The Criscuolos cross 'the pond'

The next official record we find of the Criscuolo family at St Pancras is the entry of Antonio on the crew manifest for the Majestic in 1926. He was an 'assistant waiter' working the Southampton to New York route and, as is suggested later, there is a suggestion that this 18-year old stopped in New York for some time.

He next appears on the passenger manifest of the SS Montclare from Southampton to Quebec. The first thing that one notices is that he has been there before - between May and November 1929. He would have been 20 when he arrived and 21 when he went back to the UK.

We also find from that entry on the manifest that he took Canadian citizenship on that first trip because when he went back - on the 17th of April 1930 - he was admitted as a 'returned Canadian'. The obvious conclusion is that the citizenship was necessary to enable him to move and work freely in the country.

We know that he stayed in the Royal York Hotel on his 1929 visit and that he stayed only as long as he needed to in order to pick up his Canadian passport which was issued on 21 November 1929.

The passenger manifest also has him working at the (and I quote) "Grurva Club" in the employ of Mr C Collins. I am forced to the conclusion that 'Grurva' is a misspelling or a phonetic spelling. Groover? Grover? Groova? I have no idea and there is no sign that I shall find out any time soon. In any event, by the 29th of April 1929, he was back in Toronto.

On the 11th of June 1932, he was heading back to Liverpool on the Duchess of Atholl and, asked for is occupation, he professes to be a waiter ... presumably at the Groover or Grover Club or whatever it was called. We also see that he has given the USA as his last place of permanent residence. This is one mobile 24-year old.

On the 21st of June 1932 his younger brother, Luigi, was on the Empress of Australia heading for Quebec. A musician (saxophone being his instrument) he was apparently going to stay with Antonio at 90 Wellington Street, Toronto and one might reasonably conclude that he was going to work at the Grover Club or whatever the hell it was called.

I'm starting to lose track now 'cos I have no record of Antonio returning to Toronto after his trip back to London on the 11th of June but that doesn't mean that he didn't of course.

Luigi's entry on the passenger manifest is interesting. He was carrying £40 in his pocket (£1,336 in modern terms) and he was detained - arrived at Quebec on the 26th of June and released on the 2nd of July ... as in immigrant. But on the 11th of August he was heading back to London on the Alaunia. Did he not make it? Did he hate it? Did the club owner not like him? He was a decent musician like my grampa was. Not in Stan Getz' class but good all the same.

I'm afraid that I can't make head nor tail of it. Tony was an astute business man and left a substantial sum when he died in January 1954 so one assumes that he was up to something constructive here but I have no idea what.

Ten years later ...

By the time Pasquale's and Pasqualina's son Nicola (my great grandfather) was born on 21 December 1875 the rebellion was over. In the ten years between 1860 and 1870, the fight was knocked out of the rebels, freedom fighters, partisans, resistance, macquis of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Call them what you will but don't call them brigands or terrorists.

Nicola was named after an older brother born on 10 August 1869 who died at the age of 4 on 19 September 1873. His elder brother Luigi was now 10 and he had a sister, Trofimena who was now three.

At some stage in the 1890s he joined the Merchant Marine. He made a few coastwise journeys from Amalfi or Salerno to places like Taranto then on 24 January 1896 he transferred to the Royal Italian Army. Whether the transfer was voluntary or not I have no idea. I don't know whether he saw active service. There is no evidence of any such action but he was serving at the time (1895-1896) of the First Italo-Ethiopian War.

He would've looked smart though in his uniform. 1.85 metres (6 ft 3 ins) tall. Short chestnut hair. Chestnut eyes. Well trimmed handlebar moustache.

I imagine that when he married Rafaella Fraulo on 8 February 1900, he marched down the aisle in that uniform. The story that I was told was that they married in the cathedral in Amalfi - he was from Scala and she was from Minori. I have no idea whether it's true but it's a lovely image. Her in her grandmother's or great-grandmother's wedding dress and him in his uniform getting married in that beautiful arabesque cathedral.

On 2 March 1900 there is an entry in his Matriculation Booklet which reads (to the extent that I can read the handwriting) "I declare that there is no obstacle to the holder removing himself to London for the period of two years from today under obligation to return in the case of a call to arms ... under pain of denunciation and punishment as a deserter. Dated 2 March 1900, Captain of the port."

In the 1901 census of England and Wales, Nicola and his wife Rafaella Fraulo were safely ensconced in Carlisle Street in Marylebone and he was working, probably unsurprisingly, as an ice cream maker.

Just over two years after having left Pontone, they celebrated the birth of their first child, Pasqualino, obviously named after his parents.

I have no idea why he left. I supposed when I first started writing this story that he left because there wasn't enough land between them to support the siblings, there wasn't enough work or some other such reason but it was all pure supposition. It is entirely possible that what the newborn Italian government called the Brigandage was enough to drive him out of the country along with millions of his compatriots.

When he left Pontone in 1900, he was still 'under arms' under obligation to return in case of a call to arms.

At some stage in February 1908, Nicola packed his bags and took ship again for Naples. His grandparents, parents, brother and sister must have been delighted to have him back. His aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbours will have come running round. What's London like? Are the streets really paved with gold? How's Rafaella? How many children have you got now? Will you stay there forever?

Now there's a question? He might have said 'no'. He might have said that he planned to return as soon as he'd made enough money to buy a house of his own and a bit of land. It is certain though that he would have sat round the table at lunch or dinner drinking vino paesano and answering an endless stream of questions and telling captivating tales of life in London ... the underground, the markets (he practically lived at Covent Garden Market), Bond Street, Oxford Road, the Strand ...

On 4 March, he and the Corp Commandant signed his certificate of indefinite leave from the Royal Italian Army (Regio Esercito Italiano). It says of Nicola that "during his time under arms, he has conducted himself well and served with faith and with honour."

It was signed by the mayor of Scala on 8 March 1908. I don't know how long he stayed. I don't know how often the ships sailed out of Naples to London. He might have stayed a week, he might have stayed a month.

Back in London were Rafaella, Pasqualino, Giolina, Marie and Amelia and Rafaella presumably ran the greengrocer's shop ... and looked after the kids - Pasqualino was only 6 and Amelia was only 18 months.

Six years later Europe was at war. Nicola and Rafaella had now had eight children and Pasqualino was two years dead. They appear to have come through the Great War largely unscathed. Italy had joined on the right side for this one.

The terror from Turin

By the time Pasquale and Pasqualina celebrated the birth of their first child, Luigi, on 17 August 1865, their world had been turned upside down. The thriving kingdom described by John Goodwin Esq. in his article of 1849 had disappeared. What had been the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had been violently annexed to the King of Piedmont's new Kingdom of Italy.

The forces of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had been slow to react to the Piedmontese invasion but they did react. Groups of soldiers who had been serving King Francis II when the northerners invaded put on their uniforms again, raised the Bourbon flag and took on the invaders from Turin.

Turin, King Victor Emanuel II and Count Camillo Cavour had set their sites on their unification of the Italian peninsula and nobody was going to be allowed to stop them. The Bourbon loyalists were branded as brigands, common criminals and thieves in order to justify the Italian governments reaction. A war against brigands had begun - the brigandage - which would last until the end of the decade.

Speaking in the Turin parliament in November 1862, the liberal deputy, Ferrari, said "You may call them brigands but they fight under a national flag; you may call them brigands but the fathers of these brigands twice restored the Bourbons to the throne of Naples ... What constitutes brigandage? Is it the fact, as the ministry would have us believe, that 1,500 men commanded by two or three vagabonds can make head against the whole kingdom backed by an army of 120,000 regulars? Why, these 1,500 must be demigods - heroes! I have seen a town of 5,000 inhabitants utterly destroyed. By whom? Not by the brigands."

The brigandage even raised temperatures in the palace of Westminster. On 8 May 1863 Mr Cavendish Bentinck said "the Brigandage is a civil war, a spontaneous popular movement against foreign occupation similar to that carried on in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from 1799 to 1812 when the great Nelson, Sir John Stuart and other English commanders were not ashamed to enter into relations with the brigands of that day ... for the purpose of expelling the French invaders."

Even the redoubtable Disraeli threw in his tuppence ha'penny's worth saying "I want to know on what ground we are to discuss the state of Poland [which had been invaded by the Russians] if we are not to discuss the state of Calabria and the two Sicilies. True, in one country the insurgents are called brigands, and in the other patriots; but with that exception, I have not learned from this discussion that there is any marked difference between them."

Unfortunately for the Bourbon soldiers, the British government of the day had never forgiven the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies for its exploitation of the sulphur monopoly and it was happy to see Turin do what it wanted with the southern Italians and the Sicilians ... and it did.

