Requiescat in pace Alfredus Criscuolo

It was a gorgeous day as I recall, the 16th of October 1976. I was out in our very small back garden and it was early afternoon. We didn't have a phone in them days so, funnily enough, we didn't get any calls.

Out of the blue though, one of the kids from next door came running round like a bat out of hell. "your nan's just phoned. You've got to go up to hers. Your grampa's poorly."

It was about a mile from our place to nan and grampa's and though I ran like I'd never run before in my life, it seemed to take ages. To get to the house, I had to run up a long flight of concrete stairs to a terrace of four houses that sat on the side of the valley. Their house was the third.

I banged on the door and nan let me in. "He's at the bottom of the garden", she said pointing urgently. I don't know what I expected to see or do but I ran to the far end of the garden. There was a flight of concrete stairs at the bottom of the garden that went up to the garage. Grampa had been working on the car.

The doctor had signed him off sick because of his heart and told him to take it easy. Of course he didn't. He was lugging the car battery around - recharging it.

When I got to the top of the stairs, he was lying on the gravel with the car battery on its side beside him. I knelt down beside him and took his hand. He was still alive - I'm certain of that. He looked at me and then he died. I could almost see the life leave him ... as if it were something visible, tangible.

I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral. I wasn't old enough; something like that. He was buried in a cemetry in London together with his parents - Nicola and Raffaella. It was as close to home as he was going to get.

When I say I was gutted I mean it. That ripped the guts out of me. He hadn't lived to see me keep my promise. I felt I'd failed. I knew he was watching though and I knew that there was no way I was going to let him down.

Me Italian too

I must have been about fifteen or sixteen when I met my first honest-to-God Italians. They were three young ladies in their late teens or early twenties. They were in Devon with a throng of other kids from all over Europe to study English in summer school.

They stopped me asked me how to get to somewhere or other. I don't remember where it was they wanted to get to although I remember that it involved walking with them about a mile through the village to the front. I was too taken with their stunning good looks and, more importantly, the fact that they were Italian.

I took a deep breath ... and asked very formally "Loro sono italiane?" They nodded. I don't remember actually getting much out of them by way of conversation. "Mio nonno è italiano." (my grampa is Italian) I said, proud as punch. Proud that my grampa was Italian and proud that I was actually speaking Italian to real Italians. Their reaction was disappointing to say the least. My revelation didn't even provoke an "Oh, really." They were completely underwhelmed.

I walked with them down to the front (Combe Martin bay), showed them where it was they were going and they skipped off chattering and giggling between themselves.

I can't say whether I sounded like an Englishman speaking Italian or an Italian speaking Italian because I got no feedback at all ... although the extent to which my charges were underwhelmed may have been feedback enough. I was gutted.

I've always put it down to the assumption that they were Tuscan. Strange people the Tuscans. In my travels around Italy, they have appeared to be the least talkative. Of course, I can't say for certain that they were Toscane.

Strange people though the Tuscans. Anyone who says 'Hoha-Hola' for Coca-Cola has to be viewed with suspicion.

So close

Of course, the return of the Criscuolos didn't happen quite overnight. When I made the decision that the promise must be kept, I was only thirteen. A mere boy.

Nan and grampa had been going to Italian evening classes for years when I became aware of it. It never really struck me as strange although it might reasonably have done. As I recall nan got on better with the language than grampa did. Grampa cursed in Italian but that was the only Italian he ever spoke and I didn't realize that he was cursing in Italian until years later.

They used to go on Mediterranean cruises. I don't remember whether it was every year or every other year or what it was but I remember they went on them. One year the cruise stopped off in Amalfi and they went ashore. Nan told me when they came back. It must have been in the early '70s.

They sat down for a drink in the square. Nan said she asked about getting to Pontone (Ponton' it was always called in our house) but couldn't make herself understood; or at least that was her impression. She said though that, while they were sat drinking their cup of coffee, a lady saw grampa and motioned him to come with her - "Venga, venga", she said (Come, come). Nan said that grampa was afraid to go and shook his head.

I have no idea what to make of this story but I can imagine someone seeing him and seeing in him a local face.

