My grandfather Osiride (In English – or in ancient Egyptian – ‘Osiris’) Brunelli was born in Casalborgone (Turin) on April 8, 1890 under the sign of Aries. Frankness and generosity largely compensated for the impulsiveness that made him easy to anger. That wrath soon subsided; it was a rage made of words, without rancour and without any remembrance. His father, Cavaliere Antonio, a gentle and good Lombard, from Cremona, belonged to the Royal Carabinieri, where he became an officer for merits acquired in Sardinia against banditry, reaching the rank of captain and, as a civilian, attaining a serene old age. His mother, Fiorenza Bocchino (with whose daughter I stayed during my first visit to Florence in 1963), was a strong and ardent Piedmontese and, although she was much younger than her husband, did not survive him for long. The surviving children were seven: three boys, Alcide, Osiride, Amilcare (Hamilcar); and four girls, Renata, Dionira, Edilia, and Enrica. (These unusual non-Christian names were an anti-clericals protest common at that time against the enslaving Roman Catholicism then prevalent throughout the nation).

Osiride began his studies in La Spezia, but could not remain beyond the middle school of the time. A lover of reading, he continued to be self-taught and remained an avid reader

throughout his life. I remember how taken he was when Lampedusa’s ‘Il Gattopardo’ (The Leopard) was first published. Aged fourteen my grandad was already at work in the “Carlo Erba” pharmaceutical firm in Milan, where, after sixty years of various activities for that company, he was awarded a gold medal. Osiride combined sport with work, becoming part of the “Strength and Courage” association practicing athletics above all, but obtaining particular recognition, even at an international level, in the 100-kilometre march. Remembered in the annals of the ‘Gazzetta dello Sport’, he also took part in the budding football world and was a founding member of the Internazionale Club (then renamed ‘Ambrosiana’ and finally ‘Inter’). I recall him telling me vividly about the match the team of which he was trainer, ‘Inter’, played against Bayern Munich in 1911. ( Wow, a founder member of ‘Inter’! That really sends me!!!)

Osiride was in Libya for the 1911 war, but fought for the first time, as an infantry officer, on the Carso (Karst), the eastern front, in the First World War during 1915-1918. Although he was an anarchist and idealist libertarian and, therefore, hostile to war, Osiride felt it was his duty to take part in regaining those Italian territories lost to the uncompromising Austro-Hungarian empire and thereby complete Italy’s re-unification started in 1861.

Osiride was also hostile to Mussolini’s dictatorship (a resistance that the murder of Matteotti accentuated but which would be extinguished in the context of his employment with the “Carlo Erba” firm and the imposition of having to accept the Fascist Party card or being fired). He was also persuaded by the Fascist Revolution Exhibition (‘Mostra Della Rivoluzione Fascista’). This was an exhibition held in Rome at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni from 1932 to 1934 which had four million visitors and was a work of Fascist propaganda to influence and involve the audience emotionally if there ever was one. (Will the planned ‘Brexit’ exhibition ever achieve the same result, I wonder?)

Osiride enlisted in the Great War, taking the place of a family’s father, and experienced long seasons of trench warfare, enfolded by mud and disease, in the grip of unceasing artillery and bitter winters. (I still have my youthful tape recordings – now digitalised) – of these experiences as recounted by my grandfather).

In Santa Lucia di Tolmino, suffering from frostbite in both legs, Osiride survived by dragging himself on his elbows to the first friendly front under the constant fire of enemy batteries. He also suffered the permanent loss of his left eardrum and, in the post-war period, among other things, endured imprisonment in the POW camps of Bohemia (including the infamous Spielberg where, in a previous era, the revolutionary writer Silvio Pellico was also imprisoned), where hunger exterminated almost all the prisoners in his camp and Spanish fever decimated those survivors already returning home but where, at least, he learnt German).

My grandfather experienced, when peacetime had arrived, the forced idleness of tuberculosis, leaving behind for a sanatorium, initially for a year, and then for another six months, his children and his wife Rita, Margherita, Ferrero, born in Alba on 6 February 1896 and whom he married in Turin on September 20, 1920.