Local Turinese military governors posted orders for the local population and the following is an example.

2nd - Every landowner, farmer or agent, will be bound, immediately on the publication of this notice, to withdraw from the said forests all labourers, shepherds, goatherds &c., who may be in them, and with them to withdraw their flocks: the said persons will also be bound to destroy all folds and huts erected in these places.

3rd - Henceforth, no-one can export from the neighbouring districts any provision for the use of the peasants, and the latter will not be allowed to have in their possession more food than is necessary for a single day for each person of their family.

4th - Those who disobey this order, which shall come into force two days after its publication, will be, without any exception as to time, place or person, considered as brigands and, as such, shot.

The measures adopted for the suppression of the brigandage, according to O'Clery, included:

(1) Shooting with or without trial all persons taken in arms.

(2) Sacking and burning disaffected towns and villages.

(3) Imprisonment, without trial or indictment, of suspected persons and "relatives of brigands".

(4) Treating as accomplices of brigands, and punishing with death or imprisonment all who:

(i) had in their possession arms without a license.

(ii) worked in the fields without a pass in any proclaimed district.

(iii) carried to the fields more food than was sufficient for one meal.

(iv) kept a store of food in their huts.

(v) shod horses without a license of or kept of carried horse-shoes.

(5) Destroying huts in the woods, walling up all out-lying buildings, taking the people and their cattle from the smaller farms and collecting all cattle in positions where they could be placed under a military guard.

(6) Refusing to allow anyone to stand neutral, and treating would-be neutrals as friends and accomplices of the brigands.

(7) Rigid censorship of the press.

According to the Italian journal, Il Commercio, published on 8 November 1862, in the fourteen months running up to November 1862, the Turinese (Italian) army had sacked and burned the following towns:

Guaricia (Molise) - 1,322 dead.

Campochiaro (Molise) - 979 dead.

Casalduni (Molise) - 3,032 dead.

Pontelandolfo (Molise) - 3,917 dead.

Viesti (Capitanata) - 5,417 dead.

San Marco in Lamis (Capitanata) - 10,612 dead.

Rignano (Capitanata) - 1,814 dead.

Venosa (Basilicata) - 5,952 dead.

Basile (Basilicata) - 3,400 dead.

Auletta (Principate Citeriore) - 2,023 dead.

Eboli (Principato Citeriore) - 4,175 dead.

Montifalcone (Principato Ulteriore) - 2,618 dead.

Montiverde (Principato Ulteriore) - 1,988 dead.

Vico (Terra di Lavoro) - 730 dead.

Controne (Calabria Ulteriore II) - 1,089 dead.

Spinello (Calabria Ulteriore II) - 298 dead.

In April 1863, the Neapolitan deputy Nicotera (a Garibaldian in favour of unification and so no friend of the Bourbon uprising) said "The Bourbon government had the great merit of preserving our lives and substance, a merit the present government cannot claim. We have neither personal nor political liberty. The deeds we behold are worthy of Tamerlane, Genghis-Khan, or Attila."

Napoleon III himself wrote to General Fleury saying "I have written to Turin to remonstrate. The details we receive are of such a kind, as to be calculated to alienate every honest mind from the Italian cause. Not only are misery and anarchy at their height, but the most culpable and unworthy acts are a matter of course. A general, whose name I have forgotten, having forbidden the peasants to take provisions with them when they go to work in the fields, has decreed that all on whom a piece of bread is found shall be shot. The Bourbons never did anything like that."

Pino Aprile (2010 - Terroni) asks "What does it take to kill one of our own?" Not a lot it seems. Giuseppe Santopietro was dispatched with a single shot of a rifle and his newborn son with bayonet in the stomach. For thirty women who had gathered around the cross in a market square, the charge of brave Bersaglieri did the job. Their prayers and rosaries were no match for the Bersaglieri blades. Those who took refuge in the church were stripped and raped in front of the altar. One of them, who had the temerity to try to defend herself and scratched the face of one of the Bersaglieri, had her hands chopped off before she was safely raped and dispatched.

Pasquale and Pasqualina, their friends, family were only 60 km from Eboli. 38 miles. The world in which they were born would never be the same again and a chain of events had been set in train that would separate their son Nicola and his descendants from Pontone for 99 years.

The arrival of the 'Redshirts'

By the time Garibaldi landed at Marsala with his 1,000 on 11 May 1860 with Royal Navy and Piedmontese navy ships protecting his landing to prevent any interference from the navy of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Pasquale Criscuolo may well have been courting Pasqualina Rispoli.

Maybe they met up in the square in Pontone and walked along the narrow streets of the town hand-in-hand under the Mediterranean sun. Maybe they had their entire families walking twenty yards behind them just like Michael Corleone and Appolonia Vitelli. Maybe when they managed to turn a corner to grasp a few short seconds out-of-sight of the families they stole a fleeting kiss and laughed mischievously when they did. There are a million maybes but there is no reason to believe that they weren't happy. As I have said already, on the whole, life was good ... and improving.

They probably got married at the little church in the square in Pontone - San Giovanni Battista - and settled down to live life as it had been lived by hundreds of generations of their fathers before them.

They may have heard of Garibaldi's feats in Sicily as Calatafimi, Palermo and Milazzo fell. He may have heard of landing of the Garibaldian troops in Calabria. He almost certainly heard of the battle of Volturno and on October 21 1860 he will amost certainly have known about the plebiscite that was held 'ask' the people of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies whether they wished to be 'annexed' to the Piedmontese kingdom in the name Italy; to become 'brothers of Italy'.

Sir Henry Elliott (the British Ambassador at Naples) described the plebiscite in the following terms - "the vote is to be taken by universal suffrage, and although no avowedly by open voting, it is so arranged that what each man does will be known, and public opinion brought to bear on him. I do not apprehend that the proportion of negative votes would under any circumstances have been very large but with the present arrangement there is still less chance of it ... both the terms of the vote and the manner in which it is to be taken are well calculated to secure the largest possible majority for the annexation, but not so well fitted to ascertain the real wishes of the country."

O'Clery, having cited Sir Henry, goes on to describe the conduct of the plebiscite by the Piedmontese government and its troops - "On the day of the Plébiscite the votes were subjected to the force of public opinion in a very tangible form. The National Guard, with fixed bayonets, stood at the voting urns. One man who voted No at Monte Calvario was repaid with a stab for his boldness. All the Garibaldians, most of whom, as we have seen, were Northern Italians, were allowed to vote in the capacity of "liberators"."

The result, O'Clery records, was 1,303,064 in favour of annexation and 10,312 against in Naples (that meant the whole of Southern Italy not just Naples) and 432,054 in favour and 667 against in Sicily. He observes, wryly, that these results showed "... the same surprising unanimity that had been witnessed in Savoy, Nice, the Romagna, Umbria, the Marches and invariably on the side of the men whose troops held the country."

I want to say one thing here to put the record straight. Garibaldi was not the all-conquering hero that those who wrote the history books would have us believe. O'Clery records, very matter-of-factly, that "Sicily had been revolutionized, from Marsala to Messina, in less than three months - but Garibaldi had not done it. Cavour's agents had prepared the way and Cavour's fleet had supported the movement. Garibaldi had been justly called the enfonceur des portes ouvertes - the man who broke through open doors - and nowhere did he deserve the title better than in Sicily. He won three victories. The first was gained over a weak, incompetent man, at Calatafimi; the second, at Palermo, was fought against a traitor; the third, at Milazzo, and the third only, was a genuine victory."

Garibaldi went on to bang his head against a number of closed doors in the years that followed. He was a clown who succeeded only because he was backed at every turn by the devious, duplicitous and powerful man who was Count Camillo Cavour. Unfortunately, like Inspecteur Clouseau, he believed that it was down to the fact that he was a genius.

Such was life in Amalfi

The principal source (actually, it's the only source) for the story I am about to relate is a book published in 1904 called "La Prima Repubblica Marinara d'Italia - Amalfi", written by a gentleman called Umberto Moretti.

In what is described as 'il capitolo unico' (the only chapter) in the section headed 'Notes on Industry and Commerce' Moretti discusses the traditional industries of the area (both manufacture and agriculture). Unfortunately for me, much of his chronological referencing is obscure. It was clearly understood by his readers and I have sought the assistance of Google on more than one occasion but not always with any notable success.

His first stop is with the fishing industry which brought in, among other things, coral, tuna, mackerel and swordfish which were sold in the markets in Naples and Salerno. Coral fishing in Amalfi, however, had died in the 16th century and was, at the time when Moretti was writing, restricted to Torre del Greco (it is still one of the principal tourist souvenirs in the shops along the coast).