Anyway, they had an hour or so in the square and headed back to the launch to get back on the ship. That was it. He was almost home. Within a few miles of his cousins up in the mountains. I have to say that I understand the fear; or at least I came to understand it many years later.

The promise

I'm convinced that grampa felt guilty for having renounced his roots because his message to me was that I should never forget that I was Italian - You are Italian and you should never forget it. I made him a promise - a hundred times - that I would keep the faith; that I would remember our roots; that I would undo what uncle Tony had done.

From the age of 13 I started to teach myself Italian. I bought Maria Valgimigli's book - Living Italian - and started teaching myself Italian. I bought myself 'Teach Yourself Italian' and continued the process. Until, when I was 18, I applied to the Polytechnic of Central London School of Languages to study Italian and I was accepted for the 'post-A-Level course'.

When I dropped out of my Italian and German course in 1981, I was fluent and what's more I sounded like an Italian - not like an Englishman speaking Italian. Between 1978 and 1981 I spoke more Italian than I did English.

The only thing on my mind was an old picture postcard of Amalfi - a gorgeous black and white picture - of a place that the family had called home.

By the time I'd reached the age of 16, I'd changed my name back to Criscuolo. When the next brother down was 18, I paid to have his name changed back and my dad did the same around about the same time.

And I'd started to plot the family tree. My search for my connection to Pontone di Scala had begun. Old family papers. Snippets from aunts and uncles. I was going to rebuild my roots. I was going to find out who I was ... where I belonged.

It was the return of the Criscuolos and this time it was the real thing.

Strangers in a strange land

We arrived in North Devon at around Easter 1969. We stayed in a little village called Lee in a bloody awful place called Chapel Cottage that would have had the Ghostbusters working overtime. We finally ended up in a village called C'martin on the North Devon coast in a house where, for the first time, we had not only one indoor toilet but two and a bedroom each; at least in the winter.

Grampa and Nan followed us down a couple of years later and bought a little terraced house just up the road.

Grampa played the sax and the clarinet in whatever local 'big band' he could get to. I adored both him and his music. I used to sit listening to him practice for ages at a time. I'm told that he wanted at least one of us to get into music and that was me. I'd started the violin when I was eight years old and, while my mother screamed at me to practice, grampa coaxed me and egged me on.

He was my idol. A gentle man. A man with an eye for the girls who didn't mind showing it, even when nan was around. He loved the Sunday western on BBC2 and I used to sit between his knees in front of his armchair and watch the western with him. Poor bugger would often fall asleep half way through - a post-prandial stupour after nan's mountainesque Sunday lunch.

Me, dad, grampa and my nearest brother would be in the living room while mum, nan and my sister were in the kitchen. Apartheid? Of a sort. I seem to recall that grampa would sent me into the kitchen to ask nan to make him a cup of tea. Those were the days ... when men were men and women were glad of it.

As I got older, he branched out in the musical instrument stakes. He taught himself the cello so that he could join a very amateur string ensemble with me. It seems to me with hindsight that he did all he could for me and I would have done anything for him.

As the muses would have it, he died in October 1976 when I was 16. I was gutted. I wasn't even allowed to pay my last respects. Whilst I concede that my interest in women and beer were starting to wax at about that time, his death ensured the end of my violin career, if career it could ever have been. I gave it up and turned to hedonism ... if in a rather naive and harmless form.

The Criscuolo diaspora

By the end of the '70s, all of the second generation of Criscuolos had themselves done their bit to continue the family name ... or at least the bloodline.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I have no idea whether any of Giolina's kids got married or had kids. I have no memory of ever meeting them and nobody that I've spoken to has any idea what Nonnie (Iolanda), Boysy (Andrea) or Rita (Rita) did or are doing - they'd be about 84, 77 and 69 if they're still around.

Marie's only daughter June, who'd married Dennis Thear in 1965, died a little over 20 years later - barely 10 years after her father. Marie kept going strong until she died in 1983. I liked Marie. I used to pop round to see her every week when I was studying in London in the late '70s and early '80s. She was a lovely lady who couldn't let you leave without eating something and was fascinated in your love life.

Amelia's daughter Sylvia took a leaf out of her aunty Julie's book and married a nice Italian boy - Nello Bertinelli - in 1952. They had two sons (Robert and Dean). Robert settled in Kingston, Surrey, married twice and had six kids - Paul, Jamie, Nicola, Michelle, Francesca and Leanne.

