Sometimes it is too cold to go out. That is often the case in England, and occasionally in Italy too. But just as often it is the opposite: the heat becomes too heavy to resist.
Recently we have been living through one of those spells when, between late morning and mid-afternoon, the air thickens to the point where only “mad dogs and Englishmen”, to borrow the old song, would willingly walk into the glare of the noonday sun.

So I retreated, as I often do, into the lowest part of the house.

In Italy, the cellar—the cantina—is where summer is briefly held at bay. It is a space of cool stone and still air, a kind of domestic underground where even the cats disappear when the heat becomes unendurable. It has become, over time, a private refuge: a place where the day slows down enough to think.

It was there, quite by chance, that I noticed several old suitcases.
They had been sitting untouched for years. Dust had softened their edges; time had gathered on their surfaces like a second skin. They were not hidden so much as forgotten in plain sight.

Curiosity, that persistent and mildly indiscreet force, drew me in.
The first suitcase was almost apologetic in its contents: spare parts for vacuum cleaners, small domestic fragments of no particular story. Useful once, now merely residual.
The second carried a different kind of residue. Teaching notes. Papers from English lessons taught in Italy, and from courses long before that in England. Lesson plans, academic scribbles, the scaffolding of days that once felt structured and necessary, now collapsed into paper.
Then came the third suitcase.
And with it, a different temperature altogether.
Letters.
Not recent ones, but correspondence reaching back to 1970, 1971, 1972 and beyond. Letters from friends, family, colleagues, travelling companions—people who once populated the ordinary landscape of life, and who now exist, for the most part, only in memory.
Postcards from journeys. Notes written in transit. Conversations stretched across distance and time, concerned with plans, misunderstandings, affections, departures, returns. All the small urgencies that once felt permanent.

And then the question arrived, quietly but insistently:
What is one supposed to do with this?
The difficulty is not merely practical. It is moral in a minor key.
Some letters are difficult because their authors are no longer alive. Reading them is a peculiar act of resurrection: voices briefly returning through ink and paper, only to withdraw again into absence. The effect is almost physical. One is momentarily in their company, and then, just as suddenly, alone.
Other letters are difficult for another reason entirely. The writers may still be alive, but the worlds those letters describe have dissolved. What was once urgent now feels fragile; what was once unresolved may now be unmentionable. To read them is to risk reopening rooms that have long since been closed, not out of indifference, but out of necessity.
So the choices appear simple, though none of them are.
Keep them.
Discard them.
Destroy them.
Many people choose destruction. My own mother did so with regularity, burning letters as if flame were a kind of final punctuation. In literary history there are more dramatic examples still: archives lost to fire, to prudence, to the desire not to leave traces. Even Byron’s papers were not spared the logic of removal. What disappears does so completely.
Perhaps that is a kind of mercy.
But it is also an ending without return.
In our own time, the same dilemma persists in a less visible form. Paper has largely given way to the digital. Emails, messages, files—an invisible archive that grows without weight or smell. Yet the underlying question remains unchanged. What do we keep of ourselves once the moment has passed?
Occasionally I encounter old emails that belong to earlier versions of life, as though they were written by someone adjacent to me but not entirely identical. The question returns with quiet persistence: is this necessary? Or merely accumulated residue?
And yet there is always the counterweight of history.
We read the diaries of Pepys and Evelyn with a sense of intimacy across centuries. We treasure fragments of correspondence that survived not because they were intended for us, but because they were not destroyed. Those writers, of course, had no awareness that their private worlds would one day become public textures of understanding.
It is here that another thought begins to emerge.
We are often reluctant to throw away photographs, especially family photographs, because they seem to preserve not only moments but relationships. Faces that may later become difficult to reconstruct. Places that no longer exist in the same form. Even the most ordinary image becomes, over time, a kind of evidence.
And one begins to wonder whether descendants might not, in fact, find these materials more interesting than we do. Not because they are more important to us, but because they become history to them. What feels ordinary to one generation becomes archaeology to the next.
Photographs and letters, in that sense, are both time machines. They do not simply preserve the past; they reanimate it, though always imperfectly, always with distortion.
There are even cases where such discoveries have altered the understanding of well-known figures. Suitcases, quite literally, reappearing after decades, have contained letters that reshaped biographical narratives and forced reinterpretations of creative lives. One thinks, for instance, of material connected with the composer Giacomo Puccini, where correspondence discovered in private archives cast new light on aspects of his personal relationships and the emotional background to works such as La Fanciulla del West. What had seemed settled was reopened; what had been fixed became provisional again.
It is a reminder that the past is never fully closed. It is only temporarily arranged.j
Of course, I do not assume that my own papers belong to anything other than the ordinary. And yet the ordinary, too, becomes a form of evidence when enough time has passed. Not evidence of greatness, but of existence: how life was organised, how it was felt, how it unfolded in its unremarkable continuity.
Still, standing in the cellar among the suitcases, the question is not historical. It is personal.
What presses most is not the existence of the papers, but their accumulation. The sense that time itself has been stored, folded, and left waiting.
The letters behave like small instruments of transport. To open one is to be displaced: suddenly elsewhere, suddenly someone else, suddenly confronted with a version of oneself that no longer exists except as residue.
This is their gift, and also their burden.
So perhaps the answer lies neither in preservation nor in destruction, but in something slower and less absolute.
To begin by saving them from damp and neglect.
To give them time again—air, light, attention.
To approach them not as a mass to be resolved, but as a series of encounters.
Some will remain.
Some will not.
Some will be read once more and then allowed to recede, not erased, but released.
The suitcases have already survived half a century. They are in no hurry.
First they return to dryness in the Tuscan light, their contents quieting after years of sealed darkness.
Then, perhaps, I will return to them in the early hours, when the heat has not yet gathered and the day still belongs to possibility rather than obligation.
The past does not ask to be abolished.
But neither does it ask to be inhabited forever.
And perhaps the real work is simply this: to let it exist without allowing it to eclipse the present it once made possible.

Yesterday’s news from Ukraine again affected me deeply. To say that I was shocked is perhaps not quite the right word. Any decent person is shocked by the suffering and destruction caused by war. Yet there was something particularly distressing about hearing reports of damage to sacred buildings in Kyiv, because these were places that I had visited with Sandra during a much happier period in that country’s history in 2005 and we had truly appreciated those golden domes.

