The Gift 21 05 11

THE GIFT

Carmine Nicola Scalzi

DEDICATION Alla mia familia e amici

APPRECIATION Thank you to my wife Ennia for your love and comfort and for allowing me to find myself. To my father Felice for your unconditional love and your lessons. To my mother Carmela for your mother love and unending support. To my two sons Felice and Eduardo for giving me the future. To my sister Filomena for being everything I needed you to be. To my aunt Leonilda for being my Italian heart. To Andrew Tobin for interpreting my life experiences. To my many close and respected friends who live in my two homes - Italy and Australia. And to my grandparents Carmine and Filomena who were incomparable.

Aria di Zolli

Le nuvole il cielo Perche' e' diverso?

Sono passati tanti anni E non e` cambiato niente Mi manchi Perche` mi manchi cosi tanto?

La Tua energia la Tua forza Il Tuo immenso calore Si trasmettono a traverse le mie vene Aria di Zolli E` cosi forte e rilasante, dolce e amabile Mi dai vita e gioia Mi fai piangere E` mi vuoi bene Si, Ti voglio Bene Come Ti Amo Non ti posso lasciare Sarai sempre con me Ti voglio bene Le tue braccia Sono sempre aperte Lo Vedo Lo Sento Lo Vivo Ti Voglio Bene Aria di Zolli

INTRODUCTION Life is many things. For some it's a battle or even a war, for others merely a struggle. For many it's mundane; filled with simple pleasures and simple joys. Then there are those whose life is a starburst of incredible energy and achievement. Sometimes you're not the best person to judge the trajectory of your life because what you thought was a particular path turns out, in the opinion of the people with whom you shared your life, to have been a completely different road.

What I am unshakable on, however, is that my life has been a gift that so many people have contributed to. Almost everyone I have met has enriched me and while those closest to me, my family, have borne the brunt of my struggles and shared in the joys of my triumphs, the ripple effect of a life well lived reaches many parts beyond our vision and even our knowledge.

Through this book it is my intention to contribute to the life of others in the same way so many good people have contributed to my life. I have been given a gift and now I am sharing that gift with you, dear reader.

Take from it every good intention and if you find something that causes you disquiet please dismiss it as just an old man's opinion. If you take this gift to your heart and are inclined to share it with those close to you then you and I are the same and I thank you, friend, for your part in my joyous life.

Charlie Scalzi

PREFACE The basket was my fortress, my world. My mother balanced it on her head as I wriggled in it, imagining myself being transported to strange places, battling dragons along the way and sometimes, after a long day playing in the fields, I would curl up in it and drift off to sleep.

My father would lift me from the basket and carry me to bed even though I would have rather remained within its cramped quarters drifting between sleep and the snippets of adult conversation. Farmers talk of plants, animals, the weather, the scarcity of supplies and the soaring price of whatever it was we couldn't make ourselves, from salt to freshly woven baskets.

If I had ever thought of matters reproductive I would have assumed the basket was where I was born. I imagined I started life as a seed within the basket and was nurtured by my mamma and pappa and nonna and nonno, emerging every now and then to play with my sister and cousins and other village children before being returned to the basket to rest and grow.

It was my first world within another tiny world known as Zolli. Of course, at the time, I didn't think of Zolli as tiny, I thought of it as everything. There was nothing beyond Zolli and Zolli gave me everything I needed. In reality it is a tiny village in the Campania region of Italy, about three hours drive south of Rome, but reality is a very different creature to a young boy who lived in a two-storey palace that had no running water, no electricity, no amenities and no internal walls! It was a palace for no reason other than it was our home. The land had been given to my pappa by his pappa, my nonno and together they had built it, next door to where my nonno and nonna lived and into this kingdom I came, maybe by the basket, maybe not, but I was there, a prince in my principality paying homage to the sovereigns of my world, my parents and grandparents.

They say the only difference between us when we were six years old and now is that now we know more and it is the six year old who sustains us through life. But what happens if we continue to grow, but we lose the child? I know how it feels because I lost that boy who owned and ruled his world. He disappeared when, at 11 years I moved to another country and he became a casualty of culture shock. His world evaporated and he with it.

When he disappeared my sense of self was rocked and I didn't know who I was supposed to be. I became frustrated and easily angered but I could hear this voice calling me all the way from Zolli and, as a young man with a wife and two young sons of my own I knew I could never be whatever I needed to be as a husband and father until I found that little boy, that slayer of dragons. He was my core so I journeyed back to where I was born and in the tears of recognition and regret I found him and he was still strong so I absorbed him and was whole again. This is the story of that boy's idyllic life, the youth's loss and ultimately the triumph of the young man. The boy's early life was the gift my parents and grandparents gave me and this book, full of the wisdom I developed through their generosity is my gift to you. Absorb it so you can pass on the gift.

CHAPTER ONE FROM THE SOIL TO A PLACE LIKE HEAVEN People of Zolli are creatures of the soil. We are farmers and the children of farmers who have sent ourselves around the world to use our strong backs and our hardened hands to labour our way to economic stability and to riches.

In my family alone we have gone to America, Belgium, Argentina and, of course, the luckiest came to this lucky country – Australia. Wherever we found ourselves we worked at what we could to build a respectable life for ourselves. Farming was in our blood but it wasn't always possible for us to arrive in a new country and buy a plot that we could work and which could support us, but we never forgot from where we came.

The address is Zolli, Roccasbascerana, Avellino, Italy. The Campania region if you want to get technical, but when you get to Zolli what you'll find is a collection of simply constructed buildings and a group of people living a simple life, even today.

But when I was a boy, born shortly after the end of World War II, life was a lot simpler.

The house, for starters, built by my grandfather for his two sons and their families was an astonishingly uncomplicated structure consisting of two floors one on top of the other with no internal walls. The house had no electricity, no running water and no amenities.

We didn't need a toilet, because there were fields and while life was hard, it was only hard when I look back from the comfort of my achievements.

As a boy it was what I knew, it was all I knew so it wasn't hard, it was my life. When we needed water my sister Filomena and I would walk the 800 or so metres to the village fountain and there we filled our clay pots and trudged home with our daily supply. It was no big deal, it was simply what we did.

My mother would cook with wood on her stove that doubled as the home heater. Candles were lit at night for light and my mother would say her Rosary by firelight. Often my mother would be joined by neighbours and they turned our little home into a temporary church. When Rosary was said at grandfather's house the atmosphere was a little more sombre but if all the grandchildren were present we would, more often than not, collapse into giggles as grandfather said the Rosary in what, to us, was a litany of funny words.

Nonno’s look was severe but we were emboldened because we knew his heart was tender.

By the time my older sister was born we had the whole house to ourselves after my father's brother had moved to Belgium where he worked in the mines.

Today, on that same spot I have built a new house with all the amenities you'd expect from a modern abode but next door are buildings in the style ours once was.

My father and grandfather farmed their plots and we ate what we grew and what we nurtured. There were chickens that gave us eggs, sheep that gave us milk and wool and pigs and rabbits that fed us well. Our diets were good because they were simple, made up of hand reared meat and seasonal vegetables and food we made from crops we grew.

Bread and pasta from the wheat, polenta from the corn, oil from the olives, wine from the grapes ‌ and what we didn't have we'd get by trading with other villagers. The only thing I remember buying was salt.

I also remember, in deep mid winter when food was scarce for the birds and they would come close to the house looking for scraps. I had a board, about a metre square that I would prop at an angle supported by a stick and attached to the stick was a long piece of string that went all the way to the house where I hid. Beneath the board I had scattered grains as a lure for the birds, robin red breasts and sparrows, and when a number of birds had gathered beneath the board I yanked the string in one, swift motion and the board would come crashing down on the birds.

With this ruse I would normally catch either four of five birds and if the board hadn't killed them I would twist their necks and once they were dead I would remove their feet, beaks and feathers and stuff a cleaned bird into a hollowed out potato along with some lard or pig's fat and a pinch of salt and cook the stuffed potato in the glowing embers of my mother's fire.

When the potatoes were black I would remove them and peel off the blackened bits before feasting on my bounty with relish. It was a delicious supplement to our diet and I can't deny the adventure of capturing my own snacks made them all the more desirable.

Of course, at the time it wasn't about combining an adventure with a hearty meal, but rather the way things were and it is only looking back that I realise just how lucky we were.

From the forest floor we would pick wild asparagus and berries and any fruit that fell on the ground was there for the picking up by fleet-footed children.

Food plays an important part in village life because it is so often associated with ritual and, of course, the time involved in its preparation. One of the unexpected and most eagerly anticipated treats of the years would happen with the first fall of snow. We would rush out and scoop up the fresh snow in a bowl and mother would sprinkle vinocotto over it. Now this was the sweet wine made from the first crush of the grapes and the deep red sprinkled over the fresh white snow created a sorbet-like delicacy the children would relish.

Vinocotto holds a special place in my heart because today I pride myself as probably as good a maker of this unusual, delicate wine as anyone, anywhere. People who have tasted mine say it's the best drop they've had anywhere. That's flattering but all they ever score is a drop, because I make not much of it and it has to last a long, long time.

In 1998 I was driving at la Baia del re between Bologna and Milano and found, at the exit of Modena Sud a business run by the Del Vecchi family where they make balsamic vinegar which is used as a dressing on ice cream, cheese, boiled meats, salads and adds a beautiful flavour to whatever it is accompanying. The taste of that balsamic vinegar reminded me of my vinocotto, which is the basis of balsamic.

Perhaps it's because the word balsamic is often followed by vinegar that has caused it to

be devalued in some parts of the world, but once I visited the Del Vecchi family's acetaio or vinegar house where vinegar was aged the old fashioned way, and boy was it complicated!

The authentic balsamic vinegar, which is produced under strict rules and codes, is placed into seven barrels each made of a different type of wood. Each barrel had been prepared by holding vinegar so the wood absorbed the flavour of the vinegar. Once the vinegar is removed it is replaced by the vinocotto to age and is left there for at least seven years before it is ready for consumption. The vinocotto would absorb the vinegar flavour from the barrel to give you balsamic vinegar. Makes you re-think your opinion of this humble liquid.

Another liquid that fulfilled several functions for us was the milk the sheep donated to our family. Only the children got to drink the milk, probably because it was in short supply, but most of it was used to make cheese.

The first was aquagliata or curd cheese which was like a jelly just as it starts to set. My mother would ladle it on the bread for us to eat and later the aquagliatta became a hard cheese. The second was the better known ricotta, which means re-cooked. We would spread the ricotta cheese on bread and sprinkle with sugar and eat as a yummy treat and when the cheese making was done the o sievero (liquid) left over was a milky mixture with small pieces of cheese floating in it. The o sievero would be poured into a bowl where pieces of broken, even slightly stale bread would be waiting, that would absorb the liquid which would then be fed to the children, much to our delight. A sciuscell was a container woven from the fine branches of weeping willow trees that allowed the cheese to drain and after it had drained and set, a process that might take up to a week, it was put on a casulaio a hanging tray not far from the fire to thoroughly dry out before being put in the cellar to mature.

The humidity and cold of Zolli conspired to create the perfect climatic conditions for food preservation. Even the bread, which was made with no preservative whatsoever, lasted an inordinately long time but we had a special dish for bread that was too old to be treated in the traditional way. It would be softened with water and sprinkled with oil, oregano and salt and was a delight to eat.

It wasn't all about food mind you, because I did go to school. The village school during my time there was home to 16 students ranging from grades one to three all under the care of one female teacher. School hours were from 9am to 12.30 and we were expected to all appear resplendent in our uniforms which, for the boys included white shirts and blue bow ties and the girls were distinguished by red bow ties. We were polite and respectful to the teacher and we learned to read and write and were told stories and poems (poesie) which were always strong on morality and religion but above all encouraged children to respect the elderly.

My favourite story was the tale of the young father who was disrespectful of his elderly father who had come to the table with his bowl for food and, after being served his food, his hands shook and he dropped the bowl. His son yelled at him for being clumsy and the grandson rushed over to retrieve the pieces of the broken bowl. The intolerant young

father asked his son what he thought he was doing to which the young son replied he was collecting the pieces so he could put the bowl back together to ensure that his dad, the intolerant young father, would have something to eat out of when he got old. The father was taken aback by the lesson his son had just taught him and from that day on treated his own father with love and respect. I loved that story because it made me realise how important it is to cherish our elderly and how easy it is to forget them.

The good thing about being village children was that there was no fear about working us too hard because we expected to be worked hard and the area in which the school excelled in educating us was mathematics. Our times tables were drummed into us and because my mother thought I wasn't learning them fast enough she hired a tutor to make sure I didn't miss out and with this tutor every time I did miss out I knew about it because she would deliver me a very painful pinch. Now I know her methodology would not be tolerated today but I'm not planning any delayed court action against her, because it has been my thorough grasp of maths that has allowed me to succeed so well in all my businesses.

Given we spent so few hours in school it meant most of the day I was under the tutelage of my father before he left for Australia and under my grandfather once my father had migrated. Both men had similar qualities but because my grandfather was more set in his ways his qualities were probably more highly developed in my child's eyes. He believed you learned by observing, rationalising he could either tell you something a hundred times or you could watch him do it a few times before having a go yourself and there was less energy expended by letting you observe than by talking.

My nonno was not a talker. He could issue a command with a nod or bark an order with a raised eyebrow and when we were at his house at meal time we ate at the table and we ate everything our grandmother put in front of us or we went home. That was it, no negotiations, no tantrums and we, the children, loved the regime, because it gave us the confidence to know our place and to actually thrive.

We obviously knew we were loved and we knew exactly what we could get away with.

We could get away with sword fights with sticks because of what we learned from Zorro at Dopo L'voro, a public venue where the village had its first television and where I first met Zorro through the magic of that flickering little screen.

I could get away with getting into fights with other boys provided I wasn't picking on anyone and I could certainly get away with it if I was putting a bully in his place, particularly if he was bigger than me and being cheered on by his family!

I got away with stealing money from mum because she never found out and for a long time I got away with collecting the eggs of a wayward hen which had decided to lay in a strange place in our garden. I traded the eggs at the grocer for biscuits or chocolate.

But it was love of ill-gotten chocolate that finally undid me because in one of the parcels we'd received from Boston in America was a box of chocolates that my sister and I stole and wolfed down before heading off to the water fountain for our daily supply.

As we were filling our containers a very strong urge came over both of us to rush into the fields but here there were no obliging trees to shield our modesty and we had to make do with a low slung wall. It was an explosive and lengthy visit and when we finally got home thoroughly drained, mother wanted to know why we had been away so long and we had to confess. She laughed loudly at our mischief and its drastic consequences explaining the chocolate we had swiped were laxatives. Never again, I swore to myself.

Life had a much worse fate in store for my cousin whose father had sent his sister, my mother the parcel that contained the chocolate laxatives. Zi Nicola or Uncle Nicola who left Zolli before I was born became a rich and successful man in Boston and his son inherited those riches only to lose everything when he was led astray by criminal gangs. I can't help but wonder if that fate would have befallen him if he had spent his early years in Zolli? But then again, who am I kidding, Zolli wasn't some magical kingdom, just a tiny Italian village that seemed entirely magical to me once I had left it.