The agricultural muscle of the area (involving a third of the local population earning about 1.5 Lira a day per man - it's pretty much meaningless to me too and I can't find anything on the internet to convert it into a modern equivalent) is dedicated principally to the lemon groves (and still is it has to be said) and that is closely followed by the grape (God bless the grape) although Moretti notes that much of the land given over to vines was being 'converted' (if that's the right word) to lemon groves on account of the fact that the latter is, apparently, more productive than the former which presumably means that lemons were more profitable.

Much of the grape grown in Amalfi is sent to Naples where it finds its way to the table. The rest is used to produce "light wines of excellent quality" much of which is exported under the name Capri Bianco. The area also produced sufficient pulses and potatoes for the needs of the local population but no more than enough.

Moretti next turns to mourn the fact that "... the art of extracting the essential oil of the rose and producing that pleasant perfume ... sought by medieval gentlemen for its fragrant qualities." for which Amalfi was once a centre of excellence had entirely disappeared - the rose beds making way for lemon groves. Rose water was, apparently, demanded of tenants by their landlords by way of rent and the last recorded case was to be found in a tenancy agreement dated 1824.

The Amalfi silk industry, run predominantly by Jews, which had prospered, particularly in Amalfi, Ravello, Scala and Agerola, was short lived and it faded and finally died when, in the early 16th century Garcia Alvarez de Toledo, 4th Marquis of Villafranca del Bierzo and Viceroy of Naples chased the Jews from the area. Another case of commercial good sense being suppressed by religious zeal.

It was replaced by a wool industry when Alfonso the Magnanimous (what a wonderful epithet) introduced merino sheep into the area. Wool mills sprang up in Amalfi, Scala, Ravello and, above all, in Atrani. This wool found its way onto the markets of Calabria, Sicily, Sardinia, Capua, Benevento, Naples, Foggia and Melfi. As appears to be the way of things in Amalfi, however, this endeavour too met its end when the wool mills were converted to flour mills. Once again Moretti is left to mourn the disappearance of a promising and productive industry.

Moving on to the manufacturing efforts of the good burgers of Amalfi and the surrounding area, we are taken to the paper mills. Amalfi was, and is, famous for its paper. It boasted, and boasts, that it started producing paper in 1276 and Moretti states confidently that, in 1861, there were 38 paper mills in the town employing 270 workers, producing 2,000,000 kilos of paper and bringing in Lit 145,000 per annum. In 1904 Moretti counted no more than 15 mills employing 80 workers. One of these mills, a very significant edifice, can still be found hidden in the woods behind the town, its machinery mute. Cobwebbed. Sad.

Next on the list of things to do in Amalfi is the work in the pasta factories (I use the term factory loosely because it has modern connotations that are misplaced). Moretti describes it as the principal industry in Amalfi which continues to survive not because it has been able to modernize and keep up with the rest of the industry but because the workers are very poorly paid. Nevertheless, employing 1,800 workers, it produces 2,000,000 kilos of pasta a year worth Lit 800,000.

He finishes his journey through the forms of gainful employment available to the Amalfitani with a visit to the merchant fleet which, in the days of the Amalfi Marine Republic, had made it very rich indeed. It stretched in the middle ages to every shore of the Mediterranean from the Black Sea to the Western Mediterranean Basin. By the end of the 19th century, it was reduced to the coast of Southern Italy and Sicily. Amalfi's exports (by sea and not necessarily to places outside Italy) included lemons, salted anchovies, pasta, cheese, paper and fresh fruit. Almost nothing was moved by land because of the mountainous nature of the region.

This was the land of my Criscuolos. This was the land in which Pasquale grew up. Life was clearly hard but as John Goodwin Esq. made abundantly clear in his paper on the development of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, things were improving and could be expected to improve further.

The year was 1839 ...

... and the place was the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The Spanish Bourbon King Ferdinand II was on the throne and, on the whole, life was good - relatively speaking. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was no tin-pot, backwater state. The state of the kingdom was described in some detail by John Goodwin Esq. (Her Majesty's Consul for Sicily) in an article that he wrote in 1842 for the Journal of the Statistical Society of London.

The kingdom's population of about 8,000,000 had increased from approximately 5,000,000 some 100 years earlier and was defended by a standing peace-time army of 42,394 and a navy of 19 sail vessels, 3 steamers and 30 gunboats.

The kingdom traded (importing and exporting) with the Mediterranean countries, Great Britain and France (and their colonies), South America, Northern Europe, the Baltic states and, of course, the USA. Exports leaving the city of Naples alone in 1840 were worth £162,590 (£27,015,219 in today's money). Imports into the City of Naples in the same year were worth a staggering £1,526,845 (£67,333,864).

Its merchant fleet had gone from a total fleet of 8,000 tons in 1824 to 150,634 tons in 1837 (7,800 vessels). Goodwin notes that "[t]he Neapolitan and Sicilian masters, if less hardy and daring than the British, are more careful of their vessels and cargoes, upon which account they are often preferred by fruit merchants and others for voyages from the Mediterranean to the United Kingdom and the north of Europe."

The "chief products of husbandry", says Goodwin, are corn, wine, oil, cotton, flax, hemp liquorice-paste, silk and wool. The territory of Naples produced something in the region of 25,200,000 gallons of wine and 819,000 gallons of brandy. It exported 35,000 tons of oil a year, and about 500,000 tons of raw silk. Exports of wine from Sicily (predominantly Marsala) in 1838 amounted to some 3,150,000 gallons.

The "chief manufactures" are woolens, leather, silks, cottons, paper, soap, glass, earthenware, steel and iron. Exports included 120,000 lbs of organzine and sewing silk a year.

The territory of Naples annual iron production was in the region of 500 tons of pig iron and 1,500 tons of malleable iron - the best being produced, according to Goodwin, at the Satriano foundries in Calabria. The export of sulphur from Sicily had reached something like 75,000 tons a year by 1838.

In October 1839, the kingdom opened its first railway line from Naples to Portici and Goodwin notes that "... carriage roads have been constructed in all parts of the realm ...".

What's more, by 1842 when Goodwin wrote his article, there was also something approaching a system of universal education for both boys and girls.

Goodwin's conclusion on the effect of the Bourbon monarchs on the state of the kingdom are that "[i]f we examine what effect these changes have produced upon the condition of the people, we shall find that have in part wrought evil, but good upon the whole. If the result has been unfortunate in the release of the court from popular control both in Naples and in Sicily, it has in all other respects been happy. The nation is no longer divided into demesnal and feudal populations, but constitutes one people. The commons are no longer subject to nobles and churchmen, but are governed by a single ruler. Justice, no more dealt out by baronial dependents, is administered by the king's judges. Privileged order have ceased to exist, and civic equality prevails in full force. Voluminous states are compressed into a single code. The burthen of taxation, once thrown upon the middle orders, is now shared equally by all classes of society. We may therefore assert that the condition of the people is materially improved, and that the improvement bids fair to proceed, if it be accompanied by an amendment of the executive power, according to which its progress will be faster or slower."

It was in this world on the 27th day of March in the year of our Lord 1839 that Luigi Criscuolo and his wife Brigida celebrated the birth of their son Pasquale in the province of Principato Citra, in the District of Salerno, in the Comune of Scala in the Frazione of Pontone. This is where my story begins again ...

Back to an unknown beginning

I have almost finished reading Pino Aprile's 'Terroni' (2010 Edizioni Piemme, Milan) and it forces me to completely re-evaluate the beginning of the story of the beginnings of this Criscuolo diaspora.

I have to go back to Pasquale Criscuolo and Pasqualina Rispoli and maybe even to Pasquale's father Luigi and his wife Brigida; although I know very little about them. Having read Aprile's book, however, I know a lot more about the world they lived in and the reasons why Nicola and Raffaella left.

The first couple of pages of 'Terroni' make horrible reading (translated of course):

"I didn't know that the Piedmontese did in the south of Italy what the Nazis did at Marzabotto. Many times. For years.

They wiped out, for ever, many towns in 'anti-terrorist' operations like the Marines did in Iraq.

I didn't know that the reprisals brought the right to rape the Southern Italian women as happened in the Balkans during the 'ethnic cleansing'; like the Moroccan troops in the French army did in Ciociaria when they invaded from the south to rescue Italy from the Fascists ... .

I was unaware that, in the name of national unity, the 'Brothers of Italy' had the right to sack and pillage the towns and cities of the south, like the Landesknechte did in Rome.

That they tortured like the Marines in Abu Ghraib, the French in Algeria and Pinochet in Chile.

I didn't know that in Parliament in Turin an ex-Garibaldian Member of Parliament compared the ferocity and the slaughter carried out by the Piedmontese in the South to the horrors committed by Tamerlane, Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun. Another MP preferred to say nothing of "revelations that would horrify the rest of Europe". Garibaldi spoke of "things of the sewer".

