As the years went by, habits changed. car ownership, the spread of television, the introduction of live entertainment into the drinking clubs, the popularity, for a while at least, of Bingo, and a higher degree of commuting between home and wokplace, all served to reduce the appeal of the traditional Italian cafés. Evening trade in particular fell away sharply. In the valleys, the consolidation of some collieries, and the closure of others, gained momentum in the 1950s and accelerated rapidly through the succeeding decades. The transfer of miners to places of work away from their communities robbed those communities of their vitality and the once throbbing Italian cafés, saw their clients drift away. Many cafés have been sold to developers; some taken over by the Chinese. Some would say that in five to ten years we will not see any Italian cafés in the valleys. This is perhaps pessimistic.

So what has happened to the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Italians in South Wales? With the familiar surnames it is not difficult to trace them. Education was aways very important to the families. This has enabled the families to divert their efforts into different professions within the wider communities some examples of this is shown below.

Descendants are now included within the Welsh communities and are now employed as teachers, lecturers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, nurses, builders etc.

There are many Italians who have also become famous within Wales these would include:

Actor - Victor Spinetti

Actor - Marco Marenghi

Rugby star - Robert Sidoli

Rugby player - Peter Sidoli

Boxer - Joe Calzaghe