Paul was killed at the age of 24 (my memory is that it was no accident). Jamie married Chelsea in 2001 and they had three kids (not necessarily in that order). I've been able to find no record of any marriages for the others but the last time I spoke to Robert, Nicola had a son, Michelle a daughter and Francesca one of each.

Dean went with his parents when they moved to Parma in Emilia-Romagna.

Luigi (Lou or Lionel - whichever you prefer) and Ann's only son Robert married a Palestinian girl called Polly (for short) and they had a son and a daughter. Lou and Ann had long since settled near Slough and Robert and his new family set up home there too.

Andrea and Giovannina's (Bob and Ginny) only daughter Rachel married an antipodean gentleman called Ray in 1975 and went with back down under where they brought a daughter and a son into the world.

Finally, there was Alfred and Elizabeth (Fred & Betty - sounds like a cartoon infidelity - sorry grampa). Their only son Tony married Brenda in Buckinghamshire in 1958 and went on to have five kids of which I am the eldest. We moved down to North Devon in the late '60s and Nan and Grampa followed us down in the early '70s.

With representatives in Australia, Buckinghamshire, Devon, Italy and Surrey, the Criscuolos of Pontone di Scala had created their very own diaspora. For my generation (the third outside the Sorrento Peninsula) Pontone had acquired a mythical status. Unreal and magical. Nobody had been back since Nicola died there in 1947 and there was no suggestion that any of would get back there.

The death of travelling salesman?

On the 10th of January 1954, a British Overseas Airways Corporation Comet airliner crashed a few minutes after having taken off from Rome. The plane had started in Singapore but Antonio Criscuolo (now known as Tony Crisp) had boarded the plane at Rome.

The plane crashed off the coast of Elba and all on board were lost ... my grand-uncle included. He had married for a second time after the tragic death of his first wife. He'd married Cicely Rose Wiltshire in 1950 and I imagine they'd both done so with hope in their hearts.

Four years later he was lying at the bottom of the Mediterranean in the wreck of a dodgy built English passenger aircraft.

Like Pasqualino, he acquired a legendary status after his death. However, in his case, it may have been justified. When he died he left a shed-load of money to his siblings - Grampa was named as the executor (so far as I know).

Whatever the ins and outs, a good man died because of the failings of a dodgy engineer or designer. 35 People died on that flight.

It's not really any consolation but after that crash, the plane was grounded and they found that the problem was that the portholes had square corners which led to metal fatigue and the collapse of the body of the aircraft. A basic error? I thought everyone knew that curves are stronger than angles. Apparently not the engineer who designed the Comet.

Tony was a businessman and he was a relatively successful businessman. When he died he left loadsa money!!??

Criscuolo - The next generation

By the time Nicola died, all but Andrea (remember Bob) had done their bit to carry on the bloodline of the Criscuolos of Pontone di Scala.

Giolina (prosaically known as Julie) had had three gorgeous children (Iolanda, Andrea and Rita Maria). Iolanda came to be known as Nonnie (an anglicization of the Italian word for grandmother, Nonna) because she was what might have been called an 'old fashioned woman'. Andrea was generally known as Boysie (for reasons that escape me) and Rita managed to keep her given name.

Marie had brought a daughter, June, into the world. Amelia (Millie) had also had a daughter whom she called Sylvia.

Tony, despite marrying twice, never had kids. He'd sent his first wife Helen to America during the war to protect her from the Blitz. Unfortunately, she died in the States during childbirth and the child died with her.

Alfred (grampa) had sired his only son (my father) Tony and Lou and Ann had brought their only son Robert into the light.

Bob, following his siblings' example restricted himself to one child - Rachel - in 1948. The only grandchild that Nicola never lived to see.

I find it kind of strange that, coming from a large family as they did, all but Giolina resisted the temptation to have any more than one child. Fortunately, as you will see eventually, the next generation redeemed themselves on this score.

It also strikes me that Julie was the only one that upheld the Italian traditions. She married a nice Italian boy. She gave her kids Italian names. The kids had nicknames (that's important). She and Giovanni never changed their surname. I like to think that that was born out of stubbornness but more of that later.

