01 – Avanti Sempre Avanti – intro

(This is our tale based on our adventures whilst striving to create a new life for ourselves in Bella Italia, however to protect individuals’ privacy a number of names and places and certain details have been altered.)  

I have always felt that Bella Italia was in my blood. 

My maternal grandparents originated from the beautiful mountain community of Atina, overlooking the River Melfa and the Meta and Mainarde mountains, and the Abruzzi. In Italy, at the beginning of the 1900’s, times were very hard, people toiled in miserable conditions and experienced severe hardship and poverty due to poor wages and food shortages. Thus my grandfather Benedetto felt restless, as many Italian families departed for distant lands: the America, France, Belgium, Scotland, and England. His elder brother and sister had already moved to live in London, and Benedetto, longing for adventure was also enticed by the prospect of emigration to a new land of opportunity. 

 

 

 

 

 

I too was born nearby, in the heart of London – “within the sound of Bow Bells“, so I suppose I could be considered to be an “Italian Cockney“. I developed a true passion for Italy and all things Italian, and felt a real need to see for myself the land of my forefathers, to visit Atina and walk in the footsteps of my grandparents. 

15 years ago my husband Paul and I spent a memorable fortnight staying with some of my Italian cousins, in Atina. It was our first meeting but we were so warmly welcomed and received into the family fold and Atina transpired to be even more charming than I could ever have imagined. 

 

 

 

 

 

Atina in Frosinone

 

 

 

Thus began our irresistible love affair with “La Bella Italia”

which finally inspired us to risk everything, sell up lock, stock and barrel

and entirely transform our lifestyle. 

Courageous?  Daring?  Reckless?  Foolhardy?  Naïve?  All of these ??? 

This is the tale of our diverse adventures,

exploits and escapades along the way. 

I hope you will enjoy following our progress …………………. 

AVANTI  SEMPRE  AVANTI !!!

 

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My Grandparents with some of their children

In the Summer of 1911 my Italian grandparents first set foot on English soil, and made their way to the city of London, to the district of Clerkenwell, the Italian quarter know as “Little Italy” or “The Hill”. They rented a dilapidated Victorian house at the end of Little Saffron Hill, close to St Peter’s Italian Church, which was to be their home for many years to come. Here my mother was born and she was brought up in the thriving Italian community.