Between Alfred and Luigi getting married, Europe had gone to war again. Unfortunately for the Criscuolos in St Pancras however, this time Italy had come in on the wrong side.
Concerned about the effect that the Italian connection would have on his substantial business interests, Antonio had everyone change their names.
As a result, when Anne Imrie married at the Registry Office in Eton in 1941, she married Lionel Crisp. Antonio became Anthony, Alfred simply changed his surname and I'm not quite sure what Andrea did ... that is to say whether he became Andrew or Robert or Bob. Everyone always called him Bob anyway.
When they ditched the surname, it seems that they also ditched the language. English only from now on in. I don't know whether, or to what extent it helped Tony's business interests but the change was to last until well into the '70s.
Back to the war and Bob joined the army. I only ever got two things out of him about his war service. The first was that he served in North Africa and Italy and the second was that he did the laundry until they got to Sicily when he got promoted to chief scrounger on account of his being able to speak Italian.
Fred tried to join the Royal Navy (obviously before the change of surname) but his application was rejected on the grounds that he was Italian ... so they gave him a job at Marconi's instead! There's logic in there somewhere.
The others, as far as I know all stayed at home. Tony and Lou (I don't know that anyone ever called him Lionel) had businesses to run.
Meanwhile back on the Sorrento peninsula, the family that Nicola had left behind was lying low in a place called Prestofa up in the Lattari mountains and keeping out of the way of the Germans.
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