Immagini e ricordi. Dall'Ansaldo San Giorgio alla Ferrania (di F. Bagnus)

This work was written after my request to the author to recount his long life of work and his versatile technical experience acquired in two important industries: the Ansaldo San Giorgio (Genoa) and Ferrania (Savona). However, is the author himself, as stated in the preface, who feels the need to tell his story and to clarify it to himself. It's a plot of memories of family and work's life: the stories of the author's grandfather and father, who where mechanicals and small entrepreneurs; the family's workshop that was started-up in the mid-fifties; important works commissioned to the workshop such as the construction of machines called "verifiche (checks)" for the quality control of films for the establishment of Ferrania FILM (factory which, therefore assumed the name Ferrania SPA, as the local village). The author tells furthermore his employment in 1964 at the Ansaldo San Giorgio industries located in Genoa. A period of important technical training for the author, and a strong impact with a growing industrial city. He tries to relate the facts of history to the simple world of reality and everyday life into the factory, memories of older workers, moods, opinions, politically motivated jokes, the episodes of cooperation and situations of tension never solved. It is an attempt to read the story through a different vision, from the inside of the factory, in order to understand how factory's social reality determines in part orsuffers political events. Are, above all, his memories and photographs of industrial plants, to guide us through the stages of technical, especially those which took place in Ferrania factory, where the author worked from 1970 until his retirement. After his retirement the author achieves a University Degree in History, at the University of Genoa. Ferrania, an important factory in Italy was specialized in the production of photographic film, and could well be regarded as a national pride; it had an expert management, able to organize the work scientifically. For that reason, it becomes a fertile breeding ground of planning and research. The story continues with the description of the operations to replace old coal boilers dismantled in the late fifties, the installation of new turbines and the replacement of ammonia with Freon in the refrigeration system, no longer to be deferred because of the adaptation to new technologies more environmentallyfriendly. Unfortunately, Ferrania factory, which had been able to create in the green Valbormida an almost utopic social space of work, was caught by the wind of change in the late eighties and in 1996 it become Imation. This paper it 's basically the story of the 'world' Ferrania, in which the author lived a very happy period. A period in which craftsmanship and skills were still important and the expert workers were not swallowed up by technological innovations and new ways of doing business.