For all of these people, Pontone had become a word. A place that existed only in history. A place that had no real exitence except in connection with their father. Their world now lie in London ... and the home counties.

The last of the Italians?

Raffaella lived to see all of her children married except Lou. She died on 15 October 1937 - causes of death listed as auricular fibulation, mitral stenosis and glycosuria. That basically means that the doctor didn't have a clue which one killed her but had evidence that she was suffering from all three. She'd been poorly for a while and had been in a wheelchair for a good bit.

Nicola followed her ten years later. In June 1947, the war safely behind him, Nicola went back to Pontone to see the family.

Cousins of dad's whom I was to meet much later remember him - zio Nicola (uncle Nick). While there he took ill and was taken to hospital in Salerno. The story goes that the doctors told him there was nothing wrong with him and sent him home. A couple of days later he died.

My grampa was convinced that Nicola knew he was going to die and that's why he went back to Pontone. I'd like to believe that that's right.

A couple of days after he died, Tony and Lou went over to collect him and bring him 'home'.

From that point on, contact between the Criscuolos in Pontone and those in St Pancras was lost.

Italians? Where?

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.

Seven weddings ... one family

By the mid 20s these new Londoners were starting to pull rings onto their fingers. Giolina was the first when, in 1924, she tied the knot with restaurateur Giovanni Nolli (a nice Italian boy from Pontone) at St Aluysius' Chapel in St Pancras.

Her sister Amelia was next. In 1929 she wed shop assistant Charles William Hastings in the same Chapel. Marie followed in 1931. Like her sisters she was married at St Aluysius' Chapel to the son of the impressively named Herbert Gladstone Trebble - her husband being Herbert Roland.

Antonio was the first of the boys to find happiness when he led Helen Grace Brodhurst down the aisle of Whitfield Memorial Church in 1935.

Andrea (Bob to his mates) went the whole hog (see the photo above). He and his bride (fellow hairdresser Giovannina Balsamo) promised their lives to each other in August 1936 at St Peter's Italian Church in Holborn.

Alfred, afraid of being left out, followed quickly behind his elder brother and, in November 1936 at the registry office in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, he undertook to love, honour and obey Elizabeth Rose Banning.

Finally, in 1941, Luigi married Geordie invoice clerk Anne Imrie at Eton registry Office in Royal Berkshire.

'Course, it wasn't all partying. The kids were working ... or at least the fellas were. Antonio was doing very nicely as a 'general salesman'. He was the moneyman in the family and wielded the power in the family that that gave him.

Bob was working as a barber or hairdresser. He used to boast that he had prettied the hair of many a famous personality; his favourite story involved Anthony Quinn and I never had any reason to doubt him.

Alfred was running his dad's shop in Woburn Walk and Luigi had set himself up as a journeyman electrician.

At the heart of Empire

The air in Woburn Walk must have been good because the children came thick and fast. In 1905 came Marie, in 1906 Amelia Josephine, in 1908 Antonio, in 1910 Luigi, in 1911 Andrea and in 1914 Alfred (my grampa). In the meantime, Nicola had converted to fruiterer and greengrocer - there is a rumour that he sold his ice-cream business to Francis Rossi's family but I've absolutely no proof of that.

Poor ol' Nick had to get up in the middle of the night and trapse down to Covent Garden with his hand-barrow to buy his fruit and veg for the day and get back to Woburn Walk to open at 9 o'clock.

The kids looked for all the world like Italians but they had dumped their exotic names for prosaic English Equivalents - Charlie, Julie, Marie (no change there then), Millie, Tony, Lou, Bob and Fred. Behind the front door they were Italian through-and-through but once they stepped out that front door they were pure Londoners. Life was good.

It wasn't all fruit 'n' veg though. In May 1914 Charlie died. Died in Western Hospital in Fulham of diptheria and pneumonia. His early death ensured that in the years to come he would acquire an almost legendary status - he would have been the brightest, the best, etc. cut down well before his time.

The Great War appears to have left the English end of the family largely unscathed. The boys were too young, Nicola was too old and, at least on this occasion, the Italians were fighting on the right side.

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.