Zi Nicola holds a special place in my heart. I met him for the first time when I was about five and the rich, successful American came to visit his sister, my mother, and rain some of his hard-earned riches on the part of the family he had left behind. To me he was a larger than life figure. He called me “cavaliere� or cavalier the renowned swordfighters, so naturally that sat well with me. When he dined with us he would insist I sat next to him and I happily abandoned my place at the childrens' table to bask in his affection. I named my second son after Zi Nicola's second son as a way of honoring him and in 1983 I went to Boston to meet the remainder of Zi Nicola's family including his wife Mary who, by then, was an old woman with fond memories of village life.

Even though we didn’t use the word, psychology played a big part in village life. To help the adults control the children were La Fata, the fairy who rewards good children, while, if you were bad Jesus would punish you and if you were really, really bad the inferno awaited and lies would make your nose grow like Pinocchio.

I remember my mother using the phrase vene o mammone or here comes the bogeyman but the only thing I was really afraid of was incurring the displeasure of my parents and grandparents.

The day in Zolli, as in villages everywhere would start before dawn when the men of the family would rise before the sun and disappear into the field to work and at nine o'clock the wives would take them their breakfast in the field that was fed by a gently flowing river. Usually it was my mother taking my father his food and sometimes the children tagged along.

I remember one hot summer day when my mother had taken my father his food and I had followed five minutes later. My father had jumped into the river to bathe and had obviously persuaded my normally reserved mother to join him. There they were in the water, two young, strong people of the land, embracing and making the most of their precious moments alone. It was only an instant's glance before I averted my gaze but the scene has stayed in my eyes all these years. After that I had no desire to repeat witnessing my parents' desire for each other so I made sure I either went with my mother when she headed off to the field or I simply didn't go. It's not the sort of surprise a young boy wants

with any frequency, if at all!

Living in tiny houses in the village in close proximity to other family members meant traditions evolved to ensure the young had their opportunities. After all, carnality had to be pursued if village life was not going to die out! Apart from the river where people bathed and where we caught little fish, a favourite haunt for young lovers was the cornfields at harvest time. An unusual instance of reaping and sowing in the same season.

When the corn was harvested it was piled into a pillar called catasta. Most of the corn harvested was the gold we know corn to be, but every now and then there would be a brown ear of corn and whenever one of these was found, whoever found it could kiss the person of his choosing! The brown corn was called zingarella and, as you can imagine was much sought after by young people living in an essentially controlled environment.

The protection provided by the pillar of corn was the place for romantic assignations. The air was warm, the shelter cosy and the opportunity seasonal.

I became something of an expert in the relationships around Zolli after I got my first real job at the age of six collecting the scattered bundles of wheat that had been bunched and tied together by the adults and I would contribute to the growing pile four bundles at a time. Young couples were less discrete when a child was hovering nearby and the behaviour they indulged in was positively reckless. But entertaining for a young boy.

Collecting the spicula or left over wheat in the field was done with the aid of a mantisino or an apron out of which we made a bag by grasping the bottom of the apron and holding it to our chest with the spicula nestled in the pocket that created. The spicula would be put into sacks to be sold.

I remember watching my mother shearing the sheep and my grandmother spinning the wool she collected before they would knit socks, scarves, hats and jumpers then dye them with the help of walnut skins.

As children our play was work and we would pick beans from the smaller plots our parents and grandparents tended, while tomatoes and fruit would be sliced and left to dry so we could eat them unseasonally either as dried produced or in conserves.

Two wooden rods joined together by a leather loop was called o vavillo and was used to break the husks of the beans. Like modern day numchucks we would swing the stick and the smaller piece would hit the pile of beans with tremendous force. When grandfather (or nonno as I called him) determined the husks had been sufficiently beaten he would get a wooden shovel or pala and use it to toss the beans in the air. The husks would float away on the slightest breeze and the heavier, huskless beans would fall to earth in an obliging pile. A sifter would be used to remove any husks that had drifted onto the pile of beans.

My favourite task, as a child, was helping my family with the entire wine making process, from pruning, cultivating the soil, assisting preparing the copper liquid from copper stones used for spraying, picking the grapes and actually turning the harvest into wine. Some of the grapes were sold to local winemakers and what was left was for my

father and grandfather to make wine for own consumption and for the sales to wine merchants that come from the city of Napoli.

The highlight for me was the start of the crushing process, when my feet would be washed in almost scalding water and I would be lowered into the giant tub holding the grapes and invited to start stomping up and down. The squelch of the grapes being squeezed between my toes was always a thrill but not nearly as big a thrill as watching the blood red juice dribble and squirt from the grapes and as the liquid rose it stained my feet then my shins and finally almost up to my knees. I stooped and scooped some of the juice in my hands to taste what I had made. It was my work that had done it and for years I was convinced that was all there was to being a great wine maker!

My papa and nonno never dissuaded me from my deceptive views of my own ability but slowly, slowly they taught me everything they knew about wine making to the point that today out of everything I've done in life, it is the time I've spent growing my grapes and making my wine that has given me my greatest reward. It not only connects me to the land but, being the son of a winemaker who was the son of a winemaker and so on into the distant past, it connects me with my ancestors and now, through the involvement of my son and grandson in the winery, it also is a hand reaching out to my descendants.

In this way, in equal doses of love and deception my early years passed. It was here I learned all the important things I needed to learn to survive and much wiser people than me have come independently to the same conclusion – love really is all you need. The love of your parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins – you can never get too much love, affection and care and what I do know is when an old farmer tells you something, listen, because a farming background teaches you all the important information you need as a human being to survive!

And two of the important lessons I remembered were these: Life was simple and pleasures were special.

Pleasures such as the day we received a parcel from dad in Australia which had raincoats for my sister and me. Happily it was raining the day we got them so we put them on and rushed outside and splashed around in the cold wet. Unhappily we came down with bronchitis which was the only medical challenges we faced in our years in Zolli. The treatment, if I remember correctly, was cooked apples and our own home grown chamomile or ricotto as we called it as well as a more exciting remedy where mum would get a raw egg, make a pin hole top and bottom and we would suck out the contents. Other times mum would beat the yolk till it was creamy and add some marsala a l'uovo to create a drink that was so delicious it was worth getting sick just to sip it! Incidentally, the drink had an alcohol content of 18 per cent, so you can see we were trained early to manage our alcohol! The almost cavalier use of injections was a not so sweet side of claiming ill health in an Italian village in the ’50s.

When dad decided to seek his future in another country we all had to go to Rome so he could get a passport and it was in this big city that I had my first experience with a flushing toilet. My sister and I had gone into a cubicle in a hotel and while I was sitting there like royalty on a throne she pressed the flush and the sensation of water rushing

over my bottom was truly frightening. I ran crying to my parents who laughed long and hard at my misfortune.

So dad left when I was 5 and for the years he was away my grandfather quite naturally assumed the role of principal male in my life then one day mum, my sister and I went to the port in Naples to welcome home my dad. When I saw my father who had been away for nearly five years my sister and I rushed up to him and grabbed a leg each and begged him to never leave us again.

My dad was full of stories about Australia. “Guess what they'll call you in Australia?” he asked, “Charlie,” he answered and I instantly liked the sound of my new name. My dad tried to resettle in Zolli but the lure of Australia was proving too great and particularly now that he had infected my mother with his dream. She too, wanted to go while, for my sister and me it sounded like yet another adventure and so long as we were with mum and dad we were happy to make our home wherever they made theirs.

I remember mum and dad having heated discussions about the financial strain they were under as dad struggled to find work in Naples. Mum was keen to get away from the village and dad was full of talk about how anyone could make a go of it in Australia. Dad had a brother in Australia and mum had two brothers and a sister also in Australia so the appeal to move there was great. It was the land of opportunity, real opportunity, he kept saying and when he just couldn't find any lasting work in Naples, and with my mother agitating for the flight to Australia, all of us finally went to Rome for our passports.

What made the trip truly special for me was my dad convincing his parants to accompany us not only to Rome, which was spectacular enough, but to the fabled Vatican which, for my grandparents was the closest thing to heaven on earth. I remember the sense of awe they expressed on that visit and the sense of reverence that enveloped all of us but particularly bathed nonna in a constant halo glow. I think she felt the heaven to which she would finally venture would be just like the ordered world of the Vatican and in that celestial world, her favourtie Pope would act as her personal guide. It still makes my eyes fill with water when I remember the joy that journey gave my grandmother.

For me, however, while it was certainly magical going to the heart of what was the Holy Roman Empire, the real magic started when we boarded the ship for the long journey to our new home.

The excitement of heading to a new home was tempered by our goodbyes to my beloved nonno and nonna. I didn't know I would never see them again and the sight of my father returning the key to our house to his father for safe keeping touched me but didn't register in the way it would many years later. At the time I just wanted to go to Australia and I didn't comprehend what I was leaving behind.

We arrived in Freemantle and mother had a brother who lived in Perth so we got off the ship and he showed us around his new home. We stayed ashore too long and when we returned to the port in Freemantle the ship had left! I could see dad's sister on board the ship crying her eyes out because she was relying on her brother to take her ashore. A speedboat whisked us to the ship and we clambered aboard via a rope ladder much to our

relief and to a particularly relieved aunt. As you can imagine, the short ride in the speedboat and clamber aboard the larger vessel was, for me, the highlight of the trip. The ship finally docked in Melbourne and we caught a train to the city that was to become my home – Adelaide.

Once we had settled in Adelaide I expected my life to continue much as it had in Zolli but, of course, it didn't. In Adelaide I looked around for all that had been familiar to me in Zolli, simple things such as a chocolate wafer biscuit, chocolate topped ice cream, or Easter eggs with a surprise inside, or the lemonade I was used to and my much-loved poppy flowers that would grow in the heat and sway in the breeze in the open fields along the river. They made such an impression on a young boy that I wrote this poem to immortalise the memory.

IL MIO PAPAVERO

TI HO INCONTRATO DA BAMBINO E’ VISSUTO CON ME TI HO LASCIATO MA SEI RIMASTO CON ME TI PENSAVO E NE PARLAVO ERI SPESSO NELLE MIE PAROLE LA TUA BELLEZZA ERA NEI MIEI OCCHI IL TUO COLORE STUPENDO NON SI E’ MAI CANCELLATO DOPO TANTO TEMPO SONO TORNATO E NON HAI CAMBIATO SEMPRE BELLO E STUPENDO COME TI HO LASCIATO TI HO TROVATO

Today my tastes have adapted to relish the flavours of this country but as an 11-year-old boy the absence of what I had known left me particularly alienated. Today a person coming from Italy would find in Adelaide everything they had left behind but all those years ago what was Italian stayed in Italy and we had to get used to different sensations and different customs. As a child I didn't understand issues such as culture shock but being a young wog who had no English I was considered an idiot by an education system

that valued language alone. I was well advanced in my maths but not having the language forced me into a class that was at least two years behind me. As a result school became boring and my failure in a system that expected me to fail, was guaranteed. The sense of isolation I experienced in school was crippling. I muddled and finally sank in the system and left at the first opportunity.

At 16 years and having completed only first year of high school my choices were to either carry on at school or learn a trade. But, because of my poor English and, being a perfectionist I thought I couldn't manage an academic career and reasoned if I started by learning a trade I could build to create what I wanted and needed.

So, having chosen the trade path I went knocking on doors and one of the doors I knocked on was the Government Printing Office where I was asked if I was an Australia citizen. I said I wasn't and the man said they couldn't give me a job unless I was an Australian citizen. I ran home all excited and started the process to get my citizenship. It took me three months and when I was a citizen I went back to the Government Printing Office only to be turned away without an explanation. In my young mind I could only think I was rejected because of my Italian ancestry.

From then on I learned to rely on my Italian connections and worked as a gardener with my dad, doing a sort of Jim's Mowing round as well as learning all the tricks of the building trade.

My grandfather had taught me to learn by looking and it was a lesson I had learned well.

I watched my father tending to gardens which was a natural extension of his farming background and one day when dad was too sick to work I went on my own and did a day's gardening and was staggered when the old man who owned the property gave me three pounds for my day's work. It was a huge amount and I felt like a man who could finally contribute to his family.

I also worked selling The News on street corners and still today I can hear my booming call of “Get your Red Spot here,” the red spot being the last edition of the day. I must have had a booming voice because I was frequently cautioned about the decible level of my exhortations to get your red spot here!

Brothers Pat and Joe Scalzi and I worked together in a number of enterprises. Together we sold newspapers, pies and pasties in the pubs in the days when all you could get there was alcohol and under the guidance of the older and more enterprising Pat, we bought watermelons from the East End market and sold them Zolli style “con la prova” which meant with a try. We had a long, thin knife with which we would cut a square to the core so the customer could be guaranteed the quality of the melon.

Pat must have loved the fruit and vegetables more than we did because he went on to establish a very successful fruit and vegetable business, while Joe graduated as a high school teacher before entering politics and becoming an MP. In 1966 I started work as an apprentice plumber before getting the opportunity the following year to work in an area that was a great passion of mine – motor cars. I went on

to become an auto technician and establish Monza Motors and that business looked after my family and me very well.

But then the illness started to take hold. I had a loving wife, two beautiful sons and a thriving business, so what was missing? I knew and I didn't know and my wife Ennia was in a similar position. She'd heard me pine for my village and saw me start to physically deteriorate and told me, in fact almost ordered me, to return to Zolli. Despite all the trappings of personal and public success I was losing my patience with some frequency and my health, so without really knowing why, I packed my bags to return to Zolli. My traveling companion was my brother-in-law, Carlo who was six years older than me and had arrived in Australia as an 18-year-old. The plan was for him to visit his and my wife’s family in the north of Italy while I returned to Zolli.

The year was 1979 and I was almost 30 years old and it had been 19 years since I had left Italy. In the intervening years both my grandparents had died so I wasn't returning for the people who meant so much to me but for the place that nurtured me. At some level I knew what it was that ailed me. I had become disconnected from the source of my strength, my supportive and loving childhood and I needed to re-connect with that fearless 11-year-old who had been primed to conquer the world. I was hoping to meet him again in Zolli, but in truth I did not know if he still existed. It was a journey of faith, tinged with uncertainty.

I landed in Naples and spent the night there and at about 10 am the next day I left Naples, in a Fiat 850 sedan driven by my father's brother, Giuseppe, and headed to Zolli.

Something profound must have been taking place in me and, as we drove along the winding road and finally saw the sign announcing my village, my eyes started to stream.

A tap was turned on and the tears cascaded down my face and my nose started to run in that uncontrollable way when you are totally in the grip of your emotions. My uncle stopped the car while I continued to cry and he made understanding noises that it was good I felt so strongly about a place that was once my home. And still housed the little boy I needed to find, I thought to myself. Uncle Giuseppe patted me on my leg and said a simple “it's ok”. Slowly, slowly the tears stopped and I composed myself before my uncle drove me into Zolli and stopped outside the house in which I had been born and where I spent my first 11 years.

My uncle handed me the same key I had seen my father hand to my grandfather and because time had aged my uncle to look like his father it felt as if my grandfather was handing me back the key to my house. I took the key and walked to the front door, put the key in the lock and turned it twice because the lock was a double tumbler. The door opened and I walked into the world I had visited often in my dreams of the previous 19 years. Again the tears streamed down my cheeks as the ghosts flooded back and there was my mother and father and sister and me all those years ago. I'm home, I thought, the little boy has returned. But as nostalgic as the images were, they were fleeting and I suddenly realised why my father left and why my mother was so eager to leave – the house was uninhabitable.

