#36 Waifro Venanzio Bignotti | 90 yo Italian Immigrant's life story... one of hard work

Known to me as ‘Uncle Jack’, Waifro is the uncle of Kimberlie Brown’s (Episode #21) partner Robbie.

Being 90, the time to capture his stories, in his own voice, is clearly sooner rather than later… so here we go!

I had never actually met Jack until 5 mins before rolling the camera and was pleasantly surprised at the strong will which runs through his story. A central spine of hard work for hard work’s sake. A recipe seemingly counter-intuitive to modern sensibilities. In a world now that  doesn’t enforce hard work as the cost of one’s survival, it’s interesting to me to consider its place for the individual…

Evidently, at least as far as the survival instinct is concerned, working full-boil for 80+ years seems to have worked for Jack!

Chapters

• 0:00 Sand Quarry Work
• 4:37 Wartime Italy
• 9:10 Growing Up in Italy (Farm, factory, Army)
• 22:42 Moving to Aus
• 26:05 Way of Life in Italy
• 33:30 Early Aus Life
• 49:50 Cairns
• 52:45 Quarry Business
• 1:01:10 Longevity & Girls
• 1:04:45 Mortality & Regrets
• 1:09:12 World Changes
• 1:14:00 Robbie’s Parents’ Love Story