Among them was the Cathedral of the Dormition. The word “Dormition” is the Eastern Orthodox term describing the death of the Virgin Mary, literally her “falling asleep” before her assumption into heaven. This is not a different religion from Christianity but another expression of the same Christian faith and tradition.

What makes the situation especially tragic is that this conflict is taking place between peoples who share the same Eastern orthodox religious and cultural inheritance. We are not speaking of entirely different civilizations confronting one another. We are speaking of peoples who share saints, traditions, sacred places, and centuries of common history. One naturally hopes that religious leaders will seek reconciliation and understanding, for the purpose of faith should surely be to build bridges rather than deepen divisions.

The news brought back vivid memories of my visit to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra in 2005. The reception I received throughout Ukraine was warm and friendly, yet I remember one curious incident while visiting the underground cave monasteries. As I followed the usual route through the tunnels, a monk addressed me sharply and, through a woman who translated for me, made it clear that he wished me to leave that particular area. I was puzzled because I had done nothing unusual and was simply following the path taken by other visitors.

At the time I found the encounter unsettling. Looking back, I still cannot explain it. Yet it remains fixed in my memory because it occurred in such a profoundly spiritual setting. What I remember most vividly, however, is emerging once more into the daylight from those ancient underground passages. The monastery had survived centuries of upheaval, invasions, revolutions, and political turmoil. Today one can only hope that those caves continue to offer refuge and protection to those who need them.

The events in Ukraine have also led me to reflect on the wider destruction of cultural heritage in wartime. During my gap year in 1967, I travelled widely and had the privilege of visiting Baalbek in Lebanon. Even after all these years, I can still remember the immense scale and grandeur of its Roman temples. They were among the most impressive monuments of the ancient world that I had ever seen. Standing among such ruins, one becomes aware that they belong not merely to a particular nation but to the whole of humanity.

That is why the destruction of cultural heritage during war is so painful. Factories can be rebuilt. Roads and bridges can be reconstructed. Houses can eventually be replaced. But monuments, churches, monasteries, temples, and historic buildings embody centuries of memory, craftsmanship, and faith. Once damaged, something irreplaceable is lost.

Long before aerial warfare became a reality, H.G. Wells explored its possibilities in his remarkable 1908 novel The War in the Air. The original military purpose of bombing was to destroy an enemy’s industrial and military capacity. Yet bombing soon acquired another purpose: the destruction of morale. It became a weapon directed not only at factories and transport systems but also at the symbols that people held most dear.

For most people, the most cherished possession is their home. Beyond that are the places that embody a nation’s memory and identity: churches, cathedrals, monuments, libraries, and historic buildings. During the Second World War, St Paul’s Cathedral became a symbol of Britain’s endurance during the Blitz. Churchill understood that if St Paul’s were destroyed, something more than a building would be lost. The image of its dome rising above the smoke became a symbol of national resilience.

The same principle can be seen elsewhere. Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was left partially in ruins as a reminder of war’s devastation. For decades the Frauenkirche in Dresden which I motorbiked to in 2001stood as a shattered monument to destruction before eventually being rebuilt. Significantly, many of those who contributed to its reconstruction came from countries that had once been enemies . The rebuilt church became a symbol not only of restoration but also of reconciliation.

What saddens me most is that the destruction of cultural heritage is an attack not only upon the present but also upon the past and the future. It severs the link between generations. It attempts to erase memory itself.

Yet history also offers grounds for hope. Coventry Cathedral, Warsaw’s Old Town, Monte Cassino, and the Frauenkirche all demonstrate that destruction need not have the final word. Communities endure. Memory survives. Buildings can rise again.

As I reflect upon the latest news from Ukraine, I find myself hoping that the same spirit of restoration and reconciliation will one day prevail there. The scars of war may remain visible for generations, but so too can the determination to preserve what is best in human civilization.

In the end, the true significance of a cathedral, a monastery, or an ancient temple lies not merely in stone and mortar but in what it represents: the continuity of human memory against the forces that seek to destroy it.

There is a wonderful moment in Fawlty Towers when Basil, lamenting the restrictions imposed by his formidable wife Sybil, sighs, “Well, even that avenue of pleasure has been closed to me.”
The phrase has stayed with me over the years. As one grows older, one becomes aware that certain avenues of pleasure do indeed close, regardless of wives. Some disappear gradually, others abruptly. Yet life is not simply a matter of closures. While some roads become inaccessible, others open unexpectedly, sometimes widening into grand boulevards and ceremonial avenues that we could never have imagined in our youth.
When I look back over my life, one particular avenue of pleasure stands out above all others: life on two wheels.
My love affair with two-wheeled transport began, as it does for so many people, with a bicycle. I still remember the moment when my father decided that the stabilisers had to come off. He ran behind me in the park, holding the bicycle steady while I wobbled uncertainly forward. Then, after a while, I glanced over my shoulder and discovered that he was nowhere near me. He had let go long before. I was cycling entirely on my own.
That moment was freedom.
From then on, London became my playground. In those days the roads seemed friendlier and the traffic less intimidating. I cycled everywhere. By my early teens I was venturing considerable distances simply to satisfy my curiosity. I remember riding all the way to St Albans along Watling Street because I wanted to know where the ancient road went. Not long afterwards I cycled to Cambridge, years before I would eventually become a student there.
At school, the bicycle sheds formed a small universe of their own. At Dulwich College they were places of conversation, occasional mischief, the odd argument, and the sort of adventures that seemed enormously important at the time. Today they have largely disappeared, victims perhaps of changing times and changing traffic conditions, but they remain vivid in my memory.
My bicycle accompanied me through university as well. Cambridge and its surrounding villages were made for cycling. Barrington, Shelford and countless other villages lay within easy reach, connected by lanes that invited exploration. Looking back, I realise that I was never cycling merely to get somewhere. The journey itself was always part of the pleasure.
The bicycle remained central even after university. During my working life in London I often commuted by bike. To save money on travel fares when I was training and teaching, I would cycle extraordinary distances, sometimes from Woolwich all the way across the capital to Wimbledon or Richmond. Looking back now, I can scarcely believe the energy I possessed.
One day, while riding through Camberwell Green, I was overtaken by a familiar face. It was Paul McCartney, who gave me an encouraging smile and a cheerful comment as I pedalled on. It was one of those wonderfully improbable London moments that remain fixed in the memory.
Cycling was not merely practical. It was also one of the great pleasures I shared with my wife. Taking advantage of discounted rail tickets, we would travel with our bicycles to different parts of Britain and spend days exploring. Dorset, Somerset, Norfolk, Cambridge, Brighton, Corfe Castle, Lulworth Cove—places that revealed themselves at the perfect pace for two cyclists. Fast enough to cover distance, slow enough to appreciate every detail.