In the three months I was there I made the choice that Australia really was my home. It

was where my wife and my children lived and where my business was based. Like my father before me I chose what was best for my family and for me. In that instance I had found the strength that I had so desperately searched for since I had left Zolli. In that instance I had reconnected with the fearless boy and I knew I was in control. No one could tell me what to do. I was finally a man.

In the next three days I visited every house in Zolli, which was more than 50, and reintroduced myself to every family. I was welcomed at every house and at the local shop where villagers gathered for a communal drink my fellow villagers fought with one another to buy me a drink.

In the years since 1979 I have made about 40 trips to Zolli. They have been therapeutic for me. I have knocked down the old house in which I was born and built a new one in its place.

Today I move comfortably between my two worlds, propelled by external demands rather than any internal demons. Adelaide and the Barossa is where I work and where my future lies and Zolli is the past, another country, that I’m lucky enough to be able to visit whenever my soul needs to wallow in memories or my spirit needs rejuvenating.

Australia is a country of migrants so I’m not alone in this quandary, but a fiend of mine described the country of his birth as his mother and father’s house and Australia as the place where his wife and children live. We all choose where we live and I’ve chosen to live with my wife and children and grandchildren and visit my mother and father’s house.

CHAPTER TWO NONNO'S DAY OF THE PIG The piglets were never pets. My grandfather, whom I called nonno, kept them in a room under the stairs and our relationship with them was always respectful. The stairs were external and not there any more and beneath the stairs was a door that connected the outside world to the sty, which was under the main roof of the house but separated from the dwelling by an internal, dark blue sandstone wall. The wall was removed at about the same time the staircase went as the house was modernised and pigs were banished to remote parts of the garden, but this was a time when the pigs shared our shelter.

To my grandfather I was minuccio and I adored and trusted him and whatever his attitude to anything, I mimicked it. The chickens, the rabbits, the sheep and the pigs were all part of our large, extended family. We nurtured them and they fed us, sometimes with eggs, sometimes with milk and sometimes with flesh.

Nonno and my grandmother nonna, lived next door to us, the rulers of their world and as is the order of any kingdom, their son, my dad Felice and his wife, my mother, Anna Carmella and known as Carmella and the two children, my sister, Filomena and me, Carmine, named after my beloved nonno, were their faithful subjects.

It was easy being faithful to nonno. He was wise and fair, a man who knew everything there was to know within the limits of his world. The seasons, the songs of the land, the needs of his animals, the call of the crops, the respect of his family and neighbours, my nonno was a man who was completely at peace with his universe. Of course it couldn't last, but the tears were for another time and, as a boy, I felt his completeness and reveled in his authority. The villagers called him Don Carmine as a sign of the respect they had for him. He couldn't read and he couldn't write, but he saw things and he remembered what he saw and, as a result, he knew things. He had so much to teach me and I was always eager to learn his lessons.

Nonno would rise with the chickens and his first job of the day was to clean out the pig sty. He would go outside to do whatever it is old men do when they first greet the day and after that pick up the wooden bucket he had made with his own hands along with the wooden shovel he had also crafted and enter the sty. The pigs were always happy to see him and would snort and snuffle around him as he picked up all the straw which was mixed with their waste and put it in the bucket to take outside to add to the compost heap.

Nonna, who would rise with him would have, by now, got the fire going unless it was mid-winter in which case the fire would have been smouldering all night and she would have brought it back to life with kindling. Nonno would call to the pigs in his own pig sounds as he led them outside for their daily exercise and minutes of freedom before using the boiled water to sleuce out the sty. There was a drainage hole in the cement and by the time Nonno would have brushed whatever remained on the floor into the hole, the sty would have been sparkling. A new batch of straw was spread onto the sty floor along with a white, powdery substance I later learned was calcium intended to reduce the spread of bacteria. When he was finished, the pigs were ushered back into their

refurbished sty for their morning meal.

A lot of people think pigs are dirty animals. They aren't and when treated with respect they thrive in clean environments. A lot of people also believe pigs eat anything but it's more a case of unsympathetic humans who feed them anything. Nonno was deeply respectful towards his pigs and they ate two meals a day. Nonno knew that in order to produce quality small goods, you had to feed the correct diet to the pigs. In the morning it was corn or acorns and in the late afternoon it was boiled potatoes mixed with bran. All the food served to the pigs was grown in nonno's garden. The pigs had a good life and grew fat, the sows topped 100 kg and the castrated males often tipped the scales at 200 kg.

Then one day, in the middle of winter, nonno would nominate a pig for special treatment.

The selected pig would be put on a cleansing diet of almost only dried food with a minimum of water and the preparations for the day of the pig would begin in earnest.

Nonno, who was meticulous, made sure everything was in place. The helpers were summoned, the cloths were prepared, boiled clean and torn into strips, nonno's apron would be specially washed, the ingredients were checked – an abundance of salt, pepper, white wine, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon, garlic, strong twine – and if anything was not what it should be nonno made sure it was replaced.

Nonna baked more than her usual mountain of bread and the house and the neighbourhood was filled with the heady smell of freshly baked bread while the small goods crafted from last year's pig, would be put in a pot good enough to be placed on a table for guests. The always sharp knives were again sharpened and nonno would build a tripod from strong wood and ensured the board was clean and ready to be used. The excitement, for a young boy, was palpable.

The night before sleep seemed impossible but sleep came until the cock crew and for the only day of the year I got out of bed the same time as nonno and nonna. It was always freezing and I would rug up and run over with papa, to be greeted with a hug from nonna and a knowing nod from nonno.

My grandfather went about his usual morning routine while nonna made the helpers who were already gathered at their house, a cafe that they accepted with a nod. Have you noticed just how much people of the land communicate with a nod? Most mornings the “cafe” the family drank was really orzo or roasted barley, but on special occasions real coffee beans were ground by nonna and placed in the cafettera, and hung over the fire until the water boiled then turned upside down so the boiling water could soak through the ground beans and dribble out, black and bitter. Sugar for those who wanted it, but milk was never a consideration. Except for the children, for whenever we wanted a caffe, nonna would dilute it with sheep's milk to make us our own caffe latte, even if we didn't call it that.

After all the pigs had been fed nonno tied a piece of string around the right forefoot of the chosen pig and gently led it outside where everyone was ready. There was a very clear demarcation on these days. The men were outside and the women tended the fire, making

sure the water was always the right temperature.

Nonno led the pig to the low table and, at a signal but never a raised voice, each of the four men grabbed a leg and hoisted the pig onto the board. Now things moved very quickly but with surprising calm. The pig became agitated when it was hoisted on the board but the men, who in the years before he migrated to Australia, included my father, patted it and kept repeating “shhh shhhh, calma, calma” urging it to stay calm, to relax.

Another man would wrap string around the snout to keep the pig's mouth shut and nonno would call to me “Minuccio, mantiene a cora”. It translated as “Little one, hold the tail”, but with that order I felt anything but little. I was a man, doing manly things and without me hanging on to the tail, who knows what might have gone wrong? I felt important, I felt tall and strong and I knew I was a part of a ritual I would someday pass on to my grandchildren.

Nonna positioned herself with a bowl of salt underneath the pig's head, then nonno, with a thin, pointed knife, pierced the pig's neck and plunged the blade into its heart. It squealed, but still the men urged the pig to stay calm and patted it while the blood splashed into nonna's bowl and she stirred the blood and salt to stop the warm liquid congealing. As the life flowed from the pig its squeals turned to whimpers until finally, it was drained. There was now no need to hold on to the pig but still I held the tail, my hand covered with the remnants of its final protest. It was a badge of honour, evidence that I had performed nobly and I laughed with bravado as nonno instructed me to go clean myself as he and the other adults busied themselves with the next stage.

Nonna's bowl of salty blood was taken inside and later worked into blood sausages but now it was time to clean the pig which I shared in under the supervision of my father.

Water, hot enough to soften the bristles and remove a thin layer of skin but not so hot that it would cook the flesh was kept flowing as the men scraped the bristles and the skin with sharp knives.

The phrase that resonated during this stage still rings in my head. Porta l'acqua – bring the water – which the women did and spoon it with a cuppino or ladle where the men were scraping. Nonno gave me a spoon with which to scrape because while I would have loved a knife he knew it would have been irresponsible to entrust a four year old with such a sharp knife and even at that tender age I knew enough to never argue with nonno, so I took the spoon with utter seriousness and began to scrape in earnest. Whatever I contributed to the growing pile was collected by the women and dumped in a special spot in the garden to be dried and sold to the trader who would come around later buying human hair for wigs and pig bristles for brushes.

The pig was washed with salt and lemon and vinegar and scraped of its skin and bristles, its trotters removed and stored before the carcass was hung upside down with a corsale or rod through its hind quarters and suspended from the tripod nonno had erected the night before. Meanwhile there was an incredible bustle of activity with everyone knowing their place and their function and performing it with the sort of camaraderie you might encounter among men engaged in a particularly manly task with women mopping their fevered brows and ready to respond to their every call.

With the carcase hanging upside down, nonno would take a strong, sharp knife and cut down through the centre of the pig. The offal would be caught and handed to the women whose job it was to clean it while nonno would thoroughly cleanse the inside of the dead pig which would then be brought into the cellar and left in the freezing air to stiffen and utterly drain.

Once the pig was cleaned and gutted the carcase was taken inside where the head was severed and nonno hung it from a rafter in the cellar with the help of an S shaped piece of metal through the nostril on one end and over a thin beam on the other. The cellar was like an ice box and meat was stored there to cure.

Before he left the pig for the night, nonno would slice off lean, white meat from the pig, and hand the slices to nonna and ask her to grill it for the grandchildren. At the time there were six of us and we would sit around the table and be served grilled pork fillets on nonna's freshly baked bread. Today, more than 50 years later, I can still close my eyes and recall the smell and taste of that pork. It would, if I had to choose, be my last meal on earth, and the first feast I have in heaven.

Nonno would then cut the blood stained meat from the shoulder of the pig that nonna would toss into a frying pan along with “puparuole sotto acite” or capsicum under vinegar and cubed potatoes with salt and pepper for seasoning. All the people who had helped in the preparation and execution sat down in nonna's kitchen and feasted on this serve of pork along with bread, cheese and wine with some of last season's sausage and pancetta thrown in.

It had been about four hours since the pig had been led out and everyone had worked non-stop. Now they were hungry and elated and the meals on the day of the pig were memorable. Nonno was complemented on the quality of last year's sausage or the pancetta, and nonna was complemented on the cheese, courtesy of the sheep with which we shared our home, and the bread, loaf after loaf, disappeared down hungry throats along with the wine that I have tried so hard to replicate at my own God's Hill Winery.

The children would partake in the feast that was more than a meal, it was a celebration.

Earlier, I had performed as a man, now I would rejoice as a child, indulged by my mother and father, mollie-coddled by my grandmother and thoroughly approved of by my grandfather.

All I have of what belonged to my grandfather is “lamlone” his clay-fired jug and today I toast him by drinking from it in the same way I saw him drink on different occasions including when rejoicing in a job well done at the end of the day of the pig.

The next few days were not as exciting for a young boy, but the aroma and the buzz of preparation and the thrill of the tastings have lived with me till this day. It was the week of the slow cook as all parts of the pig were prepared to see our families through the next 12 months and beyond. The Italian phrases and words used here might seem foreign even to speakers of Italian. That's because it was the dialect we spoke in Zolli, which differed markedly from dialects in other villages and certainly from the dialects spoken in the cities.

SANGUINACC The first part of the pig to be prepared was the blood which had been mixed with salt as it spilled from the pig to stop it congealing, had pine nuts, chocolate powder, and fine bread crumbs added to it before the mixture was fed into the recently cleaned intestine of the pig to make sausages which were then boiled in a copper bowl. When the sausages were boiled they were removed and hung in the perennially icy cellar to harden.

A IOTTA E PUORCH The liquid in which the sausages had been boiled and which were infused with their flavour, then had corn flour added to it along with more salt and chocolate powder to make a thick polenta soup . The grandchildren were always the first recipients of this meal that was hot and hearty and nourishing and astonishingly tasty.

SFASCIA O PUORCH The day after the pig was killed was known as sfascia o puorch' which means taking apart the pig.

SPACCA A CAPE RO PUORCH The most dramatic of the preparations was the splitting of the pig's head, which was now frozen from its lonely night on its lofty perch in the cellar. The head was placed on a butcher's block made by nonno and on the dining table were a selection of wooden and copper bowls ready to receive specific parts of the animal. A metal cleaver or coltelaccia was placed on the head of the pig and a small metal hammer was used to bang the coltelaccia into the head until the head fell into two pieces. It was not a gory process with an abundance of banging and splatter but a surprisingly clean operation that nonno carried out with all the skill of a surgeon.

E CERVELL E PUORCH The pig's brain would be removed and placed in a bowl and was one of the first parts to be eaten because even in the dead of winter, its shelf life was limited. The brains were lightly fried with extra virgin olive oil and garlic and served on nonna's fresh bread. But that delicacy was still in the not too distant future as nonno, nonna, mum and dad and a few other close relatives worked together to take apart the pig.

PASTA E FASULI RIND O PIGNATO The two halves of the head would be given to the women whose job it was to remove the meat and separate the skin from the meat. All the skin or coteca, from whatever part of the pig would be collected in a wooden trough before some was transferred to a clay pot for cooking. Nonna would remove the scum from the first boiling and toss it away and that, along with the eyes was, to the best of my recollection, the only sections of the pig that were not harvested. Cannolini beans, that had been soaking overnight were then added to the liquid and the skin in the clay pots along with salt, garlic, celery and bay leaves and the pot was placed near the fire to cook very slowly over the next three or four hours. The cooking time was largely determined by the demands on the dish! If a hungry mob was baying for a meal nonna would cut short the preparation time but it was never less than three hours which, to a young boy, was a lifetime! At the last minute pasta was

added and the dish became pasta efasuli rind o pignato – pasta and beans in the pot. The skin, by that stage, had achieved a melt-in-your-mouth quality and easily fell apart as you shovelled it in. The thick, rich, nutritious soup, for that's what it was, was served with plenty of bread and sometimes, to give the dish instant body, nonna would place bread in the bowl and ladle the mixture over it. At the end, anything that couldn't be spooned would be soaked up with the help of more bread.

CARN RA CAPA The carn ra capa – meat from the head – which had been separated from the bone and then the skin by the women helpers, was first minced with a knife and mixed with salt, pepper, chilli and some of the pig's lungs before being fed through a hand grinder and into some cleaned intestine. These sausicchie e sangue or blood sausages, also had a shorter shelf life than other, preserved parts of the pig, and were hung in the cellar to dry.

Between the different types of meat now hanging in the cellar were branches of bay leaves so as to infuse the meat with their scent. Nonna fried the carn ra capa sausages and served them with potatoes and capsicum. Some mornings, after he'd been up for three or four hours, nonno would spear a sausage with a metal fork and cook it over the open fire, slip it between two pieces of nonna's bread and that would be his breakfast. Is it possible to find a better breakfast anywhere?

O MUSS E A LENGUA RO PUORCH The snout and the tongue would be boiled then sliced and served with lemon and salt, It was a delicacy and only offered to family and friends in small quantities. It was a treat to supplement the meal and not a meal in itself. In Italian villages today you can still find street vendors in the village square who wheel their carts on which they display and sell this dish!

L'AURECCHIE E PUORCH The ears of the pig were cooked in a clay pot near the fire with a large quantity of savoy cabbage, salt, garlic and celery. The ears would be cut into strips before being left to boil for up to four hours so that it achieved that melt-in-you-mouth quality.

