My granddad, Armando Marubbi, first came over to Wales in 1896, when he was 16. I've just recently found out that he came and joined his older brother, who had a garage on Market Street. Armando came with the Peeney brothers, who are based in Blackpool and the Sidoli brothers, who were based in Shrewsbury. Armando started a café/ tea room in York Street, next to the Wynnstay Hotel. They had an agreement with each other (between Peeney, Sidoli and Marubbi) not to trade within 40 miles of each other, under penalty of one guinea. In the 1920s, Armando bought another tea room in Abbot Street, where Herbert was born, and stayed there until 1936, when they moved again to Bank Street, where they are still trading, with me, Herbert's son, running it. He also acquired some land in Ruthin Road, where he built lock-up garages for rent. It is now owned by Albert, who has had a garage there for many years.

Armando met his wife, who worked as a servant in Chester. She was Italian, yes, and they got together and I think that's probably when the café or tea room started, in 1896 in Yorke Street. For a number of years, Armando and his wife carried on trading in Yorke Street, because it was a busy part of town, then they moved, well, bought, another café in Abbott Street, which is another central area, and they were running two at the same time. That's where my father was born, Herbert, in 1922. Then the town shifted again and then we moved to Bank Street, where we currently are, in 1936.

They had three sons and a daughter. Albert was the eldest, who owned Marrubi's Removals for many years, and it is still going strong many years later. Herbert was his second son, and he helped in the garage as a mechanic, and then in the café at a later date. Joseph was the third son and he was in the carpet and furniture business, called Crazy Carpets, on the Beast Market. Kate was his only daughter and she helped in the café.

Well, the First World War, my grandfather used to run a haulage business as well, and he had quite a few large lorries. I've got a newspaper report saying that because the government wanted his lorries, they said that he could stay in this country and fight for this country as long as they could use the lorries. He was a mechanic by trade, so he was in the First World War as a mechanic. Because of the shortage of mechanics and equipment he was quite handy for Great Britain. Armando was a pioneer in North Wales with ice cream, taking it all around the area with his ice cream van. His favourite spot was in Porthmadoc, where he built a café on the sea front, and he used to take people up there for a holiday. He acquired a 99 year lease on the whole of Black Rock Sands, which was totally different then than it is today. He stayed there until the end of the Second World War. Unfortunately, the café got looted, and he had to give the lease up, but kept a small plot of land for a caravan site on the Beach Road. He built some caravans on the site and used to take people from Wrexham for a holiday at a cost of five pounds a week. The site now is still owned by Angela, Herbert's daughter.

Armando was a fanatical wrestling fan and he would always go to Coedpoeth to the wrestling, where he would fight with the likes of Billy Two Rivers, Les Cellet and Mike Morino, and others. There was a fighter with a mask on and he would always try to get it off him.

My father, in the Second World War, he was a mechanic as well. He went into the REME (Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers), and he was in the Eighth Army, and he went to Italy, North Africa, all over the place really, but he was more of a mechanic.

Oh yes, I mean, not actually with a rifle, but he was there doing back-up, he was a mechanic- repairing all the lorries, cars, vans, and whatever.. tanks.. He met my mother at the end if the World War in 1945. He stayed on. He was stationed at Molfetta, which is near Bari in South Italy. He was a sergeant major at the time and he could get a lot of rations for the local community and my mother's mother really liked what he was doing and thought that she could get a much better life if she was married to him. She was only 17 at the time. Then they came over (to Wrexham) and my mother started working in the café in Bank Street for a few years before she had children.

It's Marubbi's Temperance Bar now because just over 100 years ago, the building was the Temperance Hotel, only a small hotel with five or six rooms (in fact, the room numbers on the doors are still there), then it was St Mary's School, and then it became Marubbi's café, which was re-organised and made one big room instead of smaller rooms. It's been Marubbi's café ever since. The idea of the Temperance was that there was no alcohol, and there is no alcohol today, so it was an ideal name to carry on.