Yet eventually I discovered another form of two-wheeled freedom.
My first motorcycle was a rather unreliable Villiers Ambassador passed on by my brother. It spent almost as much time breaking down as it did moving. My first proper machine was a Honda CB250. Some people advised me to buy the larger 360 model, but the 250 was quite sufficient for me.

That motorcycle became part of my life story. I courted my future wife on it. It carried us through the early years of marriage. Most importantly, it taught me something that every motorcyclist knows: for moving through a city, there is nothing quite like two wheels. Cars sit in traffic. Trains follow fixed routes. A motorcycle feels alive.
What I also discovered was the remarkable camaraderie of motorcycling. Car drivers often regard one another as obstacles. Motorcyclists regard one another as companions. There is an unspoken fraternity. A raised leg, a nod, a wave—small gestures acknowledging a shared understanding of freedom and risk.
Years later, in 1997, I returned seriously to motorcycling with a Honda Transalp 600. It was a hybrid machine, equally at home on roads and rough tracks. Some enthusiasts dismiss such motorcycles as compromises, but for me it was perfect.
The Transalp transformed travel.
I rode it through Wales, into the Berwyn Hills, along forest tracks and mountain roads. Then came a far greater adventure. Crossing first to the Channel Islands to meet my wife for a camping holiday, I continued alone through France and over some of the highest Alpine passes in Europe before descending into Italy.
The motorcycle proved ideal for Tuscany. On sweltering summer days I could simply climb higher and higher into the mountains, escaping the heat and discovering another world among forests, villages and mountain roads. It was one of the most exhilarating periods of my life.

Of course, motorcycling has its own intoxicating pleasures. On the long, empty roads of northern France, there were occasional moments when the speedometer climbed past one hundred miles an hour. Motorcyclists have a name for that sensation. We used to call it “tunnelling up.” At such speeds the world narrows and stretches simultaneously. The landscape streams towards you. Time itself seems to accelerate. Any thought of danger vanishes completely, replaced by a feeling that borders on flight.
Eventually, however, my beloved red-and-white Transalp was stolen after I returned to London. I was devastated.
Yet my affection for the machine remained strong, and before long I acquired another Transalp, this one an olive-green model equipped with disc brakes front and rear.
That second motorcycle carried me on another unforgettable journey, this time across Germany and into Eastern Europe.
A violent thunderstorm greeted me in Germany, but the weather soon cleared and I continued eastward. Unlike my earlier trip, this journey was shaped as much by music as by geography.
One morning I arrived in Leipzig and entered the church containing Johann Sebastian Bach’s tomb. The experience remains among the most profound of my life. The church was almost empty. There were no crowds, no ceremonies, no performances. Only a cleaning woman quietly dusting Bach’s memorial slab.
For decades Bach’s music had accompanied me. To stand there at last, in silence, before his resting place, was overwhelming. It felt as though I had arrived not merely at a destination but at the source of a lifelong inspiration.

From Leipzig I followed other musical trails: Handel, Schumann, and eventually Chopin in Warsaw.
Poland itself was fascinating. I remember roads that rose and dipped gently across marshy landscapes, and endless forests where, in the middle of nowhere, a solitary table might appear beside the road with a young woman selling freshly gathered mushrooms.
Warsaw was memorable for another reason. Having found a campsite, I later became completely unable to find it again. I spent hours circling the city searching for my tent, unable to remember the name of the campsite and utterly defeated by Polish pronunciation.
Further south, Kraków made a deep impression, not least because of its proximity to Auschwitz. To visit the beauty of the city and then confront the industrialised horror of the camp was a powerful reminder of the extremes of human civilisation.
I had hoped to continue onwards into Russia, but circumstances made that impossible. Nevertheless, the journey gave me a vivid sense of Eastern Europe at a moment when much of it still felt undiscovered by Western tourism.
When I eventually settled in Italy, motorcycles gave way to scooters. In Italy, scooters are not merely vehicles; they are part of everyday life. Mine carried me all over Tuscany. It transported me to schools, businesses, factories and private lessons. Occasionally I treated it as if it were an off-road machine, which was not always wise, but it served me faithfully for many years.
The scooter still exists.
The motorcycles are gone.

And now, approaching my eightieth year, I find myself asking whether this particular avenue of pleasure has finally closed.
The practical argument is obvious enough. My wife is an excellent driver. A modern car is warmer, safer and more comfortable. The risks of motorcycling increase with age. Reflexes slow. Bones become less forgiving. Common sense begins to speak more loudly.
Yet when I look back, I do not feel regret.
I feel gratitude.
I was extraordinarily fortunate. Across decades of cycling and motorcycling, I escaped serious injury. I travelled where I wished to travel. I crossed mountains, countries and cultures. I saw landscapes that remain vivid in my memory. I reached places that mattered deeply to me. I courted my wife on two wheels. I stood before Bach’s tomb. I explored Europe under my own power.
Many people reach old age mourning adventures they never had.
I have been lucky enough to have had mine.
Perhaps, then, the question is not whether the avenue has closed. Perhaps the better question is whether the journey itself has ended.
And the answer is clearly no.
The boy cycling to discover where Watling Street led, the young man crossing Europe on a motorcycle, and the older man reflecting on those experiences today are all driven by the same impulse: curiosity.
The desire to see what lies beyond the next bend.
The vehicle changes. Sometimes it is a bicycle. Sometimes it is a motorcycle. Sometimes it is a car driven by a beloved companion. Sometimes it is nothing more than memory, music and imagination.
But the journey continues.
As long as there remains another road to notice, another piece of music to hear, another landscape to admire, another book to read, another conversation to enjoy, another question to ask, life continues to open fresh avenues.
Some pleasures close. Others arrive.
The important thing is not the vehicle.
The important thing is to keep moving, to keep seeing, to keep living, and above all, to keep being.