Nor did I know that they interned the Southerners without charge, without trial and without conviction as happened with the Muslims at Guantanamo. There several hundred, defined as terrorists because they were Muslims; in southern Italy, hundreds of thousands defined as brigands because they were Southerners. If they were children they were precocious brigands. If they were women they were 'brigandesses' or wives or daughters of brigands ... or relatives of brigands (up to three degrees of relationship); or even just peasants and so suspected of being brigands. All sanctioned by the law, you understand; as with Apartheid in South Africa.

I believed that the brigands really were brigands, not ex-soldiers of the Bourbon army of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and patriots defending their country from invasion by the Piedmontese army.

I didn't know that the countryside in the south became like that in Kosovo with mass executions and mass burials, with towns that burned in the hills and columns of tens of thousands of refugees on the march.

I didn't want to believe that the first concentration camps and extermination camps in Europe were built by the Northern Italians to torture and kill the Southern Italians in their thousands, maybe tens of thousands (we shall never know because their bodies were 'melted away' with lime) like in Stalin's Soviet Union.

I had no idea that the Foreign Minister of United Italy searched for years for "a desolate land", looking in Patagonia, Borneo and other forlorn places for somewhere where he could deport the Southern Italians and make them disappear from the sight of prying eyes.

Nor did I know that, when they arrived from the North, the 'Brothers of Italy' emptied the rich Southern banks, palaces, museums, private houses (taking even the cutlery) to pay off Piedmont's debts and to create immense private wealth."

The book goes on of course ... for another 300 pages. In the light of this, I need to take out again all of the old papers that grampa inherited from his grandfather and read them all again. To review my story in the light of what I know now ... and I shall start that with my next post.

Lies and damned lies

I have just bought a book by a gentleman called Pino Aprile called 'Terroni'. It is a history of southern Italy - what used to be the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Having read Christopher Duggan's book 'The Force of Destiny - The History of Italy since 1796' I was sort of prepared for Pino's book but I wasn't really prepared for what he told me.

When Piedmont took over the peninsula they decided to make themselves feel good by making everyone else feel bad. The Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was a well administered growing industrial state. They had no reason to want to be part of the new idealistic state of Italy. On the whole life was good.

After 1860, life became intolerable. Villages and towns were wiped off the map as part of a George W Bushesque war against brigands. Rape and torture were used as a weapons of suppression and hundreds of thousands were killed, executed and otherwise dispatched to meet their maker. It is estimated that this 'ethnic cleansing' led to the emigration of between 13,000,000 and 20,000,000 people from southern Italy.

The factories were stripped, the grand houses and museums were stripped, the entire kingdom was raped to pay off the debts of the north.

In Germany when the country was re-unified in 1990, the government poured money into the East in an endeavour to ensure that both 'halves' of the country would be put on a level playing field. In Italy, they've paid lip service to the idea of national unity.

Aprile challenges those who write the Italian history books to acknowledge the wrong done by the Piedmontese army in the name of the Risorgimento but this is a country in which Mustapha Akkad's brilliant film 'The Lion of the Desert' is still banned because it airs uncomfortable truths about the behaviour of the Italian army in Libya in the years before the 2nd World War.

I don't often borrow anything from the Yanks but ... "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights ..."

I am 100% Terrone ... and proud of it - buy the T-shirt at http://t-shirt.salentomania.it.

Now. Where was I ...

Since I last spoke in October last year, I've made the mistake of starting to read a brilliant book called 'The Force of Destiny - A History of Italy Since 1796' by a fella called Christopher Duggan. It's a superb book. Easy to read too. I'm the sort of anorak who can read history text books anyway but this one really is easy to read.

I bought it because I wanted to put Nicola's story into some sort of historical context. I've managed that alright but it's also raised all sorts of questions that I never knew existed.

Nicola was born into a state that had only been created fifteen years earlier - minus Veneto and Lazio which joined in (for want of a better word) in 1866 and 1870 respectively.

The country that Nicola left was, as it seems to me, an artificial construct. Italy had only ever been a geographical reference ... like the British Isles, and a few intellectuals had taken it into their heads to turn that geographical reference into a nation state. It's sort of like creating a nation state called Africa - albeit on a very much smaller scale.

It was the aggregation of a number of petty statelets each with its own language united only by a profound distrust of each other. The language chosen as the lingua franca of this new creation (it would be an extreme exaggeration to call it a nation) was the language of Tuscany, of Dante, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Galilei, Puccini and Vespucci. To the vast majority of population it was a foreign language - an awful lot of the older generation in Italy still can't speak it.

All of a sudden, the languages of the peninsula - Emiliàn-Rumagnòl, Furlane, Ligure, Lumbard, Napulitana, Piemontèisa, Sardo, Sicilianu, Tarandine, Vèneto, etc. - were downgraded to dialects. You can't have more than one language in a nation state. If you have a look at these language versions of Wikipedia, you'll see what I mean. Go to the Italian version and you'll find the links at the bottom of the front page.

It was an accidental construct too. Cavour had only wanted an Italy north of Rome. He had no desire at all to include the south. A horribly distasteful place full of horribly distasteful people. The Bourbons could keep it ... and would've done if Garibaldi hadn't poked his nose in with his 'thousand' volunteers.

In the years after 1860, there had been any number of risings in the south against what they saw as occupation by the Piedmontese army in the name of a Piedmontese King (Vittorio Emmanuele II of Piemonte and of Italy who refused to style himself Vittorio Emmanuele I of Italy). These risings were crushed ... with a capital CRUSH. Hey. What's a few peasants between friends?

It was against that background that Nicola and Rafaella took ship in Naples bound for London early in 1900. They were just two people in a seemingly endless stream of people leaving Italy for America, Argentina, England ... and the Lord knows where else. Millions of them, as Christopher Duggan put it, voting with their feet.

So if that's the context in which they left Italy, why would they harbour any loyalty to the country they had left? Why was grampa so concerned to ensure that I didn't forget that I'm Italian? Why was his loyalty to Italy and not to its southern predecessor (the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies)? When Nicola left, Italy was barely one generation old. He was born Italian but did he feel it? Was it just a case of distance lending enchantment to the view? For hundreds of years the English have had a love affair with Italy. Were their memories of Italy coloured ... tinted ... tainted by the English?

I don't have answers to these questions and wish that I could put them to the people with the answers. What does all this make me? Does it make any difference? Does it matter? The answer to the first question is, of course, Marco Criscuolo and the answers to the others ought to be 'no' and 'no' but I can't help feeling a profound indignation at the inexcusable injustices that were heaped on Nicola's people in the name of the idea that was Italy.

An Englishman ...

... or simply Marco Criscuolo? We went back to Amalfi this year. Flew out from Liverpool on Friday the 25th of September and back on Monday the 5th of October. Too short? Yes and no. Yes too short by a lifetime. No because I felt more like a foreigner in some ways than ever before.

Whenever we go over, I go out there putting myself under tremendous pressure. I have to stop by and see everyone that I know there - friends, relatives, acquaintances ... each and every one of them. I have to eat in every restaurant whose owner is my friend and that's becoming expensive. Believe me. Especially with the Euro and Sterling practically at one-to-one.

I love the place. I could happily spend the rest of my life wandering through the Lattari Mountains with my camera trying to capture moments of exquisite and immortal beauty with my digital machine.

I could happily spend the rest of my life sat in the square in Pontone with a bottle of Peroni (not Nastro Azzuro) in the blissful peace that envelopes that square.

I could quite happily spend the rest of my life sat at a table in Piazza del Duomo in Amalfi with a glass of wine watching the constant stream of humanity pass me by ... every now and again a person stops, throws his or her arms around me and chats for a few minutes about everything and nothing.

I love it. Love it.

Notwithstanding all of that, until I can master the language I can never truly be a part of it. I wasn't brought up bilingual. I taught myself Italian when I was 13. I bought an internet radio for the kitchen so that I can have Italian radio going constantly in the hope that it would deepen my immersion in the language and, consequently, my fluency. It didn't work. I made stupid mistakes and I hate making stupid mistakes. It's only me that cares about the mistakes of course but that's not the point.

Has the promise possessed me? Have I taken it too much to heart? Don't know the answer to those questions. Who am I? Where am I? I don't know the answer to those questions either. I was chatting to a friend when we were there and I did or said something and he asked me what I was doing. I told him not to worry about it. I'm an Englishman was my excuse. No you're not, he said. You are Marco Criscuolo. You are Italian. The name is enough?

