Conti's

AS you enter Snippets hairdresser in West Street you step over a ghost: the premises was once an Italian ice-cream parlour and cafe.The name survives on the mosaic (or marble?) threshold.

Recently an article in online media recounted the story of the Conti family in Wales. Legend has it that in the early 1900s a 14 year old farmer's son named Attilio Conti left his home in Bardi in north-eastern Italy and walked to  South Wales "following the wood" (logs exported from Italy to be used for pit props in the coal mines). He got a job in a cafe. He did well and was joined by his two brothers Giacomo and Alfredo and his sister Luisa. All of them settled down to work and raise families, establishing a network of Conti cafes and ice cream parlours right across South Wales. Some still flourish to this day and the family has diversified  in many other directions too while still maintaining its connections with Bardi.  Conti's in Fishguard has gone but is remembered with affection by older folk.  
Economic migrants are reviled by some sections of British society but can enrich the life and culture of small towns and under-resourced communities.