I have often thought that music is not merely an artistic activity, nor even simply a cultural one. For me, music is profoundly social. Almost every piece that means something to me is attached not only to sounds and melodies, but to people, places, journeys, friendships, loves and losses. Music has accompanied my life so closely that it has become impossible to separate the works themselves from the circumstances in which they entered my world.
Naturally, pop music will always be associated for me with parties, events, places, and, above all, girlfriends. Certain memories seem inseparable from particular songs and sounds. I think of the May ball at King’s College when Pink Floyd played that extraordinary finale from A Saucerful of Secrets, or of sleeping out in the open hitching in the wilds of Calabria, listening on a transistor radio to Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands.

Then there was Hendrix: that concert at Woburn Abbey, the atmosphere of the time, and the girlfriend who shared that period of my life. The music and the memories have become woven together, each bringing the other back into focus. So many moments, people, and landscapes are bound up with pop music that it seems almost impossible to separate one from the other.
Yet that is only one side of the story. Pop music provided the soundtrack to countless experiences, friendships, journeys, and romances. But when it comes to what is usually called classical music, an entirely different narrative begins to unfold—one that reaches beyond particular events and enters a deeper, more enduring landscape of discovery.
The remarkable thing is that so much of the music I cherish was introduced to me by other people. Mahler, for instance, came to me through a friend of my mother’s, Isabel Granger, a remarkable woman who was far ahead of her time in her work as a social worker helping women then termed unmarried mothers. She attended Mahler concerts at a time when Mahler was far less frequently performed than today. Through conversations about her enthusiasm, my mother became interested, and through my mother, so did I.
When I first heard Mahler’s First Symphony, in an inexpensive recording conducted by Paul Kletzki, I was overwhelmed. To my youthful ears it seemed almost like epic film music, vast and visionary. Mahler quickly became an obsession. Yet the music is inseparable from memory. My first truly important date with the young woman who would later become my wife was not at a restaurant or a theatre, but at a performance of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony in its completed version at the Royal Festival Hall. The work itself seemed to open a window onto another universe, and the memory remains inseparable from the music.

So much of my musical life is connected with friendships. Schubert, for example, will always remind me of two friends, one from school and one from university. Both adored his piano music. One of them was dismissive of the symphonies, feeling that Schubert’s orchestral writing lacked the perfection of his keyboard works, but for the piano sonatas he had an almost religious devotion. Whenever I hear those sonatas or the sublime String Quintet, I hear not only Schubert but the voices of those friends. And what more sensuous music evoking those marine landscapes and sun filled or storm tossed holidays than Debussy’s La Mer?

Other composers entered my life through chance encounters. As a teenager I stayed with a family whose son was fascinated by César Franck. Until then I barely knew Franck’s name. Through him I discovered a composer whose music would remain with me for decades. Later, I heard the Symphonic Variations played at a celebratory concert at King’s College, Cambridge, in honour of then resident fellow EM Forster whose ninetieth birthday was being marked. Once again, the music became fused with people and place.
Indeed, places matter enormously. I have always loved visiting composers’ houses. There is something deeply moving about standing in the rooms where great music was conceived. In Vienna I visited the homes of Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven. Beethoven’s Eroica house remains particularly vivid in my memory because of the circumstances. We parked our car nearby, only for a violent thunderstorm to erupt. At the same time, a tram was ringing its bell furiously because our car was obstructing its route. My wife dashed down the street to move the vehicle while thunder rolled overhead in. Ever since, Beethoven’s house has been associated in my mind with storms and clanging tram bells.
Haydn evokes the open landscapes around Eisenstadt where we camped surrounded by a flock of ducks. And Mozart…

Handel recalls my motorbike tour to his birthplace in Saxony and combines that pastoral landscape to his house in London’s busy West End next door to Hendrix’s pad. Elgar belongs forever to the hills of Worcestershire.

These places have become part of the music itself. They remind me that great music does not emerge from abstraction but from real people living in real landscapes.

Music has also marked moments of sadness. One of Mendelssohn’s string quartets is forever linked in my memory with the loss of my beloved Lhasa Apso. Whenever I hear it, grief and beauty seem inseparable.

The same is true of friendships. My university friend Ian McCormick, who subsequently wrote seminal books on musical subjects, introduced me to much of Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams. Together we listened to recordings that were difficult to obtain at the time like that pirated thirteenth Symphony. Ian believed that Vaughan Williams’s Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies formed a great trilogy: conflict, peace and epilogue. It was a wonderful insight. Tragically, Ian later took his own life. Yet whenever I hear those symphonies, I hear his voice and remember his enthusiasm and generosity.
I have often found that music preserves people. Long after conversations have faded, a phrase from a quartet or a symphony can bring someone back into the room with astonishing clarity.
One of my earliest musical revelations occurred while I was playing in a school orchestra. We were performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23. I sat among the second violins and found myself so captivated by the beauty of the music that I almost stopped playing. For a moment, practical matters vanished and only Mozart remained. It was one of those experiences that convince a person that music possesses a reality beyond ordinary existence.
Yet if there is one composer who anchors everything together, it is Bach.
My entire journey into classical music really began with a recording by Dinu Lipatti. On one side was Bach’s Partita No. 1; on the other, Mozart’s Sonata in A minor. It was Lipatti’s rendering of Bach that changed my life. Listening to that performance was like opening a door into a vast new world. Everything followed from it.
Decades later, Bach remains the centre. Whenever life becomes difficult, whenever events seem confused or overwhelming, I return to Bach. Somehow the music restores order. It gathers the scattered fragments of experience and places them into a pattern that makes sense. It allows me to find the thread of life again.
From the Partitas to the Well-Tempered Clavier, from the Cello Suites to the Brandenburg Concertos, Bach possesses an extraordinary ability to reconcile the intellect and the spirit. The music seems simultaneously human and cosmic. It is impossible for me to imagine life without it.