I did learn a few things from this holiday and a few useful things too. The pressure thing is pointless and counterproductive. It's a holiday. It's time to chill. I should behave there just as I would at home. Shall we go out tonight? No, we'll stay at home and watch 'Verso il Millione' (Who wants to be a millionaire) and eat fried pepperoncini in front of the telly. Let's go out for a stroll along the seafront and have a coffee or an ice cream or a beer ... or even a glass of wine. Let's do nothing. Let's not have a holiday there. Let's live there for two weeks.

Why then ...

... do birds suddenly appear, every time I am near ... . No. I know the answer to that one. The question I don't know the answer to - or one of them at least - is why I'm bothered about being one thing or the other.

I dislike people who wrap themselves in their national flag and descend into a nationalist fervour. I hate it particularly, when the Brits and the Yanks do it. They seem to become more obnoxious than almost anybody else when they get themselves into that sort of mood.

That being the case, why is it so important to me to be 'an Italian' rather than 'an Englishman'? Especially given Cecil Rhodes' reassurance - 'remember that you were born an Englishman and have therefore won 1st prize in the lottery of life'. Why should a man who hates nationalism be at all concerned about what national badge is pinned on his lapel?

I have never been comfortable being a member of things and go out of my way to evade classification - when someone remarked on the earrings in my left ear with approval because only 'queers' wear them in their right ear, I went out and got a ring put in my right ear. I'm a civil servant who looks like an aging anarchist - four earrings in my left ear, an earring and a bar in my right ear and several tattoos (all of which are easily hidden, I hasten to add. I'm not that much of an anarchist).

It might reasonably be said that I've gone out of my way to paint myself as being anything but respectable. I'm the one who, in pretentious company, pours his tea into his saucer and drinks it from the saucer. That doesn't answer the question about the badge on my lapel though.

Did the promise have that much of an effect on me? Have I become a slave to the promise? I don't think so. Is it just a desire to be different? Now that's entirely possible.

So what is an Italian?

What a banal question. An inane question even. They're not necessarily banal or inane for the obvious politically correct reasons although that might well be true too. It's questionable whether is such a thing as 'an Italian'. The country was only created about 140 years ago. As a state, it's even younger than the US and the people are fiercely regionalist.

It's true that they love their food and their wine but there's more to it than that. If you've never been out to eat in a restaurant with a group of Italians, you should. Can you imagine going to a good restaurant and arguing with the chef about how this, that or the other should be cooked? The Italians will. Vociferously ... and the chef doesn't take offence. Why would he? Would you drive clear across Rome for a cup of decent coffee? The Italians will. Would you do the same for decent ice cream. Absolutely.

Their curses are real curses. They don't just call you names. When they tell you to go away, they tell you to go and commit sodomy with your mother. One of the worst things you can call a fella is a cuckold. They put curses on your dead ancestors, the fella who rings the bells at your funeral and the fella who saves you on your deathbed. They implore the Gods to kill you or to throw away your blood. These are invoke only rarely though. More often than not they simply curse misery or the saint of nothing - I have to admit that I've only ever heard any of these used in jest and never in anger.

They've got their 'Sun readers' as well. As a generalization, it is fair to say that here is real animosity between the north and the south. So much so that there is a political party (Lega Nord) whose principal policy is cutting the south (below Rome) adrift to fend for themselves. My impression is that these people constitute a vociferous minority but that may be because of the type of people I mix with and could be a totally false impression.

In the UK the scapegoats are the Poles, the Portuguese or the Romanians. In Italy it's the Albanians and the North Africans. Their complaints about immigrants are no different to the complaints we hear among readers of the Mail, the Express and the Sun. Their politicians are as bent as ours are. They have the same love-hate relationship with the yanks (Amerdicani) as the Brits do. The rich are just as filthy and the masses just as unwashed as they are in the UK.

This is a country where they have two police forces - one a militia (carabinieri (the men who carry carbine rifles)) and one civilian (polizia) - and where they fear the tax police (Guardia di Finanze), who carry .38s and sub machine guns, more than they fear the police. When people find out that I'm a 'finanziere' (a tax collector), you can see the blood drain from their faces. I have to reassure them that 'i finanzieri' in the UK are peace loving people. We don't get a .38. The only thing we get given to do our job is a pen and piece of paper.

What does it mean to be Italian? I have absolutely no idea.

A misnomer?

Of course, this all raises the question whether it matters, and if it does, why it matters.

Why should I care whether I am categorized as English or Italian? What difference does it make? Aren't both a gross oversimplification in any event?

I know the answer to the third question and it's 'yes'. Dad's dad's family is from the Sorrento peninsula (Amalfi, Scala and Minori to be exact). Dad's mum's family is from that area where Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire meet with a bit of Wiltshire thrown in. Probably safe to say then that they're Germano-Celtic (on the assumption that the advent of the Angles and the Saxons didn't constitute a population replacement event).

Mum's dad's family come from Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. All Scandinavian then (on the basis that the Viking thing was a population replacement event. At least north of Watling Street). Mum's mum's family is from Jersey, Surrey and Wiltshire. A bit of a mix but Scandinavian (the Norman French having started their journey in Scandinavia), and Germano-Celtic in that order.

So ... why do I feel the need to be, or be seen to be, Italian? There's probably more Swedish in me than there is Italian.

One of my brothers had one of those ethnic DNA tests done at http://www.genetree.com/. He got 94% European, 5% East Asian and 1% Sub-Saharan African. Nothing unusual in that. His European broke down to 43% South-Eastern European, 40% Northern European, 12% South Asian and 5% Middle Eastern. I had great hopes that my questions would be answered when he told me he was getting the test done but what sort of answer is that.

Actually, it is an answer (of sorts). The average Italian profile is 46% South-Eastern European, 35% Northern European, 10% South Asian and 9% Middle Eastern. That's a fairly close match. Fairly close. This tells me that my DNA looks pretty much like the DNA of the Average Italian; especially when you compare it with the average Northern European profile (6% South-Eastern European, 82% Northern European, 1% South Asian and 11% Middle Eastern).

Is that my answer?

Quis sum?

For the last 36 years I've expended a good deal of time and energy trying to keep the promise I made to grampa and 10 years ago, when I re-established contact with the family in Pontone, I achieved something that he neither envisaged nor hoped for and something that he would have loved if he'd lived to see it. I still cry when I allow myself to brood on the fact that he never lived to see me married; never lived to see his grandson; never lived to meet Maria, Luigi, Matteo, Orazio and a thousand others.

But after all this time, I sit down sometimes (invariably with a bottle of red wine or two) and think about the promise and me.

Despite all that I have achieved and all that I have tried to achieve, it seems to me that, in a perverse and pedantic way, no matter what I do, I shall never be able to keep it. I promised never to forget that I am Italian. Those were the words. It is a pedantic point but, no matter what way I cut it, I am forced to the conclusion that I am not Italian and never will be.

I am Mark Anthony Criscuolo. I speak Italian. My paternal origins lie in Pontone di Scala. I have family there with whom I am extremely close. I love the place and the people. Despite all that I am not Italian. I have never been properly socialized as an Italian. I am an Englishman ... if someone whose paternal line is foreign can ever be an Englishman. Let me put the question more obviously and simplistically. Could I ever be a Chinaman even if my family had lived there for three generations?

I am sometimes left with the impression that I'm kidding myself but you see I can't bring myself to call myself an Englishman. I used to get the crap kicked out of me in school by Englishmen - because my dad's father was Italian. I have to admit that it wasn't helped by the fact that I was brought up a vegetarian but, in practice, that just meant that they had two excuses rather than just one so I got beat up twice as bad - never in the face; never where it could be seen. Why would I want to call myself an Englishman.

On the other hand, dad's maternal line is English as is mum's paternal line. Her maternal line is Jersiaise ... or, in some cases, Guernesiaise. French. But they don't give me my name. My name is Mark Anthony, son of Anthony Thomas, son of Alfred, son of Nicola, son of Pasquale, son of Luigi ... . I'm working on the rest.

Valediction to a lovely man

The last time I saw him Luigi Matteo Antonio Criscuolo didn't look very well but I couldn't be sure that he was ill. He'd always been very thin. He worked in the forests in the Lattari Mountains that are the spine of the Sorrento Peninsula.

I was thoroughly amused, when I first met him, by this Italian who had an archetypal Englishman's tan - the white T-shirt tan.

He really was a lovely man. Generous to a fault. Didn't say much. Only spoke when it was necessary to do so. When he had something to say or to ask.

He'd married when he was a young man - I don't know how young - but it seems that the marriage never worked out and he shared a house in Amalfi with his wife for no more than a few months before moving back to the family house in Pontone and spending the rest of his life sharing the house with his sister who never married.

He'd spent a few months - probably not much more - in Hastings in the '60s working in his brother's restaurant - Il Saraceno. Now and again he'd remind us with a single word of English spoken with a heavy southern Italian accent and a massive smile.

