh…
GP: Guido was 44.
KOS: Really young.
GP: Yeh, yeh.
KOS: Were there any other brothers and sisters?
GP: Yeh, had another younger brother in Africa… he got, he died, he in a parachute, at
the time of Mussolini.
KOS: Oh?
AP: During the war…
GP: During the Second World War.
KOS: Did he ever, he didn’t ever come to Australia, he stayed in…?
GP: My brother…
AP: He died during the war?
KOS: Yeh, but did he – was he, was he an Italian soldier or Australian Soldier?
AP: Italian.
GP: No, he was Italian...
KOS: That’s what I mean, so he never…
GP: No, at that time mongrel Mussolini –
KOS: Ok.
GP: You know Mussolini?
KOS: Yes, Yes.
GP: Bastard.
KOS: So he was there, and yeh, maybe one of the reasons that Guido decided to come to
Australia?
AP: Could be.
GP: Yeh
AP: …and his two sisters as well, they are still surviving. In Italy.
KOS: And they were never interested in coming to Australia?
GP: Yeh.
AP: They come to visit for holiday, oh, yes. Not to live.
GP: Once she come 4-5 times, Maria.
AP: Lost count.
KOS: And where are you in the family? So Guido is older than you?
GP: Yeh, I was the youngest.
KOS: Oh, so you were the youngest, you were the baby.
GP: Yes, I was the baby.
KOS: Then the eldest sisters are still alive.
AP: There is the elder sister, Maria. I don’t know how, where she []…
GP: She was the wife of Professor Matematica, my brother-in-law was a Professor
Matematica.
AP: …and then there was Guido.
GP: Sorry, he used to do matematica for the French Government, for the atomic bloody
bomb. But he died, the bloody crook. My brother-in-law and he’s got two sons. Well, it’s
very true.
NP: First time I have ever heard of this…
GP: What do you mean?
AP: The very first time!
GP: Don’t you know Andrea used to be a mathetica professor…
AP: I knew Andrea was a Professor of mathetics in [Milan].
NP: Could be true, long term memory.
GP: What you mean, could be true?
NP: No, I believe you. Actually, I believe you.
GP: I can tell you – I still got 2 nephew – one is professor – he teaching at university of
Palermo. One. The other is a bank manager, he works – I don’t know, and I got another
niece, Francesca, you know her, Francesca – she is in Rome…
NP: But this is…
AP: Nothing to do with []
KOS: I was just wondering, so Guido came out, and I just wondered if there was any
family migration around that…
GP: Just me.
NP: Apart from Dad.
(tape stops and starts again)
KOS: …going to finish with a vignette from Nadia.
NP: It’s kind of just that whole Italian thing, and I do remember one particular Christmas
when we had our Christmas down there and my aunty was here and of course, it was 40
degrees outside and we were in, it might have been raining but she had prepared a classic
kind of European meal, baked lasagna and I can’t remember what else it was and here we
were in this beach setting having this baked lasagna. (end tape)