Indeed, I sometimes find it astonishing that there are people who have never encountered this music. I cannot help feeling that if more people listened to Bach, and indeed to great music generally, many of the world’s problems would become easier to bear. Music is a peacemaker. Music is a reconciler. It calms us. It enlarges us. It carries us beyond our immediate concerns and allows us to glimpse something greater than ourselves.
Perhaps there is a reason why Bach’s music was chosen to travel into space aboard the Voyager spacecraft. Faced with the challenge of representing humanity to the cosmos, those responsible turned instinctively to Bach. The choice seems entirely natural. In his music there is order, beauty, complexity, tenderness and transcendence. There is something that speaks not merely for a nation or a culture but for humanity itself.
And so, after all these years, I find that music remains one of the great constants of life. It is present in memory, in friendship, in love, in loss, in landscapes and in journeys. It accompanies us through triumph and disappointment alike. It reminds us of who we have been and suggests who we might become.
Music before us, music after us, music with us and beyond us.
Music now.
Music in the future.
Music forever.

Longoio is a small mountain hamlet in the Serchio Valley, within the municipality of Bagni di Lucca in Tuscany. It is one of those places where geography and human life are closely intertwined. Set among chestnut woods and steep slopes, the village has historically depended on a fragile balance between forest resources, agriculture, and more recently, industry.
Over time, the Serchio Valley became one of Italy’s important paper-producing districts. The industry developed organically from local conditions: abundant water, historic milling activity, and a long tradition of craft production. By the twentieth century, paper manufacturing and recycling had become central to the valley’s economy, shaping both employment and identity across small communities.
Within this context, the Pazzaglia family of Longoio is associated with the local paper industry. In its more recent form, this activity is linked to Tiziano Pazzaglia and the recycling sector through Green4 S.r.l. The company was locally rooted rather than part of a multinational structure, operating within a dense network of small and medium-sized firms that characterise the Serchio paper district.
Last month, a major fire broke out at the Green4 facility not far from Longoio. Local accounts indicate it began in an external storage area containing baled paper before spreading rapidly into the main warehouse. Fueled by highly combustible material, the fire produced a large plume of smoke visible across the valley and required an extensive emergency response.

The exact cause was not officially confirmed at the time of reporting, and investigations were reported to be ongoing.
The impact of the fire went beyond the industrial site itself. In villages like Longoio, industry is not separate from daily life: it is embedded in the community. Factories employ local residents, support surrounding families, and form part of the shared landscape. As a result, even those not directly affected by the facility experienced the fire as something immediate and disruptive.
In statements reported locally, Tiziano Pazzaglia described the loss in deeply personal terms, expressing that everything he had built was gone. As Pazzaglia said “there’s only one person who died in the fire and that is me ” His words reflected not only economic damage but the collapse of a long-standing continuity between family, work, and place.
The wider context is one of economic fragility. The paper sector in the region operates under constant pressure from shifting markets and tight margins, meaning that a single incident can have consequences that extend well beyond one site.
The event also occurred during a period of elevated fire risk in the region, where both forest fires and accidental industrial fires are a recurring seasonal concern. While official investigations focused on determining the cause, broader speculation in local settings is not uncommon, although no conclusions of deliberate action have been established.
More broadly, the fire highlights the vulnerability of a tightly interconnected valley economy, where employment, family networks, and industry are closely bound together. When disruption occurs, its effects are social as well as economic.
*
Longoio is one of several hamlets within Bagni di Lucca, and for those who live there it is not an abstract location but a lived environment. I have lived within the same municipality for over twenty years and that proximity shapes how events like this are experienced—not as distant news, but as part of the shared reality of the valley.
Over time, local life has also been shaped by small community institutions such as village shops, which for decades provided essential goods and acted as informal social centres. One such shop operated in Longoio for many years before closing more than a decade ago. It was run by Giorgia the wife of Sergio Pazzaglia the founder of the.factory destroyed by the fire. These kinds of places played an important role in the everyday fabric of the community.
While it is a relief that no lives were lost, the consequences are nonetheless significant. Many livelihoods have been affected at a time when the local economy is already under strain, and what follows requires not only investigation and reconstruction, but also support and resilience for n a valley like the Serchio and its tributary feeding Bagni di Lucca. the Lima , rebuilding is never purely technical. It is also about restoring stability, continuity, and confidence in a place where community and industry have always been deeply intertwined.

In common with the immortal works of art, in common with the greatest of beliefs, and in common with the war dead remembered in Laurence Binyon’s famous words, there are other things that, in a sense, shall not grow old.
These are our photographs.
Gone, one hopes, are the days when photographs simply vanished because they existed only as single paper prints tucked away in drawers, forgotten albums, or cardboard boxes in attics. Today, countless images inhabit their own curious form of eternity. They reside in the cloud, whether that be Amazon, Google, or some other digital repository. There they remain, often duplicated many times over, available not only to us but perhaps to future generations of descendants, archivists, historians and researchers.
Yet one thing is certain: we grow old.
When we look through our photographs, we do so for two contradictory reasons. We rejoice because they remind us of happy moments, of people we loved, of journeys taken and experiences shared. At the same time, we feel a certain sadness because those moments have passed. The holiday is over. The gathering has dispersed. The children have grown. Friends have departed. Some are no longer with us.
The photographs remain, but time has moved on.
That is why old photographs possess such emotional power. They allow us to meet our younger selves again. They show how much has changed, and how much has not. They belong to two worlds at once: the past in which they were taken, and the present in which they are seen.
Recently, I have had enormous pleasure rediscovering old photographs from the pre-digital era. These are not images automatically uploaded from smartphones. They are prints from the age of film, when every exposure mattered. Many survived and have now been scanned.
Once scanned, however, another question arises.
What should we do with them?
Should we preserve them exactly as they are, complete with fading colours, scratches, dust marks, creases and tears? Or should we restore them?
I eventually reached my own conclusion. The original print should always be preserved. That is the archivist’s first rule. But once that has been done, I see no objection to restoration. Indeed, I find great satisfaction in it.
At a basic level, restoration involves cropping, straightening, adjusting brightness and contrast, correcting colour balance, and removing blemishes. These are corrective processes. They compensate for the injuries inflicted by time.
But today we also have new tools. Artificial intelligence has entered the field. I use a variety of systems, each with strengths and weaknesses, and each capable in different ways of removing damage, recovering detail, or restoring clarity to faded images.
This raises a question that is not merely technical, but philosophical.
Are we restoring the past, or recreating it?
Traditional restoration seeks to reveal what was already there. Artificial intelligence can sometimes go further, inferring details no longer visible. The boundary between restoration and interpretation becomes less certain.
Yet when used carefully, the results can be deeply moving.
This question became unexpectedly personal when I returned to a photograph taken during my final year at King’s College, Cambridge, in 1971.