E’ MASCELL E’ PUORC’ The two halves of the pig's jaws were then cured in salt to be used as flavouring when cooking up a large pot of vegetables. The most popular vegetable for this dish was what we called e cardilli or wild vegetable and it also grows wild in Australia and I take great delight in picking it whenever I can and cooking it the way my mother and grandmother did in Italy. I have recently found out is called milk thistle. How my wife prepares it at home is to select the fresh and young leaves wash the thistle and allow it to drain. Once it has drained she places it in a pot of boiling, salted water for about five minutes. Ennia then takes it out and allows it to drain again before tossing it in a pan with extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and chilli. It can then be served as the vegetable with a steak or meat dish or have beans added to it to make it a complete vegetarian meal. What a delight!

PROSCIUTTO (PRUSUT) There are two parts of the pig from which you make prosciutto. They are the “spalla” or front quarters and the “coscia e reta” or rear legs. Very often the villagers would make

two to keep and two to sell and the time between making and eating the prosciutto was anything between 18 months and two years. A man who could make his own prosciutto was considered a real catch in Zolli because it was a procedure where so much could go so easily wrong. It was a matter of great pride for a family to serve their own prosciutto to visitors and was undoubtedly the procedure that demanded most of nonno's attention.

First he severed the front and back legs from the pig then began to shape them so they were the right size for proper curing as well as to give them that aesthetically pleasing appearance. Any meat he cut off in the shaping process was reserved for sausages. Next, with the aid of a T-shaped stick he'd whittled from an olive tree and allowed to dry, he created a drainage hole starting at the joint and running along the bone. Into the hole he pushed a sterile rag to absorb any blood left in the leg. If he failed to extract all the blood, the leg would “turn” and would be good for nothing and it is with some pride I can say nonno never lost a leg! When he was satisfied he had absorbed just about all the blood, nonno would push salt down the drainage hole so it could start its work of absorbing any blood the rag had failed to extract. The leg would then be placed in a wooden vat full of salt and was covered with salt and a weight placed on the leg to help with drainage. It also had to be laid at an angle so the blood could drain and not pool and cause the meat to “turn”. It was left under salt and under weights for a week before the weights were removed and the leg was left in the salt for another 25 days during which time it was turned daily and, with each turning, had more salt rubbed into the surface. The purpose of this laborious ritual was not simply to dry it because any fool can dry a leg of ham, simply by leaving it in a bucket of salt but to dry it at the right pace so it retained its essential flavour. Climatic conditions are important, and the best climate is cold and moist, so the leg dries slowly while never being allowed to get completely dry. Only once sine I left Italy have I tasted prosciutto the way nonno made it. Of course I bought some but not as much as I would have liked because they wanted $357 a kilo! I have made prosciutto from a hand-reared pig in Australia to show my sons and grandsons what their pappa and nonno did as a boy in the old country, and while the result was fantastic the warmer Australian climate meant the leg dried out too much and only about half the normal amount of prosciutto was edible when the meat on the edge became too tough and dry to be eaten and we had to get to the meat nearer the bone to enjoy the prosciutto we knew. I suspect the climate in Tasmania would be closer to the sort of conditions we enjoyed in Zolli.

E COSTATE E PUORCH A few of the ribs were removed for a fresh feed while the rest of the rib cage was worked on by other family members who stripped the meat from the ribs to be used in sausages while the stripped bones were cured in salt and then used for flavouring when preparing vegetables.

The fresh ribs were grilled over charcoal, salt sprinkled on the meat and served with vegetables or beans that had been cooked on the fire. Every day there would be a pot of vegetables or beans cooking in the fireplace. Thanks to her we never even thought about going hungry!

OSSO COLLO (CAPECUOLL) The fillet was cut in a long strip from the neck of the pig then placed in a mixture of salt, pepper and nutmeg where it remained for a day after which it was placed in the cleaned

out bladder of the pig, tied tightly with string then hung in front of the fire for a few days to partially dry before being put in the cellar to cure for six months. The result of being hung in the front corner of the fire place and not in direct line of the heat from the flames meant the meat had a very light, smoky quality. It was not smoked meat and its beautiful, subtle flavour was superb when eaten, sliced, with fresh bread and cheese.

PANCETTA Another famous Italian creation. First the meat was separated from the fat and, to shape the pancetta the meat was trimmed to about three centimetres thickness, before having salt, pepper and nutmeg sprinkled on the flesh which was then rolled and tied up with the strings close together so everything was nice and tight. This too was initially dried near the fire for a short period before being hung in the cellar for between three and six months. We ate it on special occasions with walnuts and bread or on its own with bread..

SUPRESSATA I have never found this method of meat preparation anywhere outside Zolli. Now, I'm not suggesting we were the only people who did this or even that we were the people who first came up with this methodology, but I do know knowledge tends to get lost, and where this originated, I don't know. Chunks of lean pork , hand cut and packed into the cleaned, large intestine to make sausages that were three inches in diametre. Mixed with the pork placed in the intestine would be fennel, nutmeg, salt and pepper. These really thick sausages were a delicacy and my mother would jealously guard her haul offering it only to the very special few!

BRACIOLA RA COTAGA This is rolled up skin from any part of the pig. The skin, with a thin layer of fat still attached to it is flattened and garlic, parsley, salt and pepper is added. It is used fresh by being placed in a rind o tiano or clay-fired pot, with oil and fried until it goes a light gold colour. Fresh tomatoes or a home-made tomato conserve is added to the pot and cooked for up to four hours and the cotaga-flavoured sauce is then used as a dressing for pasta while the piece of rolled up pork skin is sliced and served as a separate meal with seasonal vegetables or salads.

O LARD and CICOLE The white pig fat is cut into chunks and melted in a copper pot. The melted lard is poured into containers to be used over the course of the year. Cicole was the part of the fat that fried golden brown and was left behind in the pot after the fat was poured off. As soon as the fat was poured off, nonna would call out to her grandchildren and we would rush around to be fed cicole on bread. It was crisp and golden and delicious and when we'd had our fill, the remaining cicole was kneaded into the bread dough by nonna so that the next batch of bread she baked was cicole flavoured. Cicole could be used to flavour anything from peppers to potatoes and always elevated a dish to special status. Today you can buy cicole-flavoured chips and a similar flavour can be enjoyed when eating roast pork.

SAUSICCHIE Lean meat with strips of fat still attached to it were infused with herbs, fennel, nutmeg, salt and pepper and white wine and over the course of a month or two they would be

grilled, sliced and eaten with bread. Any that hadn't been eaten after two months or once cured would be immersed in a clay jar – rind a zogna – which meant they were under pig fat and would remain edible for up to two years.

PIERE E PUORCH The feet of the pig would be boiled with any type of cabbage to make a stew. The meat from the trotters would provide the protein for the meal, while bread served either at the bottom of the bowl with the stew on top or as a dry accompaniment would provide the bulk.

CHAPTER THREE PLAYING FOR HAPPINESS Life is a game that starts as soon as you are born and ends with your death. It's no good complaining that you don't want to play the game because you don't have a choice except to decide if you play the game well or badly. And if you decide you don't want to play the game well then you've effectively chosen to play the game badly.

It's a bit like gravity. You may not like it or even want it but that doesn't mean you can fly and like everyone and everything else on this planet you are still subject to the law of gravity.

The winners in the game of life are those who understand how the game is played and who play to win, while the trophy in this game is happiness and it's a rare game in which every one who plays it can win!

The trick in succeeding at any game is to pick a game which makes you happy, then, irrespective of the result you're happy to participate. You also need to accept the limitations inherent in your choice of role. For instance, if you've chosen to be a spectator in the game rather than a player then you can't expect to kick the winning goal yourself, but you can take enormous pleasure, as a spectator, from the fact the winning goal was kicked! Because there is a beginning and an end, what we do between those two points is important and our best chance of being our best comes with developing an open mind and thereby being really open to all the possibilities within the game.

So what is the game? At its core it is a convoluted web of interactions. How well we get on with ourselves and with the people we meet determines our success in this game.

We start with our parents. If you don't like your parents, don't respect your parents and don't value your parents – the most important people in your life – then you start with an enormous disadvantage and you will have to work hard to overcome it. As a baby you haven't chosen your parents so how they are isn't your responsibility. You can't be blamed for having terrible parents, and equally you have a lot to be grateful for if your parents are people you can easily like, respect and value.

All the initial responsibility for making sure a person gets a good start in the game of life rests with the parents who need to give the children who, incidentally, didn't ask to be born, a start that is underlined by unconditional love as well as giving them a thorough grasp of the rules of the game.

All people are born with a fantastic instrument that allows them to grow from adorable babies into beautiful adults. That instrument is called a brain and it absorbs information, sorts it and acts on the information it has sorted. What the brain learns from the world to which it has been exposed determines how it evolves and when the brain is housed in a baby's head the world it is exposed to is almost always controlled by its parents or guardians. That's an enormous responsibility for the adults concerned – and an enormous privilege.

As parents we are charged with the job of guiding our children but how many parents actually guide their child and how many parents simply hang about while their children grow? Think about your garden. If you tend to it you can create what you want but if you ignore it, it could develop into anything – a beautiful jungle perhaps or more likely a tangle of unwanted plants that deliver you no pleasure but harbours pests such as rats and snakes.

So, as unfair as it sounds, you child's path in life is largely determined by the choices you as the parent make on its behalf. As a parent you can't determine exactly what your child is going to do as an adult. Parents who try to force their children to become doctors or lawyers are invariably disappointed because by forcing children in a direction they may not necessarily want to go is a recipe for resentment that will result in your child playing a losing game.

No, the answer is to prepare your child so that whatever direction your child chooses it can go there with confidence.

Ultimately, the only true winners of the game of life are those who end up happy, so you need to focus on what it is that makes you truly happy. Unless you are an exceptional person, I would venture that true happiness is found in successful relationships with other people. Can you be truly happy if you are estranged from your parents or your children? I don't think so. Can you be truly happy if you are estranged from your brother or sisters? I don't think so. Is your happiness enhanced if you are able to bond successfully with almost every person you meet even if you are likely to never meet them again? I can guarantee it.

If I'm right, the number one rule in this game of life is to get on well with people and I've found that the best way to get on with people is to always look for the positives. The best way to successfully interact with others is to know what makes you truly happy so you can design your life's game around those goals. If I may extend the sporting analogy, let's look at a game of football. There are the players and the referees on the pitch – both essential to the proper running of the game, but both performing markedly different tasks.

Then there are the people who work behind the scene to make it all happen. The coaches, the trainers, the managers, the support staff, the administrators, the boards of the clubs and on and on and on. Finally, there's the biggest group of the lot, the spectators, the fans and every one of these people have a vested interested in the game being played by a known set of rules to achieve a just outcome.

In the same way that the game of life has a beginning and an end, so too does a simple game of football and in both instances what happens between the start and the end is what matters. Now where are you? Which role best suits your personality? Is it being the star centre forward, the water boy, the team doctor or one of the millions of fans of the game?

Any role is legitimate but only you can decide where you fit in. And always, somewhere in this vast array of people there will be those who choose to not play by the rules. The match-fixer, the spectator who's had too much alcohol and starts a riot, the desperate-forattention streaker and any other anti-social misfit who uses a game of football as a canvas for their unacceptable behaviour. Being the fan of a team that is well managed, recruits

skilled players, trains hard, supports one another and then delivers with titles is a rewarding experience.

In life you have to learn to love the game you play. Assume for a minute that you have a mundane job you hate doing but because of your circumstances it's the only job available to you that you are capable of doing. Does that make you a loser? Not at all. Why are you doing the job you are? It might be because that is the only way you can look after your family and put food on the table for your children. In my book, that makes you a winner.

The reason trumps the act and under those circumstances you have to learn to love the fact you are doing what you have to so that your family is looked after and your children are being fed. You are a hero for accepting the hand you have been dealt.

Acceptance is a key word in the vocabulary of people who are winners. You accept the right of other people to make the choices they do and equally you need to accept that you are acting with honour when you do something you might hate but the reason is noble – looking after your family and putting food on the table for your children.

The more accepting you become of yourself and others the less judgmental you are and it is this quality, more than any other, which causes you to fall out with other people. Why another person behaved in a particular way is not for you to pass judgment on and if you can accept that person had their reason for doing whatever it is they did then you are less likely to be estranged from them. Being carping and constantly critical of how other people behave will eat away at you and turn you into a person nobody likes being around.

The number one factor in achieving happiness is health. So what do you need to be healthy? And when I say healthy I mean being as healthy as you can given whatever health challenges you might face. I'm a simple man who has led a simple life, but all my life I have taken note of what it is that make machines work and what it is that makes human beings tick. Incidentally, I have found an incredible similarity between machines and human beings who are, after all, slightly more complex machines or machines with emotions!

What the human machine needs is water, food air and satisfaction and the secret to the predominantly happy nature of most Australians is the lack of jealousy. As a race, Australians tend to not be crippled by jealousy which is the most powerful negative emotion a human can suffer. You would be amazed how much happiness is a direct result of the absence of jealousy.

After I returned to Italy for the first time as an adult in 1979 I reasoned why Australians are not burdened with jealousy was linked directly to the amount of space per person in this country and the incredible opportunities available to people who live here. In countries such as Australia we have the room to grow to meet our expectations.

My father always said Australia was the land of opportunity and the ease with which he, a labourer, bought a house when he arrived here is testimony to the fact it is the land where almost anyone can achieve their dreams. While Australians are indeed fortunate to be living in this land of opportunity, there is a down side. People growing up in lands with less opportunity need to develop a capacity to grab hold of the fewer opportunities that

come their way and it's ultimately up to the brain to help them develop that ability. In other words, people who grow up with challenges tend to develop bigger brains to help them meet those challenges. Our challenge as parents then is to ensure our children face challenges that help them grow.

When you see a man in a Ferrari, what do you see? What story do you attach to the man behind the wheel? For my part I see a glorious machine and I think how lucky I am to be looking at something so beautiful, how lucky I have been to have once driven this beautiful machine. I count my blessings rather than imagine the sins of the man behind the wheel. I smile and picture myself sharing his ride with him and I enjoy the moment. I silently congratulate the person now driving the Ferrari because I know life is a series of cycles and right now it is his turn behind the wheel so I hope he enjoys it so that when it is his turn to watch someone else drive a Ferrari he can remember how good it felt to drive one and feel happy for the new driver. I tend to look within myself for answers because I know that it is within me where all the answers to my ills as well as the solutions can be found.

If life is a football game then you know your team can't finish top every year but you learn to enjoy the years it finishes top and dream of a top finish the next year in the years it fails to finish top. In any game there are ups and downs and the game of life is no different. The trick is to enjoy your successes and not be crushed by your defeats.

In the game of life you have to start with what you have and build on it. You might be lucky enough to have started with perfect parents or you might have to overcome bad parenting. Either way, that is the hand you were dealt and there is no point in dwelling on what might have been, no point in looking at other people and wishing what they have was yours.

For me, I was 16 when I had to formulate a plan when it became obvious my childhood dreams of finishing school were never going to materialise. I knew I didn't want to live my life as a labourer and in order to avoid that fate I needed a trade so I actively pursued getting an apprenticeship in whatever trade I could to get me one step closer to achieving my dream – a rewarding life.

