From the sublime?

This story started four lifetimes ago in a village called Pontone on the Sorrento peninsula in the Lattari mountains behind Amalfi.

It was started by Nicola (just for the record, the emphasis is on the second syllable) Criscuolo who was born in Pontone on 21 December 1875 and the lady who was to become his wife, Raffaella Fraulo, who was born in 1874 in Minori.

Having joined the Royal Italian Army on 24 January 1896, he married Raffaella on 8 February 1900 in Amalfi and, on 2 March 1900, having been granted a period of indefinite leave, the lovebirds took ship in Naples bound for London.

Why did they leave? I've asked myself that question a hundred times. His eldest brother Luigi (ten years his senior) presumably inherited what land the family owned and he already had four kids by the time Nicola left. No prospects? No idea. Itchy feet? Maybe. Looking for a better life? In London?? Economic migrants? Absolutely.

When he arrived in London, he got a flat in Marylebone and (cliché No. 1) set up his own business making ice cream. In 1902 the couple celebrated, presumably, the birth of their first child - a masculine child - called Pasqualino. The name was probably inevitable given that Nicola's father was called Pasquale and his mother Pasqualina.

By 1903, they'd moved to Woburn Walk in St Pancras where Nicola opened a 'refreshment shop' and where, shortly afterwards, they brought their second child, Giolina Marie, into the light.