...de facto forms of serfdom.

Here’s one from Mum’s childhood. Rural families in winter used to sit around the fire to tell stories and attend to small jobs like mending clothes - not to mention to spend some time together. It was called the filò. For the most part the labourers were so poor they couldn’t afford to keep the fire going all night, so they met in the cowsheds where it was warm, and for that privilege they had to ‘repay’ a certain number of days of work. The 'rationale', if you could call it that, as was explained to Mum by a woman in the village, was that opening the shed door let some of the heat out. And the heat belonged to the owners.


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