The photograph shows Sandra leaning out of the window of my lodgings overlooking King’s Parade, with the buildings of Gonville and Caius College visible behind her. At the time, it seemed an entirely ordinary image, capturing nothing more than a moment on an ordinary day.
Yet more than fifty years later, it has come to mean far more than the instant it recorded.
During restoration, I found myself struck by a curious thought. Sandra does not appear younger because the photograph has been restored. She was younger. That was simply the reality of 1971.
What had aged was not Sandra, but the photograph itself.
Over decades, the print had accumulated its own history. Colours faded. Detail softened. The surface bore the marks of time. Restoration removed much of that accumulated photographic age and brought the image closer to its original state.
It is a strange reversal. The woman in the photograph remains fixed in that moment in 1971. The photograph, however, continued ageing year after year. Restoration allows the image to move slightly back toward its own youth, even though time itself remains unchanged.
The photograph is important for another reason. It forms part of what I think of as a three-part trilogy.
The first part began in 1966 and ended in 1967 when circumstances prevented it from continuing. The second part should perhaps have completed it, but instead it amounted to only a single day. Sandra came to Cambridge, we spent that day together, and then our paths diverged again.
Looking back, the photograph seems less like an ending than a pause between chapters.
Six years passed before we met again.
India played an unexpected role in what followed. During a visit there in 1971, I met a friend who later came to England on business and asked to be shown around London. In that moment, I remembered someone I had once known.
Why not Sandra?
The introduction was made, and one day the two of them came to see me. What seemed a simple arrangement became a turning point. The loose threads of the earlier chapters were drawn together, and the third part of the trilogy quietly began.
Unlike the first two parts, this third part did not end.
That is why this photograph carries such significance. It captures a moment when neither of us could have known what lay ahead. Seen simply, it is a young woman leaning from a Cambridge window on a day in 1971. Seen in the context of what followed, it becomes a threshold between an unfinished past and a continuing future.
Photographs have a unique relationship with time. They preserve a moment so completely that it never changes, yet the meanings we attach to it continue to grow. A casual image may, decades later, reveal itself as a turning point.
Perhaps that is why restoring photographs is so satisfying. We know that life is brief. We know that youth fades. We know that moments pass beyond recall. Yet by preserving and restoring images, something is rescued from oblivion.
The ancient Romans observed that ars longa, vita brevis — art is long, life is short.
Photographs are long too.
They may outlive us by generations, carrying fragments of lives that would otherwise disappear.
Not immortal, perhaps. Nothing material is truly immortal.
But they endure.
And when we restore an old photograph and see a loved one looking back across half a century, it can feel, if only for a moment, like a conversation across time.
Sometimes a single photograph captures only a fraction of a second.
Sometimes that fraction contains an entire lifetime.

BY THE LEDGE

The golden light of Cambridge softly gleams,

You wait within the glass, a spirit bright,

The tide of destiny flows through our dreams.

​I did not know the hardship in the schemes,

Or why I missed the comfort of your sight;

The golden light of Cambridge softly gleams.

​We weathered long and lonely, distant streams,

To find the way back through the darkest night,

The tide of destiny flows through our dreams.

​Your beauty, heavenly, transcends the themes,

That poets weave in verses of delight;

The golden light of Cambridge softly gleams.

​Though time took all our certainty and seams,

And trials forced us to the bitter height,

The tide of destiny flows through our dreams.

​A love inevitable, beyond the extremes,

Has brought you to my arms, to hold you tight;

The golden light of Cambridge softly gleams,

The tide of destiny flows through our dreams.

Anyone travelling up from Ponte a Serraglio towards Granaiola knows the Global Village, housed in the buildings that once formed part of the Demidoff complex. Few people, however, notice what stands just beyond it.
On the right-hand side of the road, almost hidden by vegetation, is a small abandoned chapel. For years it remained smothered by brambles, ivy and bamboo, so much so that many motorists passed by without ever realising it was there. It was Sandra who found the chapel and brought it to my notice Today, thanks to some clearing of the surrounding growth, it has become visible once again and is beginning to catch the eye of those who travel this road.

At first glance it might appear to be nothing more than a roadside shrine. Looking more closely, however, it is clearly something more substantial. The façade has a proper entrance protected by an ornate wrought-iron gate, and behind it can be seen a larger stone structure, now almost completely engulfed by greenery.
It is not the Oratory of Madonna della Neve, which stands much higher up, just below the village of Granaiola. This little building seems to belong to a different and less familiar story. It may have been a private nineteenth-century oratory connected with an estate that has long since disappeared, or perhaps a chapel built for travellers making their way along the old route to Granaiola.
For the moment, its origins remain something of a mystery. Local guides and lists of religious buildings in the area do not appear to mention it clearly, and that only adds to its fascination. It is one of those places that survive the passing of time, forgotten by most people yet still quietly present in the landscape.
Looking at it today, with its weathered walls and the vegetation slowly reclaiming it, it is easy to imagine a time when the chapel was cared for, visited regularly and lit by candles. Perhaps local farmers stopped there to say a prayer before climbing to the fields above Granaiola. Perhaps travellers paused for a moment of devotion as they made their way along the road.
For now, we do not know its name or its exact history. Yet this small chapel on the road to Granaiola serves as a reminder that in Bagni di Lucca even the most hidden corners can preserve fragments of a past still waiting to be rediscovered.

Today is 2 June — Italy’s Republic Day — a public holiday and date that carries significance far beyond ceremony. It marks the moment in 1946 when Italians, emerging from the devastation of the Second World War and the collapse of fascism, voted to become a republic and to leave behind the monarchy and the legacy of Fascist Italy. It was not simply a change of government, but a re-founding of political legitimacy on democratic principles.
That decision grew directly out of the catastrophe of World War II. In Italy, the war was not only something suffered from the outside; it became internal, fragmented, and ultimately divided. In the final phase of the conflict, occupation and resistance produced a civil war within the wider war itself — a rupture that turned political disagreement into lived conflict between compatriots. That experience left a deep imprint on the national psyche, still visible in memorials, landscapes, and family memory across the country.

