(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 Atina in the beautiful mountain community of the Val di Comino, overlooking the River Melfa and the Meta, Mainarde and Abruzzi mountains.

In Italy, at the beginning of the 1900′s, times were very hard, people toiled in miserable conditions, 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 such as America, Argentina, France, Belgium, Scotland, and England. His elder brother and sister had already moved to live in London where they had set up small businesses and Benedetto, longing for adventure, was also enticed by the prospect of emigration to a  “new land of opportunity“. Thus my grandparents left behind their beloved homeland to make a new life in London. 

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  reared in the thriving Italian community.  Here my parents married. 

 Here I was baptised. I  was born closeby, in the heart of London and  ”within the sound of Bow Bells“, so I suppose I could be considered to be an “Italian Cockney”.  

Sadly I did not have the good fortune to get to know my maternal grandparents, as they had both died well before I came along. 

My Italian Grandparents with some of their children. 

 As I grew up I  developed a true passion for Italy and all things Italian.  Although my mother would often fondly recount stories of her childhood in Clerkenwell  there somehow seemed to be a missing link in my family’s history, many frayed loose threads that somehow required weave back together to create an ancient “tapestry”.  I felt a real yearning to see for myself the land of my forefathers, to visit Atina and walk in the footsteps of my Italian grandparents. 

Hence, 20 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 itself transpired to be even more charming than I could ever have imagined.   I felt so at home there, because clearly Bella Italia was in my blood, and my family roots were deeply entrenched in its fertile terracotta soil.

Atina in Frosinone

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 !!!

Chapter 2 – falling head over heels

 

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