LIFE STORIES |
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After a difficult childhood in a northern Italian village, Celestino Pellizzari grew into his teens in an atmosphere of fear, generated by the sustained terror of life under the occupying German forces and the violence of his own father. When at the age of eighteen he was sent to Australia, it seemed that a bright new future awaited him. Instead, a new nightmare was about to start.
Abandoned in the bush, forced to labour alone for long hours in an alien land whose language he did not know, the young man was driven to the depths of despair. Eventually, however, calling on the strong spirit of courage that would stand him in good stead over the years to come, he made his way to Adelaide and spent some time ‘working on the concrete’ before becoming part of Australian history as one of many migrants who worked on the construction of the mighty Warragamba Dam. It was there that he fell in love with a girl in a photograph who became his bride and the mother of his two children and it was there that he became known as Cyril, the name that stuck with him and that he has used ever since.
With his achievements marked by such accolades as the Gold Medal from Italy and his place in the Welcome Wall at Sydney’s Darling Harbour, Cyril Pellizzari has shown himself a true Aussie battler. From northern Italy to Warragamba and beyond, his story is an inspiration to others, demonstrating how to win against the odds when armed only with a determination to succeed and an ability to make the most of opportunities.
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Testimonial from Cyril Pellizzari |
“With the publication of "Just Call Me Cyril" I have achieved a life long dream of someone writing my story from my point of view.” |
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Extract from Just Call Me Cyril |
From the day I started work at Warragamba I was known as ‘Cyril’. I received this name because my first foreman, Jackie Breen, an unpleasant, rough-talking man, decided he couldn't pronounce ‘Celestino’.
"What am I going to call you?" he asked me.
"What do you mean?" I retorted. "Are you too lazy to pronounce my name?"
"Arrr," he said, disgusted. "I'm going to call you Charlie."
"No, I don't like that," I protested.
"Well, I'll call you Cyril," he decided.
I didn't mind that.
"I don't care, call me what you like," I said. "As long as you don't call me too early in the morning or too late for tucker, I don't care."
The name 'Cyril' has stuck with me ever since. Only my relatives and close friends know and use my real name Celestino. To everyone else, I've always been known as 'Cyril'.
You had to learn very quickly to stand up for yourself with Jackie Breen. If you didn't, he would treat you like a dog. He tried to take advantage of the fact that most of us were "new Australians", thinking that because we didn't always have a good understanding of English, he could fool us.
"Keep working!" he'd say when it was past finishing time. We were digging shafts on the floor of the river into which water could be drawn and then pumped out. This was a massive job on its own: we had to drill a hole, blast it out, then clear out all the dirt and rocks and load it into a big skip, ready to be taken away by the flying foxes. We worked willingly enough, but after he made us work on a few times after our knock off time, I drew the line.
"Don't you do that again!" I told him furiously. "And don't tell me your watch isn't working properly! This is our knock-off time."
"Keep working!" he shouted again when we had loaded as much as we could into the skip. Because it was all loose material there was only so much that could be put into the skip before it started to run over. When we stopped at that point, he tried to make us continue.
I got stuck into him again.
"Work – what for?" I shouted back at him. "Can't you see that the skip is as full as it should be?"
He was a bully, and would have walked right over the top of us if we hadn't stood up for ourselves.
There were other bad foremen there, and I had a few blues with some of them at times. Luckily there were good ones as well. |
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Everyone has a story that deserves to be told, shared and preserved for future generations!
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