From him I learned loads of those little things that you normally learn from your nan and grampa but these came from a different world to the ones I learned from mine - always let the spring water run over your hand and wash the sweat off your hand before you use it to scoop the water into your mouth (not the sort of thing you learn in Buckinghamshire ... or Crewe). Don't drink while you're eating; Only drink between courses. He taught me how to make real lemonade with lemons the size of grapefruits. He showed me how to make vino paesano, how to set a pizza oven going, how to carry a crate of grapes without doing myself a mischief and how to get the lemon trees ready for the winter.

My son adored him. He wanted a hat like Luigi; he wanted this, that and the other like Luigi.

He smoked and drank but not in any way that we'd recognize. Half a bottle of Peroni or Moretti with dinner and one fag afterwards.

In the middle of May 2007 - I don't remember the date exactly - I got an email from a friend in Bari to say that Luigi was very ill. I phoned the mother of a cousin in Amalfi. He had liver cancer. That's why he'd looked so ill when we'd seen him the previous summer. I phoned my cousin and asked her to tell me the moment she got any news - good or bad. A few days later, on the 27th of May, she texted me - Stamattina Luigi è volato nel cielo (this morning Luigi flew to heaven). He was 71.

He was buried next day. I didn't even get to fly over to pay my last respects. I was gutted. Gutted almost sounds trivial or flippant but it's the right word. I felt like my guts had been ripped out.

He and his sister accepted me as family, no questions asked on that day in October 1999 when we first met them. They took me into their house, no strings attached and made me one of them. Generosity of spirit like that is rare.

Luigi was one of those people whose whole face lit up when he smiled and he smiled a lot.

it's been a while

This is the first time I've logged on for a good while. Over a month. I'm not sure why but it seems to me that it's because the story was becoming repetitive ... or monotonous. What I wanted to do when I started this was to explain how I went from being a boy born in Buckinghamshire to being an 'Italian' to discovering who I really am.

The story got lost somewhere along the way; or I lost track of the story. I'm not sure which. Since the 'story' (I use the term loosely) in the last post, my wife and I have been to Venice, Verona, Peschiera del Garda, Longarone, Pisa, Lucca, Siena and Pistoia.

I have enjoyed all of them although I have to say that I find the denizens of la Toscana rather strange. I have spent the last ten years wandering around Italy with a red-haired, Irish wife so that - whether I look Italian or not - I am clearly identifiable as a tourist. When we sit down to eat or drink, I open my mouth and I speak Italian with a southern accent and, although there are mistakes in there they are not very frequent. That visual contradiction has the effect that wherever we go, Italians talk to me ... except in Tuscany (Toscana sounds so much better - or is it Etruria?).

In Veneto people talked to me. In Friuli-Venezia-Giulia people talk to me. In Campania people talk to me. Nella Toscana they say nothing. Perfunctory. Brusque. Taciturn. Not Italian? There is a theory that the Toscani consider themselves to be something better than Italian.

In Italy people are loyal first to their 'region' and then to their country - especially where food is concerned. However, the Toscani elevate this to another level.

I wouldn't say that I've 'done' Toscana. I've been to a few places there. What I don't understand is the English love affair with the place.

Have you ever taken the train from Venezia Santa Lucia to Longarone? Have you ever driven across the mountains from the Autostrada del Sole to Vietri sul Mare and along the coast road on the south coast of the Sorrento Peninsula (la Costiera Divina)? Have you ever taken the bus from Caserta into the Apennines to tiny villages like Alife? Have you ever driven up into the Dolomiti? Have you ever been to Lake Garda on an October's day when there isn't a tourist within 100 miles of the place? Have you walked along the banks of the Adige in Verona or the Arno in Pisa? Have you left the Piazza San Marco and the Canale Grande behind in Venice and allowed yourself to get lost in the backstreets? Have you sat in a bar and sipped on a glass of wine or a cup of coffee to the mellow sounds of Pino Daniele? Have you sat down to a meal with a group of Italians and watched them argue with the chef about how he should cook the meal you've just ordered?

Before you tar Italy with Tuscany's brush, do all of those things. Tell me then where you'd rather be.

I've done all these things and thoroughly enjoyed the sublimity of them ... and there's still so much more to do. So much more! It is entirely possible that 'the promise' has become and obsession but ...

Perfection can be addictive

In October 2003, we were back again. Just the three of us and we were staying in a bed & breakfast just outside Amalfi in Castiglione di Ravello. Ravello's up in the mountains but this bit of it is on the coast road and overlooks the bay on which Minori and Maiori sit.

We'd chosen the place because it was run by a friend of ours and he'd given us a very good deal ... I think. Anyway, the place was called (is called) La Rosa dei Venti. It's a ten minute walk from Amalfi and a twenty minute walk from Minori - I should add that I'm 6' 3" (or 1.85m) so average walking times may vary.

As every other time, we spent a great deal of time in Pontone with Maria and Luigi. They'd go to the cemetery every Sunday at 4 o'clock in the afternoon to clean up their parents' graves, lay new flowers and pray and we went up with them on at least one occasion.

In Italy, if someone asks you round for a meal you either take a selection of sweet pastries and cakes or you take flowers. More often than not we'd take flowers though. Maria always took them to the cemetery on a Sunday and used them for her parents' graves. I've problem with that. It's sort of making a practical use out of something that's pretty but not very useful.

This time we didn't get the weather that we'd had every other year. It poured out of the heavens most of the time. I never took a coat with me. Didn't think I needed one. We'd been in October at least twice and the weather had been superb. Maria ended up giving me a Nastro Azzurro jacket that I still have and still wear in preference to any other jacket I own.

I wasn't in the least bit bothered. I wasn't there for the beach. Never had been. I'd set on the beach for five minutes and get bored. "Where d'you wanna go now then?" "D'you wanna do something now then?" I can sit on the beach for ages in the evening, when there's nobody else there, watching the sun go down (which never seems to take long on the Med) and just listening to the sound of the waves. Beaches with people on them have no attraction for me at all though.

Anyway, back to 2003. I'm sure it was 2003. Doesn't matter really I s'pose. Life was good. We wandered around the place. Went to Sorrento where I tried my damn'dest not to look like a tourist nor to sound like a tourist.

But my principal aim, as it was every other time I'd come over, was to socialize myself into this society. To learn the rules. To learn to be one of them. I have to say that it's really difficult when you don't speak their dialect ... or if you can speak a bit of it but get completely lost when they speak it at 90 to the dozen.

When we left after two weeks my Italian was just starting to get back into gear again, I'd met more relatives, made more friends and reaffirmed the friendships that I'd made on our previous visits.

I cried when we said goodbye to Maria. I know. That's no way for a grown man in his forties to behave but I couldn't help it. When I was a kid and we were living in Devon and nan and grampa were still living in Bucks, we used to go up for a couple of weeks to stay with them. I felt just like I used to when we got in the car to go back to Devon. I used to cry then too.

I had to find a way of maintaining my Italian at a decent standard though. You go a year without speaking it at all and then you land in Naples and you have to speak it right off the bat. I could. Of course. But I had to think about it and concentrate on what I was saying. There had to be a way round that. I think I found it years later but I'll come to that when the time comes.

Senatus Populusque Romanus

In August 2002 we were back. Me, the missus and the kid (and one of his mates) was back in Amalfi. This time though we'd decided that we was going to spend a few days in the Città Eterna at the end of the holiday so we booked our return flights to Rome (Fiumicino).

We'd taken an apartment (not a flat mind you) but, if I'm honest, I have to say we didn't do much self-catering. We were still getting €1.50 to the £1 and life in Euroland was good. We went to Pompeii and Herculaneum again for my lad's mate's benefit ... and because I just love them.

Maria loved my lad's mate because he'd eat 'til he burst. No matter how much she put in front of him, he'd eat it. He's not a big lad either. Bit of a belly but nothing particularly worrying. He was only about 15 and full of energy. Not surprising really.

After two weeks in Amalfi, we got the bus to Salerno station and got the train to Roma Termini - sort of like Roma Euston if you like, or Roma Victoria. We arrived at Salerno station with about half an hour to spare and I went up to the little ticket window to buy a ticket. "Two adults and two kids to Roma Termini please." The ticket-man says there's no second class tickets left; only first class tickets. How much are they then? €36 each! £24 for a single first class ticket for a journey that's the equivalent of Liverpool or Manchester to London!! Unreal!

When we got to Rome, we checked into a hotel that had been booked for us by a mate of mine who was a member of the military wing of the Finance Ministry in Italy - the Guardia di Finanze. Nice Hotel and dead central. Can't rememer for the life of me what it was called but it had a name that alluded to ancient Rome.