No, you need a dream and then you need a plan because without a dream or without a plan you will get lost. If you start nothing you will achieve nothing and what you have to start with is your machine, your body which is constructed of two parts – physical and mental. So how do we look after our machine, our body?

Here's a simple rule you would do well to memorise: To help make better human beings in the world we have to help everyone with whom we come into contact.

Some people think the game of life is won by those who accumulate the most but the question I have for those people is where do you stop if the aim of the game is accumulation? The answer is never and while you're busy accumulating, what are you missing out on? Developing the complex and intricate relationships that define us as worthwhile human beings.

Your gold won't comfort you on your deathbed, but weeping children and grandchildren who don't want you to leave them is the reward I'm after. I want to be genuinely missed when I go, missed for the human being I was and not having my descendants fight one another for their share of the fortune I left behind.

As I said, the point of the game is to be happy, so what is it that makes you happy? I have always believed that anti-social behaviour is the result of unhappiness. Of course that doesn't mean that every unhappy person is going to indulge in anti social behaviour but when you think about it, even the simple act of being unhappy puts you in a mood to not interact positively with other people. Not interacting positively with other people, while anti-social is not criminal, but the self-imposed exile adopted by unhappy people creates a sense of alienation and once people become sufficiently alienated from their society and their family they become disconnected and in this state what might seem normal behaviour to them so often crosses the line into criminal.

The modern scourge of depression is, I believe, directly linked to our inability to properly play the game of life.

The few times I have been confronted by people behaving anti-socially or even criminally I have said to them: I am your friend, why are you doing this? Now I couldn't say that unless I truly believed the person confronting me was my friend because I can't fake sincerity. The truth is nobody likes doing bad things to their friends and, as far as I'm concerned, everybody in the world is my friend until they prove to me by their actions, that they are not. It's one of my rules I have made for myself in this game of life.

When you're low, talk to someone who understands how humans operate and remember, it's not always people with letters behind their names who have all the answers. Old people who've spent time observing humans and have a genuine affection for their fellow planet dwellers are often best placed to help you search for winning ways. Mind you, if you can't find such a person, then the next best option is a person with a lot of letters behind their names who will be your friend by the hour. Or, at any rate, will listen to you at an hourly rate.

The joy of valuing the elderly is we can tap into the well of lost knowledge. When I think back to my days in the village I am amazed at what we knew then that we seem to have forgotten today. The use of plants, for a start, that we employed as medicines as well as food which was shared generously with the ailing so everyone could be as healthy as possible. Compare that with what has evolved in the field of medicine today, where the product is controlled by huge multi nationals that claim they have a greater responsibility to their shareholders than to the sick and the suffering who need the healing power of their expensive drugs. Somehow, we need to get back to administering medicine for good rather than for financial gain.

I am all too familiar with the argument that unless there was huge money to be made from investing in drug companies, many of the cures we see today would not exist because people would not invest in these companies, but I don't accept them. It's time we started trusting people again because without trust we allow greed to rule. The aim should not be money, it should be the betterment of society. And in a better society, money will

always come your way.

If a person is treated badly the loser is always society because you can't attack a thread of the fabric and not expect the fabric to be weakened or even damaged. We need to care for people and the best way to care for people is to understand them. All people need to be respected and that respect needs to be shown through our actions.

One person cannot resolve all the problems in a society but it's much easier to resolve society's problems if every person contributes. I know that's unrealistic so what we need is a group of citizens committed to creating a better society. The real problem is today the bosses of our society are the people controlling the flow of funds and their focus is money and not people.

When I got really sick I came down with Gilbertson's disease, a rare but not very harmful condition which affects the liver and is made worse by stress, both physical and emotional. At the time I was overweight and felt an irresistible urge to return to the village of my birth. I had researched the condition and was much relieved to find out that often the worst symptoms are displayed by people who don't know what they've got and that once it is diagnosed it is so easily dealt with that all anxiety over the condition disappears!

As a result of my research I put myself on a plain, clean food diet and drank only water and exercised. I lost 10 kgs in three months because I knew what I was doing and I have never been troubled by the condition since.

A few years later I came down with back trouble which stopped me from doing all the things I enjoyed doing and needed to do. It was incredibly frustrating and as a young man I didn't have the maturity to accept the limitations a bad back was placing on me. The pain was so debilitating I became depressed. Fortunately I had a growing business and a young family that needed me and by focusing on those positives I ploughed through and it was only after I had endured did I realise what it was that got me through that particular ordeal. The lesson I learned was to stay positive and always keep moving. To mimic Winston Churchill, never give in. All you have to do is keep your head up and push yourself towards healing.

Another health challenge I faced was discovering a perspiration patch on my right hand behind my little finger and, coming from an engineering background, I was keen to work out in a thoroughly mechanical way, what was going on. I rationalised that the perspiration was a direct result of stress which had been triggered by negativity that I had internalised.

What I discovered is that stress in our human machine is caused by negative input, first through our ears and eyes and then through the sub-conscious. For example, if we hear or see something we don't like it triggers the negative. To enable you to control stress you need to be aware of the triggers and through being aware, stop negativity from entering your system. In this way you can manage the causes of your own stress. I can’t emphasise this strongly enough – that we all have within us the ability to not only diagnose our own problems but, in most cases, find the cure.

I knew everything in the body was connected to everything else and the internalised negativity and resultant stress was coursing through my body and only found its release in the perspiration patch. The solution lay in identifying the source of negativity which I did by simply thinking about what it was that was making me unhappy, even if it was something of which I wasn't overtly aware. Once I found what it was and managed to dismiss it from my sub conscious immediately the perspiration patch disappeared. As a result of that little workshop I conducted on myself, I work very hard to, wherever possible, never say anything negative about anybody, even in jest, because what the body hears the body absorbs and I don't want to be responsible for causing any person grief. At the same time you are now aware of how someone can trigger stress in you.

The most serious health challenge I faced was having my gall bladder removed when I was about 40. After the operation I had pains every time I drank a cup of coffee, so I stopped drinking coffee and the pains stopped. It was such a simple equation – coffee causes pain so stop drinking coffee. Sure, I loved my coffee, but why would I continue to do something, even if I loved it, if it causes me pain? Two years later I started drinking coffee again and now I have two to three a day without any complications or discomfort.

What I learned from that exercise is the need to be aware of your body and listen to the message it is giving you so you can discover the cause of your ailment. I also learned the body adjusts to compensate, and it really is the most complex and marvelous machine imaginable and all you need to do is give it time to adjust and to heal.

At 65 my dad was struck with depression and it took him 13 years to die. He had become depressed because his expectations had not been met. He went to a psychiatrist but I don't think it was too helpful.

It is important to extend the philosophy of not causing any person grief to all your dealings with people, even people you don't like or perhaps particularly people you don't like because it's those negative interactions that cause problems. As a rule I never engage in conflict unless I have deliberately put myself in that position with a view to try to resolve an issue through conflict, such as deliberately taking someone to court because I could not find a way to get them to behave reasonably. Whenever I find myself in a position of conflict, even if it is of my making, I always resort to soothing words because wherever possible, I want to resolve the conflict as amicably as possible.

The only time I can possibly imagine it is justifiable for humans to kill is when they are protecting their children. Any other killing is a fear reaction born of ignorance which brings me to probably my number one hobby horse – the role of education in the defeat of ignorance.

Through the power of education we learn to mix and are at peace with one another and there are plenty of models of peaceful co-existence throughout history that we can call on.

Education is a far more powerful tool than many people realise but it is only through the proper use of education that we can overcome the problems we confront in our society.

Smoking was one such problem and we are well on our way towards defeating it thanks to the excellent Quit program that has alerted millions of people and teenagers in particular to the folly of making friends with fags. To resolve any problem we must have education to promote a model of inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness.

Why are people good citizens? It all comes back to discipline. If you think you can succeed at anything without discipline you are fooling yourself. Whether you want to become a professional such as a doctor or lawyer or a professional sports person, the common trait is discipline. Simply stated, discipline makes better people and the real beauty would be to combine education with discipline. Too many people associate discipline with corporal punishment and even brutality but not me. I associate it with love, where responsible adults care enough about the development of the child to make the effort to teach discipline.

A simple strategy I would like to see implemented and which is designed to teach children the value of money so they don't grow up believing they are owed the world, is to send them to work with a responsible adult. They would not be expected to do anything other than observe the adult at work. Every week they could be paid in pretend money for the time they spent at “work�. At the end of three months the child is sat down and asked what they want. A new car? Smart new clothes? The value of whatever they choose is measured against their weekly earnings so they can see how long the adult had to work and how long they will need to work until what they want is paid for.

Too many children are of the view that money comes from the bank or worse still, from a hole in the wall and need to learn money comes from labour.

While being an unrepentant capitalist I believe the free market society we have created has effectively given powerful and unscrupulous people the freedom to exploit the weak and the vulnerable. We need to change the rules so that these people are protected from the uncaring who have the power to destroy their lives. The problem is the people who make the rules don't understand the human machine.

In this perfect world of my making I would be inclined to return the age of maturity to 21 because even though people who are 18, 19 and 20 may look like adults their brains and their decision making capacity is very much in the realm of childhood. But whatever we do with the law, I know that ultimately the answer is education and not legislation.

Everybody needs to work because not working or not being involved in a productive activity causes sickness. Work gives you a reason to believe in yourself, in your family and in the society which by providing you with work has given you the reason to believe in yourself. It's a circle, a self-fulfilling prophecy because if you think about it, what investment does a person have in a society that cannot give them a reason to believe in themselves? People who are occupied with building a future for themselves and their families are focused on creating because there are few things more destructive than an idle brain. Work, quite simply, gives a person a sense of purpose.

An academic family breeds academics in the same way a circus family breeds circus performers. It's no accident but rather the perfectly natural order of things. My

grandfather and my father worked the land so I learned to work the land, and my sons have learned to work the land and in time, their children will get the opportunity to work the land; my grandfather and my father made wine and I and my sons make wine and in time my grandchildren will make wine and, in fact, my grandchildren have already started making wine in the same way as I, at their age, made wine with my father and grandfather.

If my grandfather and father had learned to live off unemployment benefits there is an excellent chance my adult sons and I would now be living on unemployment benefits.

More often than not we follow the examples set by our parents, so what example are you setting for your children?

As a child I saw Zorro on the television and couldn't wait to make a sword out of wood and get involved in swordfights with the other children of the village. If a mere TV show could influence me so greatly, what does that mean for the average nine year old in our society who by now has witnessed hundreds if not thousands of murders on television?

How do we measure the effect of what these children see on TV? I have found that the children of today are not as street smart as their village cousins despite the abundance of electronic gadgetry which I think of as just another tool and as with any tool you have to be careful what you let children play with. You may let your child play with a screwdriver, but you wouldn't give a chainsaw to any child, would you?

If your children are playing at doctors and nurses, you don't mind if they play with bandaids but how many parents would let them toy around with scalpels?

Whatever it is young children play with, should contribute to their evolution into responsible adults while at the same time not putting them at any serious risk. With that aim in mind, I would strongly suggest the mobile telephone and internet access be carefully monitored so children don't fall into the all too easy traps those devices lure them into. The philosophy is about protecting the vulnerable before they harm themselves rather than waiting for them to endure a mishap before trying to piece them together.

Stress is the single biggest killer in modern society and the principle pathways of stress into our lives is through our eyes and ears. What we see and what we hear plus how we react to what we see and hear makes young people, including young adults, particularly vulnerable because as we enter adolescence we have the ability to act on our impulses but lack the ability to think through the consequences of those actions.

Every time I see or rather am passed by a P plate driver at high speed a chill runs up my spine as I think some parent, somewhere is going to get some bad news tonight.

I have discovered that good health derives from a perfect life in which you are placed under no stress, you eat well and you exercise without thinking. Do that and the fourth important feature automatically falls into place – sleep like a log. As a result you will sleep well and be well rested to take on the world and be at peace with yourself.

As I've aged I've altered my mantra of exercise without thinking to exercise in moderation which I do with regular rounds of golf (no, it's too stressful to count the

strokes!) and daily walks. My attitude is if I can't walk at 2 kph then I will walk at 1 kph and I'm lucky enough to use the night for what it was designed – sleep!

While health problems are caused by a build up of stress, often, the consequences of a particular action may not become evident until years later. Think skin cancer and the number of people of my generation who sun baked until they cooked and the incidence of melanoma among my age group today. The same with smoking, it's unlikely that one cigarette will kill you but people who die from lung cancer or contract emphysema rarely stop at one cigarette.

As a mechanic I can confidently point out that an old car needs to be driven a lot more carefully than a new one, which is more robust than its aged cousin and while neither car will survive a head-on crash with a road train, your chances of survival in an “ordinary” crash are much greater if you are in a new car complete with all round air bags and other safety features.

My chiropractor had a motorcycle accident as a young man and walked away from his wrecked bike only to collapse in a heap as a direct result of that accident a staggering 10 years later! More often than not, your chickens take time to come home to roost. I'm never going to be an Olympic athlete so there seems little point in exercising to exhaustion, but rather I treat my body as I do my vintage cars – topped up with oil (food), started regularly and taken for long drives occasionally.

The human machine I have occupied for more than six decades is part genetic and part environmental. The genetic drives it and the environmental helps steer my course. The language I speak, the food I eat, the clothes I wear and the religion I practice are all environmental factors while how I think is genetic. You can't control genetics but you can control your environment and a good environment will give your body the best opportunity to prolong the healthy life of the body. Negativity burns unnecessary energy so it stands to reason that if you can avoid stress and negativity you will have more energy.

The number one priority in life is to learn to love yourself because our belief in ourselves and our strength is the best gift we can give our loved ones.

Respect is a big word in my vocabulary and respect is all about accepting other people.

Accepting their race, their religion and their values. It is common to talk about respecting your elders but it has to flow the other way too. The family is a microcosm of society, so if there's conflict in the family you can't have peace in society and subsequently, in the world.

Why do people who are trained to kill and sent to war to practice what they have learned, have such difficulty living happily when they return? Because once you've internalised the strategies of conflict it is difficult to get them out of your system and if we are going to keep sending young people to fight we should be spending as much money as it costs to turn them into killing machines, to help them turn back into loving family members.

The most bitter conflict I have seen takes place in families, so why is there conflict? It

occurs when children are going through the process of discovering themselves and parents need to understand their children are going through a stage.

There are three stages of parenting that I have identified. The first is 0-12 when the onus is on the parent to give the child all the love and affection they demand and teaching them all the right values. The second stage is 12-18 when the parent is there to provide guidance but at the same time is slowly moving away from the child and the third is from 18 onwards where the parent is an encyclopaedia of life experience that the child can call on whenever it feels the urge.

When my sons reached adulthood I said to them: I am your father. I will always love you.

I will always be here for you. If I have a roof over my head, so have you; if I have food, so have you. Anything else you will have to get for yourself.

Parents and potential parents everywhere need to understand their role, which is as the most important educator of their child. Certainly, we will always have aberrant individuals who abuse their parental role but abuse aside, we need to remember that different is not wrong and that it is only lack of education that gives rise to ignorance.

With that in mind, schools need to support parents and parents need to support other parents as well as the school.

Children, while knowing their limits also need their freedom to express themselves. As parents we not only need to dictate when children eat and what they eat, but we also need to ensure they had a place to stay and somewhere to study. Children need to be heard by adults and particularly their parents and their views need to be acknowledged while, most importantly, children should not be used as punching bags so you can vent your anger.