That rupture is also one of the central themes explored in Anna Valencia’s novel ‘The Chestnut House’ set in our part of the world and more specifically the Garfagnana. Anna Valencia is a friend who I met through a cat donation from her while she was living in this area and I translated her unputdownable work into Italian because its subject matter carries equal importance for an Italian audience. The novel brings this chapter of Italian history into vivid human focus, showing how civil division and wartime occupation penetrated ordinary lives. It is particularly powerful because it translates political rupture into lived experience, reminding us that behind every constitutional transformation lie private stories of survival, loss, and reconstruction.
Against this background, the Republic was not a triumph in the conventional sense. It was a reconstruction — political, social, and moral. Italy did not simply emerge both defeated and victorious; it reassembled itself from collapse. The republic represented an attempt to restore order, justice, and democratic continuity after dictatorship and war, and to redefine the relationship between citizens and the state on new foundations.
This gives Italy’s experience a particular intensity compared with countries that were not occupied in the same way. Britain, for example, endured severe bombing and wartime loss but was not occupied (with the exception of the Channel Islands). Its post-war transformation therefore took place within an uninterrupted constitutional framework. The reforms of the Labour government under Clement Attlee reshaped welfare, housing, and the economy, but within a stable institutional continuity.
Italy’s transformation was more fundamental. The 1946 referendum that created the republic was also the first national vote in which women participated fully, marking a profound shift in civic identity at the moment of national re-foundation. Citizenship was no longer inherited or restricted; it was actively extended as part of the republic’s creation.
All of this unfolded under the early pressures of the Cold War. Europe was dividing into opposing spheres of influence, and Italy stood at a strategic crossroads, with tensions reflected in issues such as Trieste and the wider presence of the emerging Iron Curtain. Despite this instability, the republic aligned itself with democratic institutions and the long process of European reconstruction.

In my own family, this connection is direct. My wife’s father was an Italian army radio operator at El Alamein, responsible for battlefield communications in the North African campaign while my father was a British Eighth Army tank driver involved in armoured warfare and the maintenance and repair of vehicles in the same theatre. These were not abstract roles but essential functions within the machinery of one of the most decisive battles of the war. Both men were part of the same immense historical moment, each contributing in different ways to the same conflict.
Like many of their generation, they did not often speak in detail about what they had experienced – although my dad mentioned that he found it exciting to be involved in it. The war was present but contained — carried in silence as much as in memory. Yet it shaped everything that followed.
That silence reflected a wider post-war condition. Many who had lived through the conflict preferred not to revisit it. The priority became rebuilding life: restoring stability, expanding opportunity, and moving toward a world defined by normality rather than survival. Across Europe, austerity and scarcity lingered into the 1950s, but they coexisted with a strong desire to build a more secure and hopeful future.
Even so, the war never fully disappeared from culture or consciousness. It remained embedded in education, public life, and entertainment, where it appeared as shared reference rather than distant history. Over time, however, that immediacy faded, and lived experience gradually became historical knowledge.

This is why Republic Day retains such importance in Italy. It is not simply a celebration of constitutional form, but a reminder of how that form was created: through occupation, civil fracture, resistance, reconstruction, and a conscious decision to rebuild public life on principles of justice, equality, and participation. To think that Italian women had to wait until 1946 to be able to vote and that now just eighty years later the country is governed by a female prime minister who has already served longer than most Italian prime ministers and where the opposition leader is also a woman.
Over time, Italy’s republic has also become part of a wider European story — one shaped by countries emerging from war and choosing cooperation over conflict, stability over fragmentation, and institutions over collapse. Italy’s role within that process reflects both national recovery and continental reconstruction.
In the end, Republic Day is not only about 1946. It is about continuity — the deliberate, fragile continuity of democracy itself. It is a reminder that freedom is never automatic, justice is never permanent without effort, and the republic exists only as long as each generation chooses to sustain it.

For those of us belonging to the Baby Boomer generation, born in the immediate post-war years, this history was never distant. It was still present in the people around us. Our parents belonged to the wartime generation, and their lives were shaped by experiences that continued to define the post-war world even when not spoken aloud. The Second World War was not only present in parental memory, but also in education and culture: we were taught by teachers who themselves had directly experienced wartime service or national service, and only the very youngest teachers had escaped that direct involvement. The war therefore remained embedded in the classroom as part of lived authority, not abstract history. At the same time, it persisted in public culture and the media — in BBC broadcasting, in television, and even in comedy. Series such as Dad’s Army treated wartime experience as shared cultural memory, while Fawlty Towers could rely on its famous phrase “don’t mention the war” precisely because the subject still sat so close to the surface of everyday life.

The War was still present even in the playful antics of our English secondary school scout summer camp antics.

.When memory becomes history, it gains perspective but loses immediacy. What once felt close becomes something studied, and with that distance comes a risk: that the cost of democratic stability — the fragility behind it — becomes easier to forget.
This is why Republic Day retains such importance in Italy. It is not simply a celebration of constitutional form, but a reminder of how that form was created: through occupation, civil fracture, resistance, reconstruction, and a conscious decision to rebuild public life on principles of justice, equality, and participation.

Saturday felt like the true beginning of summer in Bagni di Lucca.
The town suddenly seemed to come alive, with not one, not two, but three major cultural events taking place on the same day. In the end, we managed to attend two of them, and both proved well worth the effort.
The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the inauguration of the restored Villa Ada. For many local people, this was more than just the opening of a building. It was the culmination of a dream that had taken decades to become reality.
The ceremony itself was a reminder of how differently public events are celebrated in Italy compared with Britain. There was the national anthem, treated with genuine respect and pride. There was the town’s vicar’s blessing.There were speeches from the mayor and other local figures. In Italy, speeches are an essential part of any public occasion. Whether it is the opening of a restored villa, a concert, or a community event, there is always time taken to explain the significance of what is happening.

And then, of course, there was the refreshment.
This was no hurried buffet. Everything had been prepared with care and attention, and guests were able to enjoy food and conversation in the beautiful gardens of Villa Ada. The atmosphere was festive, elegant and, above all, hopeful.

The reopening of Villa Ada represents a remarkable achievement. Until 1975 the villa was still occupied by the aristocratic family who owned it. There was an exhibition of photographs showing how the interiors looked then. After they left, the property passed into the hands of the thermal baths company and subsequently after they relinquished it gradually fell into decline. For years it stood as a reminder of better times, and many wondered whether it would ever be restored.