Having checked in we went out to do the tourist bit. I love Rome. There's something about it that is irresistible. The atmosphere. The people. The city itself. I love it. We went to the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Circus Maximus (the Roman equivalent of Royal Ascot but every day) and, after some discussion, St Peter's Square. My wife, having been permanently psychologically scarred by the nuns, was very reluctant to go at all.

There was a curious thing though. As you approach the Basilica, from whatever direction, there are a legion of souvenir shops selling all sorts of religious artifacts from small statues of the Madonna to massive pictures of the Sacred Heart. The curious thing was they all sold busts of Mussolini! Bizarre. I was tempted but good sense got the better of me.

That evening we met up with my mate from the military wing of the Finance Ministry and he and his wife took us for dinner in a very nice restaurant. After dinner I was taught about the Italian obsession with good coffee and good ice cream. There is no room for compromise in either case.

He asked us whether we wanted a coffee and when we said yes, he put us in the car and drove us half way across Rome. The coffee was stunning of course and the journey had clearly been worth it. After that he asked the two boys if they would like an ice cream. When he got an energetic yes, he herded us all back into the car and drove us back across Rome to another place to the only place where one can enjoy Italian ice cream at its best in Rome.

I did learn the taste of a decent coffee from that though and, to this day, I remain incredibly particular about the standard of my espresso (caffé in God's own language). The only chain that even comes close is Costa and that is bettered by a country mile by a little place on Theobald's Road in London called Sfizio. Brilliant place! I'm told that the Bar Italia in Frith Street in Soho is at least as good.

Marco, Tone and Bob

In the spring of 2001, dad phoned me, said that he, and his cousin Bob, were thinking of going over to Amalfi in September and asked me if I wanted to go with him. It was a no-brainer of course.

We stayed at Bob's place in Slough the night before the flight. The flight was an early one from Heathrow and was to Rome. Not Naples. From Fiumicino, we got the shuttle to Roma Termini and from there we got the Eurostar Italia to Salerno. The buffet car on the train was superb. It had a real bar in it. There was a corner bar with bar stools and the rest of the carriage was filled up with cafe tables and chairs. A proper bar. We'd only just left the 'burbs of Rome when dad fell asleep and me and Bob went up to the bar for a drink and spent the rest of the journey there.

We'd rented an apartment that you had to climb a few steps to get to but once you got used to it, it was alright. It was a nice flat.

Bob was an instant hit with Maria, Luigi and everyone else to whom he was introduced. He's one of those charming characters that lights a place up ... and he looks the part; totally Italian. Like an extra from the set of La Dolce Vita.

We had a cracking time. Three fellas in Amalfi just enjoying the craic. The sun was hot, the food was good and the wine was better. The main occupation was sitting in the Piazza del Duomo with a drink watching the world go by.

There were a couple of things that stick in my memory though. The first was a really strange thing. Me and Bob went out on the boat to Capri - left dad reading on the beach. There was a 'couple' (English) who were all over each other like a rash but everything that they said and did suggested that they were father and daughter. Creepy!

The second was a Scottish couple to whom dad got talking. They were very pleasant and we spent almost an entire evening with them. We were sat at a restaurant in the main square and I was chatting to the chef (Sergio) who said, in passing, that dad had a real amalfitana face. I passed Sergio's comments on and the girl 'accused' me of trying to be an Italian. Told me I was an Englishman and should be happy with that. I was gobsmacked. Speechless. How could she have misunderstood so completely? I spent the rest of the evening speaking to Sergio, his wife and his sister-in-law. No point in talking to her. She didn't understand anything.

The third 'event' was one that shook the world. I was sat with a beer outside the Caffe Royal in the Piazza del Duomo with Bob. It was about half past three when one of the brothers who owns the place turned up for work. "There's been an aircrash". I looked up at him bemused. Confused. "In New York. An aircrash." I thought no more of it. I'll catch it on the news later.

Then, a little while later, one of his brothers came past. "Ue, Criscuolo! You'd better get home and get your gun. There's going to be a war." My face must have been a picture. "Two planes have crashed into a skyscraper in New York." An American couple sat front of us heard the mention of New York and asked me what it was about. I told her what I had been told. "Which skyscraper?" I shook my head. "No idea."

I shouted into the cafe. "Which skyscraper?" "Le torri gemelle." The twin towers. The American woman nearly died. "That's where my office is." I went inside to watch the news on the telly and report back. The Italian newscaster told of the two airliners crashing into the twin towers and a third crashing into the Pentagon. There was another story though that disappeared without a trace after about half an hour without any trace of an explanation - a fourth airliner had been shot down by USAF fighter aircraft.

We spent that evening with one of dad's and Bob's cousins - Matteo. Looking back, it was strange. The disaster that was to become known as 9/11 really didn't intrude into the holiday. It was too remote. Too unreal ... like everything in the 'outside world' when you're on holiday. The holiday seems to insulate you from reality.

There was one other thing. One evening, Bob and I went up to this piano bar looking for a bit of action. We went in and the place was empty apart from the barman. We ordered a drink and asked when we could expect it to liven up a bit. The barman promised us faithfully that it wouldn't take long. We left an hour later and went back to the Piazza del Duomo. There was a lot more life in the square ... and we could hear ourselves think.

On a more mundane level, by the end of this third visit it was getting so that I couldn't walk down the street without someone saying hello; how ya doin'? I was starting to feel at home in the place. To feel at ease; comfortable.

Like a rubber ball ...

Most of the rest of that holiday was spent going to and fro' from Amalfi to Pontone with one trip out to Capri. You can see why Tiberius Claudius Nero, Maxim Gorkiy and Gracie Fields fell in love with the place. It is stunning. Totally overrun by tourists though; and for someone who has an innate allergy to tourists, the only escape was to walk up to one of Tiberius' villas - Villa Iovis (the Villa of Jupiter). Because the only way to get there was to walk ... half way up a mountain, it was gratifyingly quiet.

There was a terrace that overlooked the sea. In fact, it overhung the sea and it is said that it is the point from which he used to have those thrown who had displeased him. It was looking over the edge of the wall that, for the first time in my life, I experienced an overwhelming fear of falling. Nearly wretched my guts up. I spent the rest of the day staying as far away from the edge (any edge) as it was possible to get.

We spent days, or parts of days, out in Positano, Maiori, Minori, Sorrento and, as always, I did my best to blend in; not to be a tourist. It's not easy when your wife's got bright red hair and freckled white skin and you're the only one who speaks Italian.

When I got back to Crewe, I felt a certain sense of satisfaction and achievement. I felt that I'd sort of completed the circle that was broken when Nicola died in 1947. That was never part of the promise although I think it became part of the mission as I got older. Of course, the promise will never have been properly fulfilled until they put me in a hole in the ground; I had promised, after all, never to forget that I am Italian. I'd gone further though ... I think. I'd taken the first step toward putting the family back together again and that felt alright.

We went back in October 2000 only without dad this time. We spent a good deal more time with Maria and Luigi. Maria introduced us to other relatives - dad's second cousins, my third and my son's fourth. Hey. A cousin's a cousin, right? We were introduced to Marisa (and her husband Gennaro), Rosita (her husband Domenico and their kids Mara and Gianluca), Orazio and one hundred and one others.

This time, for the first time, something else happened; on a number of occasions. People would stop me and ask me whether I was from round 'yer. I'd explain that I wasn't but that I had family here. "Who's your family?" I'd reel off a list of names and their relationship to me, dad and grampa and they'd say something like, "ah yes. I know who you are." They didn't of course. Not in the sense we would understand the statement. But they knew where I fit into their world and their community.

I was chuffed to nuts. There was clearly something about my appearance that made them ask the question in the first place which meant that I must look like I belong there. My face fit. Without wanting to get all schmaltzy, I don't think I ever felt that at any other time, with the possible exception of those three years at the polytechnic.

Wonderment and awe

Our trip to Pompeii was an organized trip. We spent the whole day following an ageing gentleman called Lorenzo around the city while he held a garishly coloured, folded umbrella above his head so that we could follow him around like a troop of goslings following their mother goose. For a snob like me who hates being a tourist, it was pure torture - rescued by the fact that I managed to transport myself sufficiently far back in time that 'Renzo's presence didn't bother me any more.

We went on from Pompeii to the workshop of the blacksmiths to the Gods. The bus took us most of the way up and we walked the last twenty minutes or so. There was a fella handing out walking sticks - aparently for free but, of course, they weren't. He needed a tip. We took a stick, handed him a few grand and headed up to the caldera. It was unfortunate that it was quite a hazy sort of day so that you could barely see the bay of Naples and you couldn't see much further south than Salerno, if you could see that far.

