Tony Hank, 60, is the grandson of Italian former PoW Antonio Vasami. Tony fought over the farm with his millionaire uncle Luigi Vasami, 76The grandson of an Italian prisoner of war who set up a £1.4million Welsh dairy farm has won a battle with his millionaire uncle over the possession of an award-winning herd of cows.
As well as selling milk to the general market, the family also supplied Luigi’s son Tony Vasami to create home-made ice cream for the Italian restaurant, La Calabria, he runs in a converted milking barn on one of the farms. Following a trial at the High Court in Swansea, a judge has now ruled that Tony can keep the 80 award-winning cows and their offspring because they had been legitimately transferred to him years ago.
He returned to Calabria, in southern Italy, after the war, but found the situation tough and headed back to Wales with his family, including young son Luigi, in the late 1940s. The family sells milk to the general market and also supplied Luigi's son Tony Vasami to create home-made ice cream for the Italian restaurant, La Calabria
The milk from the herd went to make cheese, as well as going to his cousin Tony Vasami's Italian restaurant for their home-made ice cream. Later that year, they were served with a 'notice to quit' in which Luigi and his wife Grazia ordered Tony and Arlene off the farm. He claimed that, based on that promise, he had worked long hours there and that he and his wife had been occupants under a 'family arrangement' and not as tenants.
Although he had given up a job to work there in 1988, his farming at Glasfryn had allowed him to pursue other careers, including as a salesman in a bovine artificial insemination business, Semex.