More than one person commented during the afternoon, “I never thought I would see this happen in my lifetime.”
Now, thanks to funding aimed at regenerating historic buildings and town centres, Villa Ada has been given a new future. It will host exhibitions, community events, cultural activities and local groups. It is exactly the sort of project that Bagni di Lucca needs, and one can only hope that local people and visitors alike will support it.
Unfortunately, we were unable to attend the early evening Writers’ Festival event at Villa Webb. This new series of literary evenings promises to bring authors, discussions and book presentations to the town throughout the summer. As someone interested in creative writing, I was sorry to miss it. It is precisely the kind of initiative that enriches a community and connects readers with the people who create books.
Still, the day was far from over.
At 9 p.m.—a perfectly normal starting time in Italy, though perhaps not too suitable for many British visitors—we attended a screening of a film managed and directed locally exploring the relationship between Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Whipple, whose book A Famous Corner of Tuscany remains one of the most charming accounts of Bagni di Lucca.
The film was beautifully made. It combined dramatic reconstructions, historical research and expert interviews to tell a story that was both personal and moving. It portrayed the deep bond between the two women and the sacrifices they made throughout their lives, while also placing their story firmly within the wider history of Bagni di Lucca.
What particularly impressed me was the way the film highlighted the town itself. It reminded the audience why so many international visitors chose Bagni di Lucca as their home or refuge. For generations, the town has been a meeting place of cultures, ideas and people from across the world. In many ways, that international spirit remains part of its identity today.
By the time the film ended, it felt as though we had experienced a whole festival compressed into a single day: the reopening of a historic villa, the launch of a literary programme and a film celebrating an extraordinary chapter in local history.
Not bad for a Saturday.
Sunday, by contrast, was much quieter. A few jobs around the house, a chance to recover, and time to reflect on everything we had seen.
Now Monday approaches, bringing with it the return of ordinary routines. But if Saturday is any indication of what lies ahead, Bagni di Lucca is set for a lively and memorable summer.
And that is life in Bagni di Lucca, 2026. Watch out for plenty more local events on this page!

One of the oldest and most historic hotels in Bagni di Lucca is finally being brought back to life. After decades of neglect and decline, the Hotel Svizzero — remembered fondly by many visitors and residents — is now undergoing a major restoration that aims to return the building to its former importance in the spa town.

The project, overseen by the young architect Stefano Scarpellini and a team of specialists, will transform the historic complex into a three-star hotel equipped with modern comforts while preserving the character and elegance of the original building. Completion is expected in 2028.

Located on Via Contessa Casalini, opposite the gardens in the centre of Bagni di Lucca, the refurbished Hotel Svizzero will include fifteen guest rooms distributed over three floors, together with three apartments in a smaller adjoining building. The plans also include a semi-covered swimming pool suitable for both summer and winter use, a wellness spa, gymnasium, bar, and two parking areas.

Particular care is being taken to preserve the historic appearance of the building. The furnishings will combine contemporary comfort with a classic atmosphere, and the architectural lines of the old hotel will remain intact. Even the large plane tree beside the perimeter wall — much loved by local residents — is being preserved.

Bagni di Lucca remains, in essence, a traditional spa town, whose identity has always been closely tied to its thermal heritage. In recent years there have been several attempts to revive this vocation through a series of redevelopment projects, including initiatives linked to historic villas such as Villa Ada and the hoped-for restoration of Villa Fiori. Some smaller thermal facilities have also been brought back into use, helping to restore at least part of the town’s bathing culture. However, despite these efforts, the main historic spa complex in the centre — the old “Varraud” baths — remains closed, deteriorating, and sadly out of operation. Many locals feel that until this central establishment is restored, Bagni di Lucca cannot fully reclaim its identity as a true European spa town.

The name “Hotel Svizzero” — literally “Swiss Hotel” — also carries a double significance. On the one hand, this part of Tuscany has often been described as having a landscape reminiscent of Switzerland: wooded valleys, green hills, and in places a character that feels closer to the Jura Mountains than to the stereotypical image of Tuscany alone. While the nearby Apennines and Apuan Alps add height and drama, the overall impression is of a lush, almost Central European scenery. On the other hand, the name reflects a long-standing association with Swiss hotel standards, traditionally considered among the highest in Europe. In this sense, “Hotel Svizzero” captures both the character of its surroundings and an aspiration toward quality, combining landscape and hospitality identity in a single name.

For many years the hotel itself stood in a state of abandonment, a sad contrast to the role it once played in the social life of the town. Older residents still remember staying there or attending events in its rooms during its more elegant days. Among those who later chronicled its decline was a visitor who recalled seeing the hotel’s gates and entrance area repainted in striking colours while the building itself remained in a neglected state, a vivid contrast that symbolised its long period of uncertainty.

The Hotel Svizzero is closely associated with one of its most celebrated guests, the French novelist Alexandre Dumas. Best known for works such as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas visited Bagni di Lucca during his travels in Italy and became part of the hotel’s enduring legend. According to local tradition, he was of such imposing physical stature that the hotel’s entrance had to be enlarged to allow him to pass through — a story that has become part of the building’s folklore, whether literally true or not.

Further literary interest surrounding Dumas has been reinforced by later rediscoveries of his work. In particular, the novel The Last Cavalier, long overlooked, was only rediscovered and published in 2005, renewing attention to his vast literary output. Dumas was one of the most prolific writers of the nineteenth century, as well as a politically engaged figure connected to the Italian Risorgimento and the founding of the newspaper Indipendente. His life was as energetic and dramatic as his fiction, and his cultural legacy extends well beyond literature. One of his sons later wrote La Dame aux Camélias, the inspiration for Verdi’s La Traviata.

A personal connection to Dumas’ literary legacy can be found in the work of Robin Buss, a now sadly deceased friend and translator responsible for bringing The Three Musketeers to modern English readers. The scale of his translation work was so substantial, and the printed proofs so extensive, that he once joked he nearly had to move out of his home, as the pages and galley proofs occupied almost every available surface. It is a small but telling reminder of the physical and intellectual weight behind translating Dumas’ vast body of work

Stefano Scarpellini, who was born in Bagni di Lucca, has described the hotel restoration project as both a professional undertaking and a personal commitment to the future of the town. The redevelopment is expected to create jobs and attract renewed tourism, contributing to the economic and cultural revival of the area.

For many residents who remember the hotel in its heyday, its reopening will mark the return of an important piece of Bagni di Lucca’s history.