Having been to Pompeii and Vesuvius, we started to feel adventurous and decided to take on Herculaneum and Paestum. Herculaneum is, in many ways, better than Pompeii. Apart from the fact that all of the ovine tourists go to Pompeii and none of them go to Herculaneum, through an accident of the eruption and the way it landed on the two cities, the woodwork in Herculaneum survived (albeit carbonized) whereas that in Pompeii simply disappeared.

Ercolano was brilliant although I was almost embarrassed to find that none of the photos I took there were any good. Rubbish. Every single one. I shall have to go back and rectify the matter.

Paestum, like Neapolis, Pompeii and Herculaneum (and a lot of the other cities in southern Italy) were Greek cities. Part of the glorious entity that was Magna Grecia. Even though it was nowhere near as well preserved as either of the two Vesuvian cities, it was good enough to impress ... and some. Seriously heavy Greek temples. The sort of stuff you only expect in Athens.

We were guided around the place by an extremely classily dressed young Italian lady (a history student?) who appeared to know her stuff and was happy to call me family when she discovered that my family came from Scala - the town where she was born and bred. I'd like to think that it was my natural Italian good looks that led her to seek the familial connection so readily but it really doesn't matter. This greying 39 year-0ld spent the rest of the tour around the city chatting to her and feeling very privileged as a result.

Apart from anything else, the fact that I could chat to the guide in her own language and even in her own accent (I can't do the dialect but I can do the accent) separated me from the rest of the ovine tourists.

On the 24th day of August in the year of our Lord 79 ...

Before the first week of our holidays had passed, I had managed to fulfil another of my long-standing ambitions. Since I was in my early teens I had always wanted to be an archaeologist. Unfortunately for me there were a couple of obstacles in my that I was unable to overcome. In order to study archaeology in the olden days, you had to have A levels in 'The Classics' and I was at a comprehensive school that had thrown the baby out with the bathwater and had renounced as the work of the devil anything that smacked of the old grammar school system.

So. I ended up with poor A levels in French and German (Ds) and an O level in Latin (a C) that the head had very graciously allowed a few of us to do. Not enough to get me in to University College London to study archaeology though. No Greek. No qualifications on the works of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Gaius Julius Caesar or Gaius Valerius Catullus. No view on the ideas of Aristotle or Plato or the histories of Herodotus.

Anyway, the dream (if it could be said to be a dream any longer rather than simply an interest) continued and, in that October in 1999, I finally got to Pompeii. Amazing. Haunting. Evocative. Chaotic ... and full to the brim of American and Japanese tourists. Still, I loved it and could have wandered its streets aimlessly for days, trying to imagine the people who had lived, and died, there; imagining talking to them in my imperfect Latin.

We went to the theatres, the arena, the gymnasium, the gladiator barracks, the public baths (loads of them), the posh houses and the hovels, the bakeries, the take-aways and the shops ... and the brothel. The lupanara. Amazing. Stunning. And all in the awesome shadow of that mountain. The workshop of Hephaestus and Vulcan - the blacksmith of the Gods. Vesuvius.

This was where my roots lie. This is what my people came from even if it's not where my people came from. Where was H G Wells when you needed him?

Getting to know you

The next day we got the bus up to Pontone to Maria's for lunch ... and dinner. I think we must have got the quarter past 10 and arrived about twenty or so minutes later. The bus can't actually get into the village so it stops at a point as far up the mountain as it can feasibly get. There's a sort of lay-by built into the side of the mountain that allows the bus to turn round and head on toward Scala and Ravello. From there we walked into Pontone, across the bijou little square and up to Maria's place.

Lunch was a feast - pasta followed by meat followed by vegetables followed by salad followed by fruit followed by cheese, olives, salami, chestnuts and Lord knows what else - and all washed down with vino paesano.

I love vino paesano (peasant wine). It's one of those things that should go on everybody's 'bucket list'. It's your honest-to-God basic wine made the way God intended. They crush the grapes, let the juice do its own thing for about a year and then drink it. It doesn't taste like anything that we would recognize as wine. It tastes of grapes. Now there's a thing. Maria's wine was never particularly strong (although I have drunk stuff that was much stronger) so we would happily get through two or three bottles in a sitting.

We were persuaded to stay for dinner. I have to concede that we didn't take a lot of persuading. You can keep all your fancy chefs with their fancy restaurants and their Michelin stars. I can safely say, without fear of contradiction, that I have never tasted food as good as the stuff that comes out of Maria's kitchen (is that cliché No. 2?).

Dinner was another half-a-dozen courses of ambrosia washed down with more vino paesano and all topped off with a couple of glasses of home made limoncello straight out of the freezer.

What more could any man ask for? To be sat on a roof terrace that looks out over Amalfi, the sea and the mountains eating five or six courses of heaven, drinking vino paesano and finishing with the sublime taste of home-made limoncello.

Perfection? Not quite. Neither Maria nor Luigi (both in their 60s) spoke Italian. Pure dialect. Pure Neapolitan (Neapolitan being the generic term for the dialect that is spoken in Campania, Puglia and Calabria. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and all that good stuff). The result was that they could understood every word I spoke but I understood only maybe 60% of what they said.

Let me intoduce myself ...

On the second day in Amalfi (it must have been a Sunday), I plucked up the courage, and we decided to walk up the scalinata to Pontone. It's a hell-of-a-walk. These stone stairways have been there for donkeys' years and they are still well used. They link the coast to the villages in the mountains. The hinterland.

We walked up the the mountain and I have to say that it was a stunning walk. Whether you looked back at where you'd come from (Amalfi) or forward to where you were going (Scala) it was breathtaking. It's one of those places that makes you feel totally insignificant and is all the better for that.

When you get to the top of the stairs, you have to cross a road and then, up a few more stairs, you enter the village square. It's a gorgeous little square. There's the church (of San Giovanni) and a bar. There are also a couple of drinking fountains. The square itself is built on the side of the mountain and protrudes from the mountainside. It's a sort of a terrace.

The four of us chose a table in the square and I went into the bar and ordered the drinks. Ice Cold in Alex for me and the lady. Dad had something non-alcoholic and my son almost certainly joined us in a beer ... or did he have a Coke. I really should have kept a contemporaneous record of all this.

I finally plucked up the courage to appraoch the barman - a gentleman called Gianfranco Criscuolo. I asked him where the local cemetry was - I wanted to see if I could find any of my fathers' graves. It's in Scala, on the top of another mountain and the quickest way there is back into Amalfi to get a bus up to Scala.

So. I got my scroll out. My descendants tree showing all the descendants of Luigi Criscuolo and his wife Brigida - who must have been born in the early decades of the 19th century. I spread it out on the top of a wall and we were quickly joined by an another gentleman called Andrea Criscuolo. I have to say that neither were directly related to me. Poring over the family tree, Gianfranco and Andrea pointed to one name after another - she lives down the road and No. 13. He's her brother and lives with her. He lives in Minuta across the mountain there. He lives down there in Amalfi.

I decided to take the details - such as they were - of the lady who lived at No. 13. We went to the house and rang the bell. No answer. We went back to the bar, had another beer and went back and rang the bell again. Still no answer.

Between visits to No. 13, I talked to Andrea (known locally as 'O Maresciallo because his father was a Marshall of the Police Force). At one point he looked at me, fag in hand, and said "I know your double". I must have looked at him quizzically because he nodded vigorously and repeated his assertion. "Honest. I know your double". That double turned out to be one of my dad's second cousins (Matteo Criscuolo) and there is a definite likeness - bearing in mind that he is twenty years my senior.

Eventually, having written a note, explaining who I was, what I was doing and where I was staying (with address and telephone number - I didn't have a moby at this stage) and left it in the gate at No. 13, we walked back down the stairs to Amalfi.

That evening as we were leaving the hotel to find somewhere to eat, an elderly couple crossed the square towards us. They took one look at dad and said "Siete Criscuolo?" Dad looked at me and I looked at them and nodded. "Si. Siamo Criscuolo." They kissed us - the way that friends and relatives do in civilized societies - and introduced themselves. Maria and Luigi Criscuolo. Brother and sister.

I explained that we were looking for a restaurant to have something to eat and invited them to join us. Not a chance. You don't need to eat in no restaurant. They took us to a house up the road and introduced us to other cousins (dad's second cousins and my third) and we talked and talked and talked about people and times and places.

They had accepted me ... us ... as family. No questions asked. They had known Nicola Criscuolo - zio Nicola - and remembered him coming over to see them. What's more, Maria was incredibly like auntie Marie. The way she looked, moved, talked, fussed. Everything. Dad cried for the family he'd lost and I wasn't far from doing the same if I'm honest.

We were home. No question. We had family there and that was enough to ensure that we belonged there.