In September 1978 I arrived in London; the boy from the country had arrived in London. The newly rechristened Marco Criscuolo, the boy from Buckinghamshire and Devon, had arrived in London. It had an air of unreality about it but it felt like a massive step in the right direction. How could I fail to fulfil the promise now?
I was going to study Italian and German at Polytechnic of Central School of Languages in the square behind the Euston Tower.
Although I had no formal qualifications in Italian, the head of department (a redhaired fella from Milan I think) had conducted my interview in Italian and concluded that my Italian was good enough to allow me to start 'from A level'. This felt like a giant step forward. I was going to get myself a degree in Italian and I'd have a piece of paper that said I was Italian ... sort of anyway.
My Italian thrived in this environment. Most of the other kids on the course were first generation Brits whose parents were Italian. They spoke Italian among themselves and I soon succeeded in making myself one of them ... being the sociable sort that I am.
On top of that, all of the lectures were taken in Italian and all of the assignments had to be written in Italian. It was sink or swim and as languages were my thing, I swam - I'd managed to come out of comprehensive with O levels in French, German, Latin and Spanish and A levels in French and German and all without doing any work. I was convinced that I'd be able to do the same here. An easy degree I figured.
None of that really mattered though because in my new-found Italian community I was doing my best to bring about some sort of metamorphosis from English country boy to London-Italian city boy.
More importantly, I started going down to Woburn Walk regularly to see Bob and Ginny (Andrea and Giovannina) and Marie, thereby re-establishing my link to grampa's generation.
No comments:
Post a Comment