This was a marriage from which three children were born, (Vera, my mum – died 2009, Giuseppe my poet uncle – died 2016 and Brunella, my aunt – died 1990), During this marriage Osiride renounced his anarchist tendencies which had endorsed his participation in Italy’s general strike of 1919 and, alongside his strong, sweet and pious companion, came to reconcile himself with faith in God. (How many revolutionaries abandon their former activities to espouse a spiritual life? I think particularly of Sri Aurobindo from my Cambridge college of King’s, whose ashram at Pondicherry we visited in 2017)

Together, Osiride and Rita celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their wedding in 1979. Together they finally become part of the largest family of the lay Franciscan third order, while, the honorary title of colonel was bestowed on Osiride for his seniority combined with his war gallantry (among other things, two silver and one bronze medal).

My grandfather outlived his unforgettable partner, my grandma, by ten years, physically afflicted by the ailments of his age, sometimes even more distressing than his semi-deafness and semi-blindness. He died in his ninetieth year, on February 29, 1980, with the comforts of faith and an existence consummated entirely in work and dedication to family and society – a father, grandfather and great-grandfather, even if the natural company which accompanies old age and sickness was often that of loneliness – a loneliness that prepares us for detachment from this world and for that new birth by becoming children of God in His Father’s house.

Let us consider the difficult times we are living in – yet another pandemic, like that of the Spanish flu, and a world tormented by wars on all five continents. Let us look back on our precursors in our families and consider their heroic examples from which we always have so much to learn, especially now!

(My Grandad and I some time ago at l’Aprica, a summer resort in the Lombardy Alps.)

As Caesar famously divided Gaul into three parts so our experiences of a person or a place could similarly be portioned. Under ‘normal’ situations one may start liking or even loving a person. This is too often eventually followed by loathing them. If the two persons manage to stay together then both can enter the third stage which is to live with each other or at least have a lasting friendship. It’s worth staying on for this third stage for it is usually the most satisfying part. Succinctly put there’s a dream, followed by a scream and ending with the cream.

Living in Italy is, not unusually, like that. The dream for the lucky ones remains a dream. It may be ignited by a saccharine travel book where children play in village squares untainted by a city’s lurking paedophiles, untouched by inner-urban school bullying and enjoying family meals all together at the same time. The dream may be garnered by the snapshots of a lovely fortnight’s holiday, whether packaged or not, and very often as an idyllic honeymoon arranged as part of a wedding in the ‘bel paese’.

However, if one begins to live in Italy and before one obtains enough maturity to reach and taste the cream of one’s experiences there’s the scream bit to go through. Our gorgeous valley is no exception. There are families whose parents, now enduring their fifth decade, moved here in the belief that a lovely spacious stone villa on the outskirts of a picturesque (from a distance at least…) mountain village surrounded by luscious nature in all its foliate glory and populated by more cats, deer, sheep, pine martens, boars (or should that read bores) wolves and eagles than humans and everything enveloped in fresh unpolluted invigorating air would be a far superior alternative to living in a cramped flat in Hendon encircled by traffic fumes and endless drizzle – especially with that growing family.

The scream bit eventually approaches with the children entering their teens and now firmly rooted in Italian ways and, particularly, the Italian language (which the parents still find some difficulty with) ensconced with their school friends, promises of higher education and apparently auspicious job prospects. By this time the scream will have reached the inmost heart of the parents who may begin to lead separate lives and eventually engage in divorce proceedings. At this stage the scream become almost primal and the parents will undoubtedly each ask themselves ‘what the bloody hell am I doing in this place obfuscated by intractable corruption, enervating bureaucracy and with inhabitants who are not at all like us?’ Their children, however, will rarely give up the ‘Italian way of life’ like arranging pizza lunch with their mates, and joining up for a summer day at the seaside or a winter one on the ski slopes, both of which areas of recreational bliss are less than two hours away from where we live. For these children the thought of living in the dark depths of Dalston, indulging in gang warfare in dullest Dartford or wandering along the sombre seafront of Bognor Regis would seem straight out of a horror story; indeed, something almost as grim as the thought that their parents might have even voted for Brexit!

The cream will come if the innocent, or misguided, Britishers last out in Italy. The exes will opportunely find their romance, whether it be a passionately fun-loving dark-eyed Italian beauty who really knows how to make love or a handsome yacht-owning Romeo who is of ditto performance and, moreover, has an unending wad of banknotes in his wallet.

