April 1964. Groups of workers and miners sad and thoughtful stay in yards, next to the wells and to the inclined shafts worried about their future. Noises close to them become softer, workshops and carpentries work just a little bit, not so much sulphur arrives in surface, Calcaroni are close to finish the last cycles of fusion and a lot of them are already empty and they won’t be never lighted up. Happiness that a few time ago was filling the air of the end of the shift, now is absent, murmurs and a lot of agitation are dominating the situation, a lot of miners are already departed and other miners are still here, for a little while, and they know that they will go away soon them as well. Somebody tells that he heard that the Montecatini Society could change its mind. Unfortunately it will never happen. It was just a matter of time, of a few time, before the mine would have been closed. In the village the situation was even worse; the downtown is empting and the drama that is striking Perticara isn’t at the top yet. A few time ago the spectacle in the village could be the same as a normal day of market; there was something new from the city, an event, a party, the waiting for an exhibition of famous singer, but not anymore. The are a lot of people that everyday are charging their suitcases together with a few household goods in a makeshift way and they are looking for a better future in the north of Italy. The luckiest are the pre-retired, at least they can stay in their own village. It’s never been like that.

A few years before, the mine of Perticara was considered the biggest sulphur mine of Europe, there was a lot of mineral and so there were a lot of working places: more the 1600 people were working at the same time in the mining plants of this small mountain village . The induced was also incredible and a lot of people had come, from far away, in order to get a secure and well-paid job. Work means money. Money mean welfare. In Perticara there was everything, more or less. Since 1917, when the Montecatini Society bought out the concession in order to exploit the ore body of Perticara and the cultivations of mineral in the underground were increasing. The first indications of modernity are under everybody’s eyes; it came the electricity, first only in the industrial yards and then also in houses, the first waterworks was built and there were wc, water and telephone at least in houses dedicated to managers and employers. In a few time shops and in the consumers’ cooperative shelves became full of foodstuffs unknown in the most of the hinterland villages. Now housewives can buy olive oil, butter, veal meat, vermout, pots of jam, coffee, chocolate. In the most modern bars there was the chance to drink a lot of appetizers and spirits, an alterative to the more famous Sangiovese wine and you can watch the first programs in tv. If somebody was sick, there wass the option to run directly to the small hospital built between Perticara and the Certino yard in order to be reached also by the injured of the mine. What is more, if you were not too tired after a whole working day, there were several ways to have fun.

The four cinemas and two theaters of the community offered spectacles of high level and they screened brand new movies. In winter every occasion was a good one for celebrating and the Carnival excesses started to subside only with the beginning of the Lent time. In summertime, when the weather was hot enough, people were listening with pleasure to the marching band in which miners could express their talent in music. 15th August celebrations went on non-stop for a lot of days and ladies bought the best clothes in order to make sew wonderful dresses to the excellent dressmakers of Perticara. These dresses were inspired to the models belonging to the director’s wife who was representing the absolute avant-garde. For people more quiet and less worldly, the library after a whole working day was an occasion for relaxing, while for others have been the instrument and the incentive for learning how to read and to write. Life was passing franticly, times and rhythms weren’t certainly those of the countryside where seasons and cultivation cycles were beating the passing of the time, but rather shifts of work, the Certino siren, the payday, noises of yards, the acrid smell of sulphur which stirs the countryside and burn the green areas which were trying to make room in the oppressive yellow, the creaking of the cableway, trucks which were moving in muddy streets in winter and in dusty streets in summer and last but not least, mine disasters. The business fabric which developed around mining villages was modern and industrial, a model that will proliferate in the rest of Italy only at the beginning of 50s with the explosion and the diffusion of the economic boom. The news that contrasted against the rural world is the monthly salary. Cash was available to be spent in order to buy what people need, not everything was accessible, at least at the beginning, but miners salary was good and in a few decades welfare was perceptible and it canceled the last marks of backwardness that was still fluttering in a lot of Italian country sides.

There was a good standard of living, but too many miners lost their lives too soon. Mines were infernal places: the dark, the dust, the hard work, the danger, all elements that can be found in mines all over the world. The miner’s job is for sure one of the most dangerous and tiring , and miners are lucky if they are able to go out from the mine after their shifts of work and they can see the sun light and breath fresh air. They lived in a world where there were no days and no nights, there were no seasons and they spent their lives in galleries where for decades they dug in order to find sulphur.