As a global society we have been heading in the wrong direction for decades, and the greatest manifestation of our wrong-headedness is global warming. I don't believe human activity is responsible for global warming and that the change in weather is cyclic, but we still have to cope with that change however it was caused. Imagine a giant liner with all of humanity on board needed to change direction. The first step is to slow the ship in the direction in which it is already moving as coming to an immediate stop is virtually impossible. Once it has slowed sufficiently, only then can you begin to turn it, but turn it we must. It won't be easy and it certainly won't be quick, but as a society we must commit to educating our children to become better citizens than a lot of people of my generation were. For a start, it is possible through education to eliminate sickness and conflict.

I never said it was going to be easy, but if it's possible that's what we should be striving for. Eliminating sickness does not mean we will eliminate death, but it does mean we will have a more affordable death because we will be living longer and death will come as a consequence of old age and as a result will not demand the hugely expensive medical intervention used so often on younger people with grave medical conditions.

Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned is you can have anything but you can't have everything, so you need to decide what it is you want. I learned that over the years when I went from a beautiful childhood where I had everything I thought I could possibly

want even though I lived in a house without electricity or running water or even a toilet, to becoming a cultural outcast in a country where I couldn't understand even my cousin who was born in Australia five years before me, and couldn't make myself understood to any of my peers.

In those years I took my comfort wherever I found it, in between getting into fights in primary school and then at trade school and even maintaining the aggression into marriage. I had not been educated to understand that there are differences in people. I had grown up with my mother who was one type of person then I married my wife who was a different type of person and these two types of people did not get on and I didn't know how to handle the conflict between my wife and my mother until I realised it wasn't my role to negotiate a peace but rather to support each person while they were being whoever they needed to be.

I didn't even fully understand myself and while I was a great mechanic (and I only know this because people kept telling me how great I was) and had no trouble attracting customers, I had conflict with some of my staff because I expected them to see the cars on which they were working through my eyes, until I realised their eyes were different to mine and their brains were different to mine and as people they were different to me and I shouldn't expect them to be like me nor punish them for being different.

When I realised that I started trying to find out what it was that a particular person was good at and employing them in a capacity that allowed them to shine. From talking to many, many people over the years, I have also learned that 99 per cent of young people don't know what they're going to be and the longer a person takes to decide what path they'll be following the greater the chance that they'll become disenfranchised which is why we need a system to identify a person's talent as early as possible and why we absolutely must bring back trade schools.

Further, it is important for a child to “get started”. That doesn't mean they will do that for the rest of their lives, but the magic of getting started means they develop the habit of doing and with it comes the ability to do whatever it is that grabs your interest and you feel you have a purpose in life. In the fullness of time, having a purpose will take you to your passion.

I suspect trade school fell out of favour because they were seen as “second best” and whoever was in charge of our great big ship at the time thought everyone should have access to only the best – universities – so trade schools were jettisoned. But trade schools are certainly not second best and fulfill a very important function in our society of pandering to people who are gifted in the trades and allowing them to fulfill their destiny.

It is about rejoicing in the differences and celebrating the success of someone who is able to achieve in a field you may never have dreamed of entering.

When I first came to this country about 50 years ago, the game we know as soccer was a joke. Played only by “wogs” and boys who weren't tough enough to play Australian Rules, it languished in the societal consciousness as something not to be taken too seriously. But slowly, slowly it began to make inroads until today when we are ranked in

the top 20 real football nations in the world and recently mounted a serious bid to host the World Cup. Things change, but only if people work together to create that change. At primary school, when no soccer was available I enrolled to play Australian Rules. It underlines the point of getting involved in and enjoying what's available and when, at high school, soccer was offered I switched back to the round ball game.

I played soccer at a strictly amateur level and served on the board of Adelaide City just as it was turning into a full-time professional outfit so I like to think I have done something towards the emergence of soccer as a great game in my adopted country. Both my sons had the opportunity to play soccer from primary school and one of my sons even went to play for Napoli in the Italian league and I'd like to think that by the time my grandsons are ready to play (if that's what they choose to do) there is a thriving, professional league in Australia so they don't have to go far from home to play their chosen sport at the highest level.

At the time that soccer was my passion, so were cars and working in the car industry I noted some systematic practices that were blatantly dishonest. An insured car that crashes effectively belongs to the insurance company which selects the repairer based on price where the cheapest quote invariably wins. Now why is it that some repair companies can consistently charge less than other companies when we're all working in the same back yard? The answer is that companies which charge less usually have inadequate equipment and shoddy repair practices which means what they put back on the road is a vehicle that is a potential death trap.

It is, quite simply, a faulty business model being shaped by a totally price-centric insurance industry that doesn't understand the motor repair business and is happy to put society at risk through inadequately repaired cars so long as their bottom line is made better. If society was focused on creating better business models none of us would have any fear about engaging with people and afraid we are because we're wary of being ripped off by unscrupulous practitioners.

We need to stop the greed. In this land of plenty there is no need to be greedy and the simple question I have is why would you sacrifice the welfare and even the lives of other people for money?

Now there's a really good subject for a public education program!

And while diversity is essential, what I am against is the huge discrepancy in pay for differing jobs. How can one job be worth many millions of dollars a year and another $15 an hour? I believe remuneration should be capped under something approaching a fair pay award because everybody needs to be valued – fairly.

Finally, I would like to point out that whatever you choose to do in life, the person you're competing against is yourself and differences, even if you're the one who is different, don't mean anything other than diversity and in diversity is growth and joy.

CHAPTER FOUR THE NATURE OF NURTURE My advice to children is choose your parents carefully. My advice to parents is a bit more complicated.

I know a man who, when he was between 6 and 7 years old his parents left him with his brothers, aged 9-10 and 13-14 and went to Italy for three months. That child grew into a damaged adult and his sense of abandonment has haunted him since. I worked on him to accept what had happened and to forgive his parents, but the residual anger he still feels towards his parents and his inability to trust anyone close to him has meant he has led a lonely and bitter life.

Parents need to always remember that their children didn't ask to be born and once adults choose to have children or have children because of poor choices such as not using adequate contraceptives, they have a very strong moral duty to be the best parent they can be.

If you are a parent or hoping one day to be a parent this is what I call my reminder list.

Even today I still consult it because as parents we always need to be reminded of the steps we need to take on a daily basis that enable us to be good parents. They are in no particular order and every parent will recognise the areas they need to work on.

1. Don't underestimate your children. You really have very little idea what your child is capable of. Don't let their life be stunted by your inability to see the big picture.

2. Explain your actions to your child. Sure, you're the boss, but children learn by having things explained to them.

3. Respect your child. Your child is a person separate from you and not merely an extension of you. Your child has their own needs and ambitions which might differ greatly from yours and they need to be cherished even if they contradict what you want for your child.

4. Care for your child. Your child is a gift and it is your role to nourish and nurture this gift until it is ready to live without you.

5. LOVE your child. All love is unconditional and this is never truer than in the relationship between a child and a parent. Conditional love promotes manipulation, so avoid it and indulge in unconditional love, which is a lot more difficult than it sounds.

6. Show affection to your child. All children need physical affection, from cuddling to kisses and holding hands. Baby massage is a great way to start.

7. Give your child the gift of TIME. Many busy parents talk about spending quality time with their children. Putting the word “quality� in front of time is merely a way to make busy parents feel better about themselves for depriving their children of the greatest gift

of all – their time. Time is so important because you never know when little miracles are going to happen and the more time you spend with your child the greater the chance you'll be there when a little miracle takes place.

8. Teach your child right from wrong. Almost always, the way you are is the way your child will turn out because you teach right from wrong by what you do not by what you say!

9. Negotiate with your child. Throughout life, one of the most important skills your child will need is the ability to negotiate and they're never too young to start learning the subtle art of negotiation. If a child doesn’t obey, next time they want something from you remind them of their past disobedience and reinforce the message that your acquiescence is tied to their ability to obey. Naturally, all your instructions are utterly reasonable, aren’t they? Did you know babies are the best negotiators in the world? Well, they are because they always get their own way simply by screaming non-stop until they get what they want! And while that's great for babies, it doesn't necessarily work so well for older children.

10. Teach your child the power of obedience. There are times when your child simply MUST obey you, such as in life-threatening situations when they need to learn from day one that they must never cross a road without an adult. A look, a tone of voice an attitude that can be used when you are giving a “no negotiation” order that the child will obey unthinkingly because they know mum or dad are serious.

11. Be circumspect with telling off your child. Inevitably, there will come a time when you need to tell off your child. When that time comes, don't over react. Make your case as calmly as you can.

12. Don't falsely accuse your child. Children have a very keen sense of justice and injustice and take great offence when an injustice is enacted against them irrespective of what injustices they might have heaped upon their parents. For a child every incident is seen in isolation because they don't understand the concept of swings and roundabouts. If you do falsely accuse your child, make sure you apologise.

13. Enforce consequences. My eldest son Felice once threw a tantrum because he didn't want to wear a particular pair of pants to school and he maintained if he had to wear those pants then he wouldn't go to school. His mother said he had to go to school because the school was having an excursion that day and Felice had been looking forward to the outing but on this particular occasion he was digging in his heels. My wife came to me in exasperation. I went to Felice and explained if he wanted to go to school and partake in the excursion he had to wear the pants his mother had ironed for him. He was adamant he wouldn't wear them. I asked him three times if he wanted to go to school and out on the excursion because if he wasn't going to wear the pants his mother had ironed it meant he couldn't go to school and would have to miss the excursion. Three times he said he wasn't going to wear the pants and that he wouldn't go to school and would miss the excursion. I said all right, you have made your decision. Fifteen minutes later his mother came to me and said he was now ready to wear the pants she had ironed and go to school so he wouldn't miss the excursion but I said no, he made his decision and he must wear the

consequences. Felice was mightily upset but I stood my ground and it was the last such confrontation we had!

14. Give clear directions. Once you've given those directions ask your child to repeat them back to you so you can be sure your child and you are in agreement.

15. Don't play mind games with your child. Children have fewer mental dimensions than adults because their brains are not fully developed and, as a result of have this partially developed brain they are not as able to pick up on the subtleties of mind games as adults.

16. Instill discipline by practicing discipline yourself. Follow the do as I do not the do as I say school of discipline. Children very quickly pick up on the hypocrisy of adults who tell the children to not smoke, for example, but smoke themselves.

17. Don't neglect your child. There are few things in the world sadder than a neglected child. Children are like plants that need positive attention to grow otherwise like plants that haven't been watered they will wither.

18. Make sure they are physically and emotionally comfortable. As a parent t is your responsibility to provide and remember, comfortable does not mean lavish and physical and emotional comfort can be achieved on a very modest budget.

19. Learn to bargain. Reward good deeds and don't reward bad behaviour. As a parent you need to be vigilant to avoid rewarding bad behaviour which can then become habitual.

20. A smack delivers a message so never smack in anger. Only smack with the palm of your hand on their bottom and let them know you're serious. The idea is not to hurt your child but to convey how serious the infraction has been. I know many people equate a smack with child abuse but that's like saying a fender bender motor accident is the same as a car hitting a train.

21. Know when your child is playing with you. Play is important for everyone but for children it is vital so being attuned to your child's moods helps you to interact with them appropriately.

22. Be tough when you have to but never forget to be tender. There is a difference between being tough and being strong. Strength, our strength, is a great gift we as parents can give our children but never forget that children cherish the moments when they are the recipients of tender deeds performed by adults. And while they might make nice sounding contrasts, there is no contradiction between being tough and tender. In fact, sometimes you need to be incredibly tough to allow yourself to be tender.

23. Take a genuine interest in your child. By taking an interest in you child's world you give your child the confidence to engage with the world.

24. Share your interests with the child. The passion my family has in wine making is directly attributable to the adult in every generation taking the time to show the child

what it is about growing grapes and them turning those grapes into wine, so fascinating.

25. Play with your child. Switch off the adult and allow your inner child the freedom to enter your child's world. You'll be surprised how much fun you can have when you make a concerted effort to be a child again and the real reward is the unmitigated joy it will give your child when you enter their particular world of make believe.

26. Interact with your child irrespective of your child's age. When you talk to babies most people use sounds rather than words and we all think that's perfectly normal. Well it's more than normal, it's actually desirable and assists the baby learn the sounds it will need to use when it is learning to speak. A child can do anything at any age but whatever they are doing needs to be age appropriate. A two year old can play football but not with 10 year olds unless the older children enter the world of the two year old and play like two year olds. As an adult you will need to make the adjustment so you can successfully interact with your child.

27. Integrate the children into the family. That's how they learn. Don't separate your child from life and certainly don't keep them apart from your life. That's not to say you should burden your child with your problems but rather keep them informed of what's likely to happen.

28. Don't hide things such as sickness and death from your child. It's a juggling act deciding what you should and should not tell your children but as a rule I've found that if there are matters about which they will find our sooner or later, and particularly if it affects their lives, it is better they find out sooner rather than later.

29. Children who are isolated from adults become adults without learning what adults do.

Every child needs a role model and preferably several. By being exposed to adults children learn acceptable modes of behaviour.

30. When you divorce, you don't divorce your child. Your child is your child for life.

They are not weapons to be used against a partner in a divorce battle. Children should be kept out of divorces and parents should remain civil to one another for the primary reason that incivility between parents impacts very badly on the children.

31. Give your child responsibility. The best way to learn is to do and giving your child the responsibility to do something is the only way they are going to properly learn, even when or perhaps particularly when what they do turns out all wrong. It is said we learn far more from our mistakes, so give your child the freedom to be wrong.

32. Acknowledge life is dangerous but live it anyway. There are risks in life but that doesn't mean we should stop living so that we can avoid those risks. Teach your child to identify risks and learn the difference between probable and possible so that your child can properly assess those risks. Every time you play sport you're risking injury, but that doesn't stop you playing it, does it?

33. Limit their electronic toy time to one hour a day. Yes, I'm old fashioned and I know there are plenty of people out there who might think I'm out of touch with the modern

world and maybe they're right, but until I see evidence to make me change my mind I will keep saying children's electronic toy time should be limited because it doesn't promote human interaction which, I believe, is the ultimate methodology of teaching children to connect with the world.

34. If you haven't got time for children, don't have any. Children are not toys and not investments. Once you have a child you can't change your mind about what it is you want to do with them. They are a lifetime commitment so if you have the luxury of considering whether or not you want children, take your time because once the child is here, your time belongs to your child.

35. Create structure in your child's life. Children love structure which means a life where there is minimal conflict. The bed time routine is probably the most important of all because it sets them up beautifully for the next day. Dinner, bath, story, lights out. When a child knows what to expect and particularly if what they're expecting is essentially pleasant, there's an excellent chance they will welcome it.

36. Support the school your child attends. Schools do it tough. They have an enormous responsibility but very little power because they're constantly exposed to disgruntled children and parents. Be a parent who supports your child's teacher and school. I remember if I ever complained to my parents about the way I was treated at school their attitude was I must have done something wrong and invariably they were correct. I'm sure there are sadistic teachers but I'm equally sure they are so rare as to not constitute a problem for the vast majority of families. Teachers also do it tough so let's get behind our teachers and our schools. It's true not every adult in front of a class should be there and to those teachers I say learn to accept your role and take the time to become the best teacher you can be. For their part, schools need to learn to support parents. Everybody, parents and teachers, need to work together for the well being of our future citizens.