Did I go through any of these stages? Yes in a way I did but it’s a little bit more complicated than that since I was the offspring in the UK of an English dad and an Italian mum. From a young age Italy was there but it wasn’t so much a promised land of sunshine holidays by a beach or excursions to historic and artistic centres both ending with an aperitivo ’al fresco’ but rather as a destination where one met the Italian relatives. There we often were huddled in a corner of the living/dining room with the television blaring out almost in embarrassment at the usually inevitable family arguments and quarrels. These invariably make their histrionic appearance among the peninsula’s families and are nicely depicted in that film which should be compulsory viewing for all those who are still enshrined in the ‘dream’ stage of living in Italy: Fellini’s ‘Amarcord’.

I think I have been lucky in being finally able to lick my delicious saucer of cream like any pampered feline. Having a London-born wife of Italian heritage has helped enormously and so I didn’t have to suffer the weirdness of changing one country for another. In the UK I can feel more Italian than British and in Italy I can feel more English than Italian. It’s not just my bilingualism, not as sensationally good as my wife’s but still very acceptable to the point where Italians from Milan notice I speak their lyrical language with a pronounced Tuscan accent. More than the language, however, it’s the biculturalism, the way of being able to think and live in both languages simultaneously. As a famous philosopher stated ‘to know one language is to know no language at all. To know at least two is to begin to understand what language is all about’. Remember the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis which suggests that the structure of a language affects its speakers’ world view and thus that people’s perceptions are relative to their spoken language; a situation where different cultures divide the rainbow into different colour spectra?

Now are you ravenously dreaming about Italy, screaming rabidly about it or joyously creaming it?

I would like to know at which stage you are.

At the moment I’m at this stage at our humble home. But then it’s springtime!

This Sunday it’s Italy’s liberation day. Liberation from five years of bloody war merging into even bloodier civil war and oppression by Nazi-Fascist terrorists, liberation from almost a quarter century of totalitarian government, liberation to regain the freedom to write a new Italian constitution for the emerging republic based on work and democracy.

It does not matter whether all that was promised by liberation has not been achieved but it is that hope which springs eternal which is the most important thing, especially now when the world is changed into a situation where a date B.C. now increasingly seems to stands for ‘Before Covid’…

One might well ask why Italy, which had fought so courageously on the side of the Allies in World War One decided to change sides in the second world conflict. I am no historian but I think I can figure out why. First was the introduction of a fascist dictatorship under Mussolini in 1922, a regime which was much admired by a later dictator, Mr Schickelgruber alias Hitler, when he came to power in 1933. Second was the disappointment of Italy at the 1919 Versailles peace treaty which did not give her the promised Dalmatian coastline and denied her mandates over colonial territories. Third were the League of Nations sanctions imposed upon Italy as a result of the Abyssinian war when Mussolini proclaimed Italy’s new empire (that is, of course, since the Roman Empire which the ex-socialist from Predappio was eager to emphasise). Fourth was the amazing success of the first two years of Adolf’s Blitzkrieg which conned Mussolini’s fledging empire in believing that he was joining the winning side.

Much has been written about the failures of Italy’s part in World War Two, ultimately dragging German advance down, especially as far as the Balkans was concerned. However, there were heroic lunacies too like the last cavalry assault in modern warfare at Isbuscenskij by the Savoy regiment as worthy as anything Tennyson wrote about in those immortal lines beginning “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, all in the valley of Death…”

Most important in the downfall of that Dark Age was the resistance movement which is remembered throughout Italy, especially in our parts where partisans fought with British secret agents to break down the intransigent remains of Mussolini’s Salò repubblichini.

My Italian-born mum, who was a Red Cross nurse during this period of her life, remarked to me ‘you think war is bad? Civil war is a thousand times worst!’ With brother fighting against brother, with terrorist activities on both sides, with hunger, starvation, and a complete breakdown of any organised form of civil law and order these dreadful days are remembered today, not only by the survivors of those who took part in this national tragedy of cosmic self-harm but by their sons and daughters and their sons and daughters too. The second half of 1944 was perhaps the most unendurable part of the war for Italy. I have mentioned the horrific massacres of innocent civilians at places like Sant’Anna di Stazzema and Fucecchio in previous posts and do not wish to go through the repulsions of them now except to say that nothing seems to have been learnt by our animal species: just look at what is going on in countries like Myanmar, Chad, Yemen and Syria today. They are all reincarnations of those cataclysmic last months of World War Two that Italy had to suffer. And to think that a civil war has been going on in Syria for over ten years instead of ten months!!!

The other day I took a walk through the cemetery at Ponte a Serraglio, mainly to pay homage to a dear former neighbