On 16 May 2025, we lost one of our most beloved and long-standing parishioners, Giovanni (Gianni) Mazzella, husband of Anne Mazzella who passed away in 2018.

His son, Antonio, has kindly shared the eulogy he gave his father at the funeral Mass at St Andrew’s Church, Clarkson. Thank you to Giancarlo, Francesco, Kavisha Paola, Antonio and Marco for generously sharing photos and stories with us.

We are here today to farewell and celebrate the life and loves of my father, “Papa “as we kids called him, but also known to you here today as Gianni, Giannino, Giovanni , Gio, Zio, Nonno or simply Mr Johnny Mazzella.

Recently Giovanni had not been well, his heart in particular giving him trouble – and his eldest son Giancarlo moved from his work in the Kimberelys down to Perth to give him 24 hour nursing care for the last couple of years. Marco and Francesco were similarly on hand often at crucial times keeping him alive…His decline in health during the last months was obvious and during a respite in St John of God Hospital, he was preparing to come home for palliative care when his health took a dramatic decline.

In his last days his daughter Paola was holding his hand through the difficult night. 

During his last day he was surrounded by his siblings, Antonietta, Isidoro, Franca and nieces and nephews, holding him, singing to him, praying the rosary that he so loved. He was so exhausted in the end his heart just stopped, for us all such a relief that there was an end to suffering.

Born in 1935, he grew up in a tightly knit island community of Ischia where some things had not changed for hundreds or even thousands of years (since the Ancient  Phonoecians and Greeks planted vineyards and harvested olives )…a place where everybody was related, or knew everyone else and everyone grew, harvested, made or bartered for the basics of what was needed. From the beach and hills of the island they looked into the Bay of Naples with its smoking volcano that had exploded upon Pompeii of the Romans… His mother Carmelina was part of the large Amalfitano clan who beached their fishing boats and mended their nets overlooked by the massive medieval castle on the beach where Ulysses had slept.

In a match arranged by her sister, Carmelina married (and fell in love with) a hard working young farmer Francesco -one of the numerous Mazzella clan who lived in villages surrounded by fertile terraces of crops, orchards and vinyards  that sloped gently down to the sea or up to the steeply wooded heights of chestnut forests and other fragrant trees.

On the warm summer evenings, the women of the village would take their linen spinning work, sitting in chairs and spin thread for their weaving looms, to make the families clothing for the year, while chanting the rosary and other prayers to the saints. As an altar boy young Giannino and friends had access to the sacristy storeroom with old cupboards filled with ancient rotting church vestments . One Carnevale his gang of friends dressed up as a comic version of a sacred procession with pots and pans banging and swinging a makeshift burner parading their way through the town chanting in pig Latin and giving blessings to the great amusement of the villagers…

THE MIRACLE OF THE LADY IN BLUE

One hot summer young Giannino got a hernia and fell into a  life-threatening high fever. His mother, unable to pay for a hospital operation, sent for a cousin with medical knowledge and a nurse friend who had some local anaesthetic. Watched on by curious neighbours and relatives, he was tied to the kitchen table and operated on. Left with strict instructions not to let him drink until he had peed, thirsty young Giannino repeatedly begged for water. The only thing his mother could suggest was for everyone to pray the Rosary to Our Lady. During the hot night he kept asking for water until finally his mother appeared dressed in a blue robe and gave him enough to drink till his thirst was quenched and he was able to relax and fall into a deep sleep. Next morning when he awoke, his whole family was anxiously watching him. ”Aren’t you thirsty?” “ No Mamma!- last night you handed me a jug of water and I drank so much -I’m not thirsty at all “ ”It wasn’t me!” said his Mum. “ Yes,” said Giannino –“You were dressed all in blue”.

 “I don’t have a blue dress  and there has been no one here- It must have been the Madonna who came to help you!”…

When Giannino was about 11, his father’s death meant that his mother had to be constantly on the lookout for ways to feed her young family of 4. This included getting the village blacksmith to fabricate two metal containers shaped like a pregnant belly. He would help his mother fill them with illicit grappa made by his uncle. The “pregnant “ Carmelina would take the ferry into Naples to trade the moonshine for anything valuable or tradeable; such as mouldy white bread rolls from the American soldiers’ mess, or Nylon stockings.

 As the eldest, Gianni left school to work in the vinyards with his uncle Zio Pietro.

After trialling unsuccessfully in many of the village trades; cobbler, baker, builder’s labourer, café helper, he eventually found work at one of the fancy new hotels built for the tourists drawn to the Island’s ancient hot springs, antique way of life and natural beauty. He was fortunate enough to be chosen as the tray bearer for a regal visitor for the summer season – Queen Eugenia of Spain – chosen, not for any particular talent, he thinks but rather because he had a nice smile …This life changing event led to a royal recommendation for work in one of her hotels in Switzerland where he received training in fine hospitality and more importantly was paid in Suisse Francs!

Post-war Italy had been bombed and devastated and his Aunt Zia Francesca had migrated along with all her family to find work in cold damp England. Young Gianni followed and got a job in a café nearby in Aylesbury where he never forgot how the kind Jewish owner patiently taught him the tricks of adding up bills. He secured a better paying job as a ward orderly at Stoke Mandeville Hospital- here he learnt the care of patients with quadriplegia and paraplegia -and at the Wednesday social dances romanced and later married the young  trainee midwife Anne Stewart.

Together with his brother Isidoro they opened a restaurant  in Surbiton, outside London, called “The Penguin Lounge”, before eventually migrating with three small children, as 10-pound-Poms to his adopted Australia. As an Italian citizen he had to pay full fare of 60 pounds – he was always annoyed about that!

Perth was abuzz with the Commonwealth Games as well as the new mining industries. By now called “Johnny”, he worked two, sometimes 3 jobs at a time… as a waiter at Riverside Lodge where guests such as Lang Hancock were popular with staff as they were big tippers. In the afternoons he would deliver dinner trays to his daughter, young schoolgirl Gina (later Reinhart) whom he  remembered (then) as being nicely mannered and very polite. On the side, he took on private catering jobs while also working at Corvino’s, one of Perth’s first late opening winebars. One night in the wee hours, getting a lift home behind the bossy Hungarian chef on his scooter through the empty streets, he felt increasingly nervous as the daredevil chef wound his scooter along deserted Mounts Bay Road – driving on the wrong side of the road until finally the nervous Giovanni picked up enough courage to suggest, ”Don’t you think we’d better drive on the left side of the road?” The chef laughed “Sorry ! I thought I was in Europe!” and immediately corrected to the left side – when round the bend toward them roared a red sports car going full pelt – which would have wiped them out. The chef was so shocked he had to stop by the river and catch his breath before he was able to drop him home in Nedlands.  …His wife was home alone with the three kids and pregnant with Antonio, their fourth child, and there was a shotgun murderer prowling the suburbs knocking on peoples’ doors -one victim just in the next street. They moved to a new home in Cloverdale nearer Anne’s brothers and families, where child no. 5 Marco was born. While accompanying a friend to a business interview for a café in a downtown bowling alley and observing the line up for coffee, he saw a good opportunity and took on the lease for the Café-Restaurant at Fairlanes Bowling in downtown Perth. This would become his family’s second home for the next 30 years.. Taking advantage of an introductory offer he installed the first electric cappuccino machine in Perth- and it wasn’t long before the journos and musos from the  ABC and WA Symphony Orchestra next door discovered real coffee, or would sniff out Mama’s home made spaghetti bolognaise or steak with salad…  

From his experience migrating and starting from the bottom in two very different countries, Giovanni knew the value of the kindness of strangers and was always generous to people who had suffered misfortune. Heeding Archbishop Hickey’s call for Host families, Anne and Giovanni  sponsored two families of Vietnamese war refugees who were warmly welcomed into our extended family working in the busy café restaurant.

As a child I remembered him at the shop counter teaching us how to give good service to customers, or in the kitchen absolutely focused on how to make the perfect burger. He worked shifts mornings and evenings, the café only closing on Good Friday and Christmas afternoon… He somehow managed to find the time to take us ,between shifts, on family holidays to Bedfordale in the hills, or down south at Eagle Bay camping with our Anglo-Burmese cousins. At night time he would lie on our bedroom carpet telling us stories from his childhood island and at school holiday time would drive us up to our tiny Yanchep Lagoon holiday cottage. At dinner gatherings with guests, he would transform. He would often drive us in to school and to pick us up after school he would drive his Kombi into the school playground where he would open up the back and hand out unsold cakes, slices, pies and sausage rolls from the shop. It looked like a flock of seagulls when you throw a handful of chips to them!

As a host for guests at dinner he would change from his usual quiet self into an animated raconteur of old jokes or vignettes of his varied life experiences. Mum used to love organising gatherings and the Dumbarton Crescent home in Mt Lawley was frequently a place of singing, fancy dress parties or dancing – in the celtic tradition of the Ceilidhs. After the Sunday Mass, friends, relatives and neighbours would attend a potluck dinner of curry or pasta dishes …One mass the Priest welcomed to the parish newly arrived Servite Nuns from India, and before the mass was over, Mum had  tapped one on the shoulder and invited them all to dinner- gratefully accepted ! – so beginning a weekly tradition of the Servite nuns visiting and joining in festivities such as Scottish highland dancing led by our Scottish neighbour.

One school holidays at Yanchep, Mum found a vacant block on top of a sand dune with breathtaking views of the Indian Ocean. They enthusiastically purchased it and set about creating an Australian version of his ideal childhood home-a rambling house with very high ceilinged kitchen dining room overlooking the sea, surrounded by grapevines, terraces of olive, fig trees and native bird attracting shrubs complete with ducks, chooks , a Pizza oven and of course -a shrine to the Madonna…

When Anne and Gianni were asked what they had learned from each other, in their years together Mum said “Oh! your father taught me about the importance of Family and Loyalty . Papa replied “And your Mother opened my mind to the World . Before I met her, I was so narrow minded! “.

I can also add, that each of his 5 children stretched his tolerance in some way, growing up in a progressive new country. Anne was a great help in calmly counselling him at difficult times…always trusting that we were good people and also had to find our own way in the world.

In later years as Mum’s health deteriorated with dementia, he turned his lifelong love of photography and home movies to compiling dvd’s of family events, family pets, friends and relatives -which mum would find so familiar and comforting and would happily watch for hours…Papa said “I’m so glad I worked as an orderly in Stoke-Mandeville because I know how to care for your mother “.

Anne’s eventual passing away was probably the hardest thing for him to bear. He felt very alone without his life partner and constant companions for decades. He threw himself into attending mass and his bread deliveries. “It’s keeping me alive!” he would say.

At a time in his life when he didn’t have much to laugh about, he loved to watch endless re -runs of British humour such as “The Two Ronnies”, “Dad’s Army” and “Allo! Allo!”.

He would know the episodes so well, that he would often be heard laughing heartily before the jokes happened on the screen -He would say ”Its my Therapy!”.

His humour was also quite dry at times -When asked “How are you going?” He would reply, “I am, I am” … or “My only mistake was to get old!”

He always remembered the hungry days of his childhood when food was scarce and bread was a source of life. In those days the Franciscan begging monk Fra Graziano would carry a sack of bread up the hill to his village – he remembered as a 4 year old hugging him in thanks, and the monk affectionately replying “Don’t thank me little one  -when you’re big -you do the same ” ..

And so for decades together with mum he collected and distributed left over bread to the hungry in his community.

In the then isolated suburb of Yanchep they enthusiastically supported the various parish activities – whether they were weekly regulars at the tiny group’s Sunday masses in sheds , community centres or classrooms, or at St Andrew’s Parish in Clarkson- – typically contributing homemade olives or manning the parish stall at community events. They received much solace from the Mass and in later days receiving the Eucharist at home.  To him being a Christian was to put love into action without talking too much about it. He loved to pray the rosary every evening, and like his siblings, Antonietta, Isidoro and Franca-was a lay devotee of St Francis who loved to speak to the birds and beasts, calling the sun brother and the moon sister. In his later years when he could no longer eat figs and grapes so much -he loved watching the little silvereyes eat half his grapes.. “some for them- some for us!” He would say. He taught us that true happiness is to be generous with what you have and be of service to others…

Looking back on our childhood I realise how lucky we were to have him quietly working away in the background providing us children with opportunities and the education he had missed out on. He was constantly caring for all his extended family of different generations, for all those years.

He would wish everyone the Franciscan Blessing of Peace and Goodwill “Pace et Bene” or else his sponsor families’ Vietnamese farewell of “Ciao Tam Byeh”.

Now Papa you are free to be with your beloved Anne Stewart.

When I said this to a good friend of the family Gianni Margio he laughed and said” Yeah! And I can just see your Mum taking off her slipper and giving him a good whack and saying “ “Gianni! What took you so long!!!”

The whole Mazzella family would like to express their Gratitude to all the friends of Anne and Gianni who came today and also include those who couldn’t come and those  who have passed on and remain in our memory!

In Gianni’s favourite farewell in Vietnamese: “Ciao Tam Byeh!”

Or in Latin:

 “Pace et Bene! “