In my post on my father at https://longoio3.com/2018/11/02/happy-birthday-papa/ I included the following paragraph:

Serving in the Eighth army under Monty in WWII, and at the battle of El Alamein, my father was then transferred to the Italian peninsula. It was here in the closing days of 1945 that he met my mother who was a nurse in the Tyrol. He was immediately infatuated by her with her amazing looks and her long Veronica Lake-like hair. I remember the sketch Harvey did of the mountain refuge restaurant where they would meet. (My dad was a brilliant amateur artist and, if given more time off from work, could have done a lot more in this art). Many years later Harvey and Vera returned to the place; the owners were still the same and it was truly a touching re-union.

I have since been contacted by a cousin who, quite by chance, mentioned she possessed some drawings which might have included something by my father. My cousin sent me photocopies of the drawings and I instantly recognised my father’s signature in one of them and, indeed, his style of drawing.

Subsequently, my cousin very kindly sent me the original drawing and here it is!

Although it’s not (as I remember the sketch) of the restaurant terrace of the hotel, it remains the ‘Albergo Bella Vista Monte Bullacia, Alpe de Suisi’, in the region of Sud Tirol, Italy. (The nearest big town to the hotel is Cortina d’Ampezzo).

The date next to my father’s signature shows 1945.

This is the albergo Bella Vista today.

I don’t have very much belonging to my dad in my possession (except, of course half of my genes) so this is truly a valuable possession.

Coincidentally, on the day this January that I received the photocopy of the drawings., I was waiting for the train at Bagni di Lucca railway station when I met an artist friend and his friend.

I mentioned to them about the possibility that I might receive the original of my father’s picture and showed them the photocopy. On the train the artist’s friend showed me on his cell-phone a photo of a war-time sketch his father had made. It was almost certainly of mountains in the Südtirol area and was drawn with the same fine-black-pen technique that my father used. (A copy of this other drawing is being sent to me)

I believe in intentional coincidences, if such an oxymoron can exist.

(I could add that my wife’s mum was born in the adjoining region just south of the hotel…)

Our lives are as gigantic jigsaw puzzles made up of myriads of tiny pieces which, in providential cases, fit together. Only find and only connect………

So was this the place

where thoughts of my life began:

amid snow-mountains?