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.

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.

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.

The time has come the walrus said ...

By 1998, I had decided that I was ready. I had all the information that I needed. It was time to try again. To try again to go back to Amalfi. It wasn't really a going back of course because I'd never been there but that's what it felt like.

I had no idea how to go about organizing it. No idea where to start. What to expect. What to do. It must have been early in 1999 when I went to my local Thompson (or is that Thomson? No. It's definitely Thompson) and booked a package deal ... for me, my wife and my 9-year-old son.

It suddenly occurred to me (or maybe it was to my wife that it occurred) that we had to take dad. We had to ask him at the very least whether he wanted to come along. The name 'Pontone' was as much a part of his identity as it was a part of mine. He said yes. There were going to be three generations of Criscuolo making the journey. It all seemed so right.

On a gorgeous day in October 1999 (I'm ashamed to say that I can't remember what date it was), we took off from Manchester airport bound for Naples. It was late morning when we landed at Capodichino airport and after having been churned through the mill through which arriving tourists are ground when they arrive at any airport anywhere in the world, we got on the coach that was to take us to Amalfi.

Out of the airport, onto the Autostrada del Sole and southwards until we cut west onto the Sorrento peninsula. Through Cava dei Tirreni, Vietri sul Mare, Cetara, Maiori and Minori - mountainscapes of outstanding beauty - with the sun beating down on our coach and my heart leaping out of my chest we wound our way until we reached the last headland - Capo del Orso - and turned the last bend.

Then I saw it. Just like on that old picture postcard. Was this home? Was this real? Had I finally made it? I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Our hotel was just off the main square - Piazza del Duomo - and we were very soon booked. Stood on the balcony dad and I looked out over the marinas ... and cried.

To set foot in God's own country

In the summer of 1979, I finally made it to Italy. Not to Amalfi unfortunately but to Italy.

Basically, I managed to get some money together doing agency and part time work. I worked stuffing envelopes for Barclay's Bank, as a receptionist for BICC's offices in Bloomsbury and a couple of other largely unexciting jobs. When I thought I'd got enough, I packed my back, went to Victoria station and bought a return ticket to Turin - getting the ferry from Dover to Calais and changing at Paris Gare du Nord.

Over the next week or so, I zig-zagged across Italy spending the days in whatever the city was that I'd ended up in that morning and then getting a night train to the next place. In order to be able to sleep on the train and get a decent kip, I always made sure that the journey was long enough. I went from Turin to Naples, from Naples to Venice, from Venice to Rome, from Rome to Milan, and so on and so forth. I went to Pisa, Parma, Florence and Bologna as well.

What a trip that was. I was awestruck by the things and places I saw. I was speaking Italian to real Italians and they didn't turn their noses up at me the way those girls had done four or five years ago in C'Martin. This was jumping in at the deep end. I don't think I ever spent more than a day in any of the places I went to.

In Napoli Centrale, I had a fella (who I've always assumed was gay) sit next to me and grab my balls. Poor bugger got a shock when this young, baby-faced, foreign tourist told him 'va fancul' e' mammete'. I never saw anyone run so bloody fast in my life.

I fell for a rip-off story and gave some fella about £20. Gullible? You bet I was.

I tried to get to a little village called Alife in Campania (province of Benevento I think) to find some friends of nan and grampa's - Salvatore and Carmela Iameo. I can't remember what happened but I didn't find them.

On the train going back up country, I got talking to a couple of American matelots (US Navy for the uninitiated). I'd a couple of sticks of JPS fags that I'd bought as presents for Salvatore and as I didn't smoke at that time, I was trying to offload them. I asked these lads if they liked English fags. Their turn to be worried! They weren't big on English fags but they took the ciggies.

I ended up having to get back to Turin with the last bit of money I had left and headed for home. The money hadn't lasted long but it was my first taste of Italy and one that very quickly grew on me.

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.

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.

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.