Hidden Hamilton

'The secret of success,’ Danny Franco told his three sons, ‘is to always be the first.’  A pioneer of Newcastle catering and hospita...

‘Why did we leave? Why wouldn’t we leave? We had lost everything.’    In the Hamilton home of Tony (Antonio) and Pina D’Accione, I am listen...

‘I was born in 1938 on a small self-sufficient farm on the outskirts of Ascoli Piceno, a city on the north coast of the Adriatic Sea. I am t...

‘He knew every piece of fruit in the shop. If anyone touched anything, he could tell!’ So says Julie Lomax, whose father Norman (Gaetano...

Pina Deli has been serving the cosmopolitan community of Hamilton and beyond for 54 years. There have been eight different owners of the bus...

These days, Elisa Sandrone is retired from her work as restaurateur, cooking teacher, child care provider, caterer and chef. But with her fr...

It had been his dream for a dozen years or more – an opulent function centre in the heart of Hamilton, a dazzling extravaganza of imported s...

Over the past decade, Hamilton residents Tony (Antonio) and Clare Rufo have travelled regularly to San Donato Val di Comino, Tony’s ancestra...

‘When my son was in London’, Bill Bozinoski tells me, ‘he went to where the Aussies were. Here in Newcastle, I go where the Macedonians are’...

It was an announcement that struck at the heart of the tight-knit community of Italian migrant families that had formed around the Italian C...

If you walk into Nina’s IGA expecting a one-size-fits-all suburban grocery, be ready to be surprised. Nina’s is anything but average.

The character of the Northern Star Cafe on Beaumont Street has been formed over almost sixty years, infused with the history and aspirations...

She was working full time at the age of 11, travelled alone by ship from Genoa (Italy) to Sydney to marry a man she had not seen for five ye...

'I could wrap you up in newspaper and there wouldn’t be a gap anywhere!' This somewhat startling skill comes from working in M...

'You can sit next to him. He’s one of those' . George Yanis was 8 years old, in 3 rd class at Tighes Hill Primary School. The bo...