37. Take an interest in your child's school life. This is different to supporting your child's school because here you are actively getting involved in some aspect of your child's school. Schools are always desperate for parent volunteers so whatever skill you possess, I'm sure you child's school would love to hear from you. At the very least both parents should attend parent teacher evenings.

38. Support the other parent even if you are divorced. I've never had the personal experience of a divorce, touch wood, but I know plenty who have and it takes a real commitment to your children to not speak ill of the other parent in front of the children while you are going through the process of a divorce. I've always found the best way of handling this very difficult situation is where possible both parents sit with the child or children and explain to them what is happening and that, as far as possible, the child's life will go on much as it did before because mum and dad both love the child. Divorce always impacts adversely on children so all you can do is make the best of a bad lot and that requires real effort on the part of both parents. As far as your children are concerned, the most important aspect of managing a divorce is to behave in a civilized manner towards each other. Respect one another and respect the childrens' best interests. You may be divorcing your child's other parent, but you both still love the child and you need to show the child that you respect their other parent.

39. Be fair to your child and in all your dealings that are witnessed by your child. Unless you are a Fagin, you'll want the child in your care to grow up an honourable person and the best way to ensure that happens is not only to be fair and reasonable in all your dealings with your child but also to be fair and reasonable in all your dealings that might be witnessed by your child. If that means being fair and reasonable in ALL your dealing, then so much the better.

40. Explain the importance of education. Communicate that knowledge is everything and the piece of paper your child will earn by completing a course really is important.

Promoting knowledge is the way we will change the world. Think of the things you used to do but now, because you know better, you do no more. The catalyst to change is knowledge.

41. Read to your child. Knowledge is acquired through our eyes and our ears. We need to read but first we need to hear. Your child LOVES being read to, so read and sow the seed for the thirst of knowledge with which your child was born.

42. Tell your child stories about your past. Reading from books is wonderful, but so is recounting stories from your childhood for your child. If you need help remembering stories from your childhood, call your parents if they are still alive and as soon as you gather the information write it down. If your parents are no longer with us, fill in the gaps as best you can because to your child it is an imaginary world so a bit more imagination won't go astray!

43. LISTEN to your child. Sometimes it seems as if children never stop talking, but it's important to take time out of your day to actually listen to what your child is saying.

Children have a wonderful take on life and, at the very least, you'll get a much-needed laugh out of listening to them. And maybe, occasionally, insights.

44. No TV in the bedroom. A child's bedroom is a sanctuary but it shouldn't be turned into a cave where the child goes to hide. A television in the bedroom allows a child to spend too much time cut off from the world of the child's family and the world in general.

This is not a good thing.

45. Don't use TV as a babysitter. Again, television is not a person and while the programs it broadcasts can be of great educational value, the programs a child watches should be chosen by an adult who has the child's interest at heart. Plonking a child in front of a television for hours on end is cruel and reeks of uncaring behaviour on part of the adult charged with the responsibility of the child.

46. Keep the family computer in a public space in the house. The internet is a great thing because it allows me to do business anywhere in the world, but it's not called a super highway for nothing. A highway and in turn a super highway is a great thing because it facilitates communication, but would you let your child go on a highway unsupervised?

No way, because lurking out there are very real dangers from which your child needs protection. Operating a computer in a public space in the house is a form of controlling the content your child is accessing on the net.

47. Get involved in your child's extra curricula life, be it sport, dance or whatever. Many parents complain about being a taxi for their children once their children start getting involved in extra curricula activities. Well, stop complaining because it goes with the territory. Consider it a privilege to be involved with your child because very, very soon your child may not want mum or dad tagging along with them! Being interested in whatever it is your child is interested in gives their confidence a real boost and you, as a parent, should derive great joy.

48. Feed your child right. The formula is breathtakingly simply. If you want your child to thrive, feed it right. You are what you eat and what your child needs to eat is plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, grains and meat, in other words, a balanced diet. Some foods are everyday foods and some foods and sometime foods. Your child needs to know the difference so that the eating of the wrong types of food doesn't become a daily occurrence. You've seen all the stories that obesity has reached epidemic proportions in Australia, well this is one epidemic that you have in your power to stop it affecting your family. What you eat and what you feed your children is vital. The rule my wife Ennia goes by is to keep it simple and I really can't improve on that rule.

49. Ensure your child gets their exercise. Make exercise a daily habit. As well as what we eat, the energy we expend is a vital component in creating a healthy life. By and large young children don't need exercise regimes because their lives are lived at such a frantic pace, but as children grow into adolescents their tendency to exercise is likely to decline unless there is a regime in place such as an organised sporting activity or they have developed a love for an activity to the point where they pursue it with enthusiasm. There is a wide range of physical activity you can prompt your child to pursue from yoga to marathon running. Your pursuit of a physical activity you love will only work as a spur for your child to pursue an activity of their own.

50. Limit your child's freedoms. Being human they need guidance. Limits may not be a very popular word today, but the truth is without limits you get chaos. Working within limits is what creates harmony and your child needs to know where their boundaries are.

Whatever rules you apply to your child, ensure you negotiate those rules with your child so that the child can see the sense of those rules before they are set in stone. Your job is for you to present yourself as you child's guide rather than as your child's jailer. Many parents make the mistake of thinking they have to be their child's friend but they have to be parents first and if that means giving up your role as your child's friend, then so be it.

51. Help your child to learn how to focus. The people who achieve are those you can focus on the task at hand. The best way to teach your child to focus is to sit with them while they complete a task, whatever the task. Where possible, turn the task into a game such as picking up all the toys scattered in the living room. Start with a particular colour before moving onto another colour or create whatever groupings are appropriate for the task at hand. Make it fun for the child and it will be fun for you.

52. Teach your child society's rules. You may not like it, but what happens when you get caught driving your car above the speed limit? That's right, you get fined. Why is it important to drive on the left hand side of the road in Australia? Why is it vital to obey

the flashing lights at railway crossings and on and on with any number of rules that exist for the proper functioning of society. Now we all know about rules that don't always make a lot of sense and dealing with the over bureaucratisation of our society can be tricky, but exactly how you deal with each rule is up to your judgement as a parent. The age of the child will dictate the level of discussion.

53. Understand you are a caretaker of your child and you don't own them. Many parents, often motivated by love of their children try to control every aspect of their life. It rarely results in happy children even if you end up with obedient offspring. The role of the parent is as a person who enables their child to go out into the world, in whatever direction they want to go, and be confident that they will be all right no matter what happens. Khalil Gibrain's immortal lines say it beautifully: Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

54. Monitor the company your child keeps. Your child will be influenced and judged by the company it keeps so you need to teach your child early on how to judge if another is going to lead them astray. In the early years you might have to make that call on their behalf because in the latter years you are unlikely to get that opportunity!

55. Instill some fear to stop your children doing stupid things. For example, you don't want them playing in the middle of the road, so they have to learn to fear cars from as soon as they can crawl. Many people think of fear as being crippling, but there are many instances where fear is life-preserving. It is fear of life-threatening illnesses that cause us

to get our children vaccinated.

56. Always leave open the door to your children. There will be times when you have disagreements with your children and as they reach adulthood they will need to break away from you even though it might break your heart. Your job as a parent is to make sure your child knows the door to your house is always open to them. I know of parents who are faced with the heartbreak of drug addicted children who, if given access to the parent's home will steal whatever they can to pay for their habit, in which case it's still important for the child to know the door to their parent's heart is always open to them even if the door to their house is temporarily closed.

57. Respect the differences in your child. Children abandon their parents because they don't feel valued by their parents. To keep your children close to you, always respect their choices even if you don't agree with them, cheer their successes and mourn their losses.

58. Read through this list regularly. You're human and you need to be reminded of what needs to be done. I am now trying to put into practice with my grandchildren what I learned from being a parent to my children. It's a continual learning process and I will stop learning when I die.

59. When your child is a baby let it sleep on your chest so it can feel the rhythm of your heart. They are babies so briefly so make the most of the time when they are tiny.

60. Did I say show your child you love them? Well, do it again!

Not unsurprisingly, the list can go on and on and if you have any to add to my list please do so by emailing me at charlie@godshillwines.com. Not everyone is going to agree with everything I have listed in this chapter but diversity of views is one of the many things I love about humans so long as we disagree with respect.

Im not the first person to say children are our future but I would like every parent, particularly the parents of very young children to believe it and not regard it as just another clichĂŠ that doesn't apply to us. We are, all of us, responsible for the world we are creating and as a parent you have an enormous responsibility and an enormous privilege to create a better tomorrow.

CHAPTER FIVE SHAPING A HAPPIER SOCIETY One of the funny things about aging is that as you grow old you read about this university study and that professional survey that tells you what you seem to have known forever.

But to give it its due, science is the process of measuring what we think we know to establish if what we think we know is actually real.

Recently there was a report from some sort of social engineer saying young children were losing their ability to develop proper relationships because they were abandoning face to face meetings with their peers in preference to electronic interaction such as “talking” through social networking sites and texting. To resort to the language of the young – duh!

There will always be arguments of how you measure the “success” of an individual. For some it's position and power and for others it's money. For me, a successful person is one who achieves whatever it is they want to achieve and are happy with what they've done.

Success is the same as happiness and I've found the most rewarding path to happiness is if you can connect with other people in a way that enriches the people with whom you connect.

I have heard many mouth the sentiments that all people are equal but I have met only a few who live by that creed. In a strictly democratic sense all people are equal insomuch as each person has one vote. And when it comes to ensuring the basics of life – food, water, oxygen, shelter – as a society we have a responsibility to guarantee everyone is provided for. But there is one element that is often overlooked when tallying up what it is that people need and that element is inclusiveness.

As a society we take a big risk when we fail to include people who make us uncomfortable. Everyone feels the cold and heat and suffers hunger pangs. To that I would add everyone has dreams and in my perfect world, everyone would be free to pursue those dreams so long as they don't include damaging others. People everywhere are the same and those who don't want to live in peace and harmony with their fellow beings are simply ignorant and afraid.

Different environments shape people differently but only on the surface. At our core we are all the same.

The basic rule by which I have tried to live my life is to do unto others as I would have them do unto me. Now I know that's from the Bible but the only similarity between Jesus and me was we both made great wine! And while He did it with divine help, I often felt the help I got was also from a higher authority – my beloved dad and granddad. From them I learned everything I value today, not just how to make wine but also to never cheat or mistreat people.

My dad used to say find out what you liked in life and to give that to other people. I can almost hear my father saying “Help when you can and if you can't, do nothing”. That was his variation of the old saying: If you can't say something good about someone, say

nothing. His variation came about because he was a man of action and did whatever he needed to do rather than merely talk about it! The exception to the rule is when you need to make others aware of the bad apple in the bunch.

As I've said before, life is a game, and it's really important to not only know the rules but understand why the rules are in place, so you can obey them and be well on your way to winning the game. The joy of my definition of life as a game is that it is one of the few games in which everyone can win and where there need be no losers and where, in fact, the more people you help to win the better are your chances of winning.

Now, while everybody is the same, everybody does not have the same needs. A President needs more than an ordinary citizen and a severely disabled person needs considerably more than an able bodied one. To accommodate everyone in our society we need to give more to those who need it and those of us who are neither Presidents nor disabled should be happy to work harder to provide the support where it is most needed. In this way we will create a better society.

I tend to think of new born babies as computers with no software who are waiting on us, primarily as parents, to program the children. We can make a significant contribution by considering carefully what program we put into our baby computers hopefully with a view to creating a more caring world.

In a simple society such as you might find in a village, people support each other but in a more complex society the support structures are removed from people and invested in institutions which are inherently uncaring because they can't see or touch the people they're helping. It's the old principle of doing anything to help your family and neighbours while the further away the person in need is the less inclined you are to help them.

Modern societies rely on bureaucracies to do the “caring� work, but a disembodied voice on the other end of a telephone or worse a form that attempts to detail a sad story can't touch you in the way a wailing woman in person in front of you with tears streaming down her face can touch you. Everywhere in our world human contact is diminishing.

Think petrol stations, banks, telephone companies and now supermarkets where increasingly we are being forced to interface with machines and because we are being frustrated in our very natural desire for human contact we are becoming more and more aggressive.

People created the problem by putting robots in charge and now people must undo the problem by making people do the work again. The role of people in authority should be to help people achieve what they want to achieve within the law. There is flexibility within the system and we need to exploit that flexibility to create a more humane bureaucracy.

One morning at four o'clock I was dropping off some friends at the airport and remember, this is Adelaide Airport I'm talking about, not Baghdad, and I was the only car in the area at that time of the day so I drove as close to the door as possible to allow my passengers to disembark so they would have the shortest possible distance to walk to the terminal.

An airport security person told me I had stopped in a prohibited area and I had to move – immediately. I looked around the deserted scene and asked the young man who was I inconveniencing, but he was inflexible. I was in an arbitrarily designated “forbidden� area and that was all that needed to be said. It was his job to move me on, not to be reasonable or accommodating. I was dismayed by the rigidity of the authority which totally went against my belief that we are all here to help one another. The absence of warmth emanating from the security guard reminded me of a robot and I thought how sad that we've invented a system whereby we've managed to turn people into robots rather than tweaking machines to be more human. We seem to be losing the ability to put ourselves in another person's shoes and without the ability to empathise we will loose the quality that defines us as human.

Tennis and football are both games but you need to know which game you're playing because the rules for each are so different even though the ethos of either activity is the same and usually involves issues such as fair play, respect for your opponent (being a good sport) and everything else that makes games fun.

In the same way, people who appear different are simply playing a different game and at our core we are all the same.

Mind you, reaching out to people, while admirable, does not give you the right to interfere in other people's lives. What I advocate is offering love, care and support and allowing the person you are reaching out to, to make the decisions that best suit them.

One of the most pointless and cruel activities I have seen people indulge in has been in acrimonious divorces where one parent poisons the children against the other parent.

How any parent can think that it is the best interest of their child to be turned against their own parent is beyond me.

When I have counselled people in such positions (and it saddens me deeply just how many people find themselves at odds with their ex-partner at separation time) I always remind them their divorce doesn't have to end in disaster so long as people behave reasonably and in a civilised way and it is in no way reasonable nor civilised to expect a child to make an enemy of a parent simply because one parent temporarily regards the other parent as the worst person in the world. Although it might be difficult, we need to support people in a position of despair, not destroy them.

To return to my sporting analogy, anyone who has even the slightest interest in sport knows that a champion team will defeat a team of champions every time which is why, in life, it is important to be part of a team. And if you look around you already belong to several teams. There's your family, your friends, your work place, your society, your state, your country and your world and several other teams in between those. Wouldn't it be great if we could all contribute positively to all our teams?

I have found that the best and easiest way to contribute to any team is to stay positive because humans feed on positives. I have tried very hard to eliminate all negative words from my vocabulary to the point where I try to avoid saying them even in jest. We need to

promote genteelness to the point where basic good manners are a part of every strata of society.

All religions preach peace, but not many people practice peace. If you think about it, all the good and intelligent people of this world belong to the same religion – treating others the way they want to be treated. It doesn't matter which god you revere or how many times a day you bow to your god, the only acceptable religious practice is where you do what you need to do while at the same time allowing other people to be who they need to be – and accepting them the way they are and not try to impose your thoughts and beliefs.

In Australia many people talk about the “tall poppy syndrome” where we, as a society, seem overly eager to cut down those among us who are extraordinarily successful. I've never understood that mentality because, truth is, we need successful people around us.

I've always had the attitude that if I support another person who is more successful than me then one day he will reach out and help me if I'm in need and if not me directly then someone who needs that help thereby making the “team” stronger. Simply stated, we need successful people and we need to rejoice in the success of others.

If I may make a generalization, successful people tend to be those gifted with a talent and we should be doing everything we possibly can to enhance those talents rather than trying to curb them through behaviour informed by envy.

Successful people are like our sporting heroes. How many people cheer when a team wins a premiership? Well, depending on the appeal of the team, up to millions of people, but how many individuals actually played in the game? Successful people rely on the support of a lot of people in order to be successful. Even a champion team, without support, dies. It's not the results that guarantee the success of a team, but the support a team receives and a fan is not a true supporter if they abandon their team when it's losing.

In fact, that's when your team really needs you, in the same way that people who are low need your support most of all.

I know that in sport for every winning team you have a losing team, but in the game of life there need be no losers because it is entirely possible for every one to win once you eliminate jealousy or even its smaller cousin, envy. Think of it this way – as children we all played in the same playground and while there might have been the occasional squabble, there were no serious mishaps. So let's return to the playground of our very early childhood and recognise everyone needs to have a turn and do whatever we can to support those who might feel as if they are missing out.

Villagers who've never left their village, hang on every word of the traveller. They are greedy for experiences but the best experiences are ones you participate in or even endure. Anyone who's been to a big event, whether it's a sporting fixture, a concert or a rally knows the difference between being there and seeing it on television. On TV you only see what the camera sees while, at the event your immersion in the activity leaves you with a much more powerful impression.

Almost everyone has seen footage of the Berlin wall coming down and while it was a

momentous moment, I'm sure it doesn't compare with the experience of the people who were there tearing down the wall!

Doing will always beat listening to, reading about or watching someone else do it, but if you can't be there and you're hungry for the experience then you take what you can get.

While television might be guilty of a lot of the charges thrown at it, it is also a great teacher that shows us how wonderful the world is and exposes us to worlds we are unlikely to ever experience first hand such as life at the bottom of a very deep ocean or in the deep reaches of outer space.

Happiness starts from within and the key to happiness is acceptance. No matter what life has thrown at you, the sooner you accept whatever is your lot the sooner you are on the road to happiness. The shortest route to that road is to live your life without expectations.

There is a marked difference between expectations and dreams, of which I had and have plenty. Expectations speak of entitlement whereas dreams are what you aspire to. If your expectations are not met then you're more inclined to feel you've been robbed and that could generate resentment while if a dream fades then another can take its place.

By learning to live without expectations you can enjoy every single thing that comes your way. You will love whatever you get and whatever you achieve and you will eagerly grab every opportunity that comes your way.

I love the little village where I was raised but I also love what Australia has given me.

Two totally different worlds that were strikingly similar in so many ways. Because I had no expectations as a young man, I was grateful for every opportunity and was more inclined to focus on the task at hand. It was my ability to focus that helped developed my eye for detail and that stood me in good stead.

When, on my first day as an apprentice I was asked to clean the workshop floor, I was determined to make it clean enough to eat off and my work ethic genuinely impressed my boss who took me under his wing and helped make my apprenticeship thoroughly enjoyable.

I employed that approach throughout my working life and no matter how small the task I was always determined to do the best job I possibly could. The maxim I developed from that experience is that if you can clean well the chances are excellent that you can do anything well! It would be unreasonable to never have expectations, so I guess the trick is to learn to let go or try harder when expectations are not met.

As I rose in my working life to start my own company and have people work for me, the most important lesson I learned was to talk to people at their level. Working with cars I knew that not every car is the same and that a small, four cylinder car could not be expected to do what a semi-trailer did. They were different vehicles each with a different body, a different motor and designed to do different things even though at their core they were exactly the same – machines with motors.

Well the same is true of people. That might sound obvious, but it took me a long while to

learn that lesson. The differences in people equip them to perform different tasks. Some people are small, four cylinder cars and some people are semi-trailers and everything in between and there was absolutely no point in trying to get a person who was a semitrailer to fit in a parking space reserved for a Mini!

My challenge was to convince the people with whom I was working and the people who worked with me that all I was offering them was support. You can break down a person's defences by being supportive because often by the time they came to work for me they had been exposed to negative experiences either at home or school or trade school or at other work places that they were suspicious of anything directed at them. However, once a young person accepts you're not trying to harm them in any way they will be open to what you have to say. You can communicate a message in a number of ways so it's almost always better to choose the gentle way because that's the way to make other people feel good.

Many young people initially resist my opening gambit that we are born to work and not just for money. The essence of work is to stay alive. Work keeps our mind active while an idle mind gives up and opens the door to depression and suicide resulting from depression while focusing on a task can achieve incredible results.

Before I learned those lessons I was a perfectionist and my perfectionist nature was placing unrealistic demands on others. Why couldn't they see what I see, I would wail to myself.

As any good man would, I love both my wife and my mother but they were in conflict because they had different world views and it took me a while to realise that it was a personality conflict between the two and both needed to learn to respect the other's point of view. In other words, agree to disagree, but politely!

Stress is anything you don't accept and you can control and even eliminate stress by accepting whatever situation you find yourself in, even a situation untenable as your mother and your wife being at war! Constant stress, even if you don't think or can't see how it is adversely affecting you, works away like dripping water on concrete. Eventually the concrete will wear away and if we replace the concrete with your body for this analogy, then eventually your vital organs such as your heart and liver will become affected.

Now I know no one needs to be told this, but loved ones cause you the most stress. It makes sense because why should you be affected by someone for whom you don't care?

The corollary is true, the more you care for a person the more you are affected by what they do and what happens to them. As hard as it may be to accept, even people close to you can think differently and the solution lies in not trying to convince them but accepting that they think differently.

Debates are what healthy, mature people indulge in while doing everything in their power to avoid conflict. Mind you, momentary stress is unavoidable but continuous stress is bad.

Stress is like a crack in your house. What happens when you get a crack in your house?

Do you ignore it hoping it will go away? No, you don't because the crack needs to be repaired and will not go away on its own. Negative thoughts which turn to stress are like cracks, you have to do something to counter them because left to their own devices the crack will bring down your house in the same way that stress will destroy your life.

When it comes to stress as well as cracks in the house, find the cause of the fault or whatever it is that is causing you stress and fix it as soon as possible otherwise the house or you will be destroyed. To fix stress you must tackle the cause and not just the crack!

What is an evolved human being? One who absorbs the lessons of previous generations and has an open mind. We are evolving as we read. The wisdom of a person is a genetic gift from their ancestors and wisdom turns otherwise ordinary people into invincible dragon slayers. Wise people know that negativity is poison and they should no more accommodate negative thoughts than they should drink a daily cup of poison. The trick is to stop the negative thoughts reaching you and for those that do get through your defences, you need to let go of them as soon as you recognise them.

Learning to let go is an important lesson and sometimes that means leaving behind people who don't want to make the journey with you.

In life there are bumpy and smooth roads and you have to decide which road you will choose. I have been on bumpy roads and I believe the smooth road is better!

One of the very important lessons I learned from the village was that children are owed love and affection and if they are abandoned by their parents then the village has the responsibility to look after them because no child should ever be abandoned or feel they have been abandoned.

This is an emotion close to me because when I arrived in Australia and went to primary school here I felt thoroughly abandoned because I was isolated and felt I missed out on societal love and care. Humans should not be treated like a rock or a piece of timber cut from a tree.

At primary school, because I didn't speak English I was consigned to the slow lane, despite being very advanced in maths, history, geography and other subjects. At school I had no one I could talk to in the language I knew and because talking to me was an effort, everyone avoided me, including my cousins who were born here and were proficient in English but struggled with Italian. The only companion I had at school was my sister who would see me all alone and call me over to be with her and her friends.

I like to think no child would be forced to endure what I did in those early years and that today there are systems in place so that no-one, particularly children, are isolated or feel abandoned. My simple solution is that uneducated or inexperienced people should not be in positions of authority.

Young people need to be listened to and guided but not left with the final decision. As adults and particularly as parents you need to be open to children and not be suspicious.

Their development will be speedy and significant if you work with them to achieve a positive outcome.

When you socialise you tend to do so with people you enjoy being around and almost every adult knows that if you go somewhere you don't want to be you disrupt the harmony of the group.

Imagine a husband and wife going to the husband's family for a function but the wife doesn't want to be there so instead of interacting in a sociable way with the husband's family the wife goes off and watches TV by herself. Now wouldn't it be better if the wife accepted the husband's family which the wife married into and interacted with the family rather than have the husband's family at the function concerned they might have done something to upset the wife?

Everybody needs to learn to be part of the group. When you're there, be there and rejoice in the moment. Respect is nuanced and people in family groups who don't want to be there need to remember they made the choice to be part of that family and should contribute to the well being of the family and not create disharmony.

Anyone who has been in any sort of relationship knows they are full of pitfalls, but what makes relationships so dangerous? One word – defensiveness. We need to presume generosity from the people with whom we are entering a relationship be that of a personal or business nature. We need to abandon our defences so that we are open to the infinite possibilities of good and once again accept one another.

Be wary of vested interests because vested interests resist change and in the history of humanity, change has been the only constant and the only way in which it is possible for us to move forward. Understanding our limitations is vital as is not fighting those limitations.

The first rule is to love yourself and blend the good of yesterday with the good of today.

Uniform societal values create a harmonious society. Imagine for a minute that every council had different road rules! Wouldn't that make for a chaotic state with drivers continually having to adjust to the different road rules in each council? It would be unworkable as would a society made up of differing societal values.

We live in a universe of infinite possibilities and because the possibilities are infinite there is much we don't know, so stay open to any possibility while focusing on what we do know – what makes humans happy!

What is perfection? We all strive for it. We want perfect partners, perfect children, perfect lives, but perfection can only be achieved in easily measurable applications whereas so much in life comes down to taste. My perfect wife is not the same as what you imagine is a perfect wife and so on.

An engineer designed a car and I'm the custodian of what the engineer designed and built.

I might find an imperfection, but the bulk of the work has created a vehicle that can travel from A to B and it is my job, as an auto engineer, to maintain this car in its original state.

In the same way as a mechanic inherits a car designed and built by an engineer we have inherited the earth. Everything in it may not be exactly to our liking, but it is what it is.

We're the custodians and we shouldn't pollute it while at the same time cleaning up the pollution caused by other people so that we can leave the world in a better state than we found it.

As a boy I would wander down to the river that ran alongside the village, sometimes to bathe in it and sometimes to fish. The water in the River of Tufara had been crystal clear for millions of years and it was a joy to interact with the river. Then I left Italy and when I returned 19 years later and again wandered down to the river I was horrified to find it a heavily polluted stream. Industries further up the river had discharged their waste into it and my beautiful river now no longer could be used as a bath or a source for food. I cried that day to think that in a mere 19 years inconsiderate people who didn't take seriously their role as custodians had so severely damaged something that had been a joy for millions of years.

Since then the river is slowly being returned to health as Italy enforces regulations to save the planet. It wasn't till I visited the Australian Alps and New Zealand that I again saw the rivers of my childhood.

Nature is an example of who we are. Every tree is different but they live in harmony.

Nature makes no distinction between old, scarred trees and saplings or even ground cover. When we take the time to observe Nature we truly learn.

The brain is the most powerful tool available to humans and we need to nurture the brain to use it as a force for good. Money-hungry people are destroying others through the use of adverse psychology to gather for themselves as much money as possible. The recent case of Bernard Madoff is a case in point where one man ran the world's biggest Ponzi scheme for almost 50 years and defrauded investors of billions of dollars.

Bernard needed to learn that you can make money from doing good things and among the best things we can do is look for the good in people. We are born to die; we must leave this world because we can't live forever and for most of us, whatever it is we create is going to be wiped out. Very, very few people are remembered but good deeds last.

Monuments don't matter and like Saddam Hussein's statue, can come crashing down at any time, but words of care that help people, do matter. Fanatics suffer from unbalanced brains that have been twisted to destroy. All religions preach good, so focus on the good.

Highlighting the bad promotes conflict and wars and we need goodness in the way we need air, water and food.

Remember the secret to a winning life is happiness and can be achieved by accepting whatever it is life has thrown at you no matter how seemingly unfair. Stress will only make you stressed so avoid that too.

Always think that you can make a difference. Know your limits and by working within those limits you can make a better world. If life can be reduced to a formula it is this: Happiness = positive; sadness = negative. Negativity is properly equated with stress, pain

and in the long term, death and staying alive is crucial to staying in the game of life. Of course, we all want to be happy but how can we be happy? By learning that happiness (staying positive) is the best fuel for our human machine. If we know that happiness is the ultimate fuel for our human machine how do we achieve happiness? By learning what causes the negatives or sadness. For example if you think you don't like what your friend says that equals sadness or negativity. If you understand we are all different human beings with differences of opinion, with different likes and dislikes we then realise there is no point in arguing to convince someone of our point of view because if we do we are feeding sadness. If you don't argue you are feeding happiness.

How do we deal with what we don't like? We either accept what we are doing or we change it. How do we change it? First of all we need to accept our limitations, secondly we need to plan for change. What are the things we don't like? How can we change what we don't like and why should we bother changing the things we don't like? Because if we don't we are killing ourselves. Our own limitations create pain for ourselves and those close to us. Remember, not understanding is not wrong. Not understanding is not inferior.

And whatever you do, don't react to what you don't understand. Revealing your thoughts to the person who thinks like you is a recipe for happiness. Replying to a non-understood communication causes pain to you and others. Learning makes you happy. Do not resist education if you want to be happy. Happiness is the volcano of our soul. To be happy is to live longer. Happiness cures. Happiness creates a positive impulse on our system.

Positivity makes you feel good, makes everyone feel good, positive messages bring peace, negative messages kill. Negative equals poison to our body so give positivity to all. Giving positivity to all makes everyone feel happy and the more people you make happy the more likely you are to end up a winner in the game of life.

One of the hardest things for humans to do is not judge because you cannot know the mind of another person. Our thoughts are private and it's my right as a human being to think the way I do. My private life is just that – private. What I think is what I think. The world does not or should not judge you by what you think but only by what you do.

There is wisdom in old sayings. Here are some that have meant a lot to me and have helped me. I hope they can help you too.         

Do good and you will receive good.

If you try to grab too much you will not be able to hold it.

What you don’t wish for you don’t wish on others.

Hold back the fury of the evening for the morning.

The night brings advise.

To love costs nothing.

We are all beings but not all one mind.

Contentment is the source of joy.

Even if you can’t change the world, you can at least change yourself.

Take what you will from what I have written and I hope you hold on to the happiness you have and find the happiness you seek.

Carmine Nicola Scalzi is a man of two worlds – his birth country Italy and his adopted home, Australia.

His life has been lived and is being lived like a giant with a foot in each dominion. From his house in the village of his birth, Zolli, to the vineyards of his other home in Lyndoch in South Australia's beautiful Barossa Valley, Charlie, as he is affectionately known, has spent a lifetime bringing together seemingly disparate cultures by exposing each to the wealth of the other.

In The Gift, Charlie reasons it's payback time, to thank those who helped him live such a rich life by passing on the gift he received to those he may never meet.

The Gift is packed with fascinating accounts of village life and the wisdom accumulated over years of careful observation and considered reasoning. The Gift is an irresistible read or a blueprint for a joyous life. The Gift is comforting and contentious and Charlie is keen for it to be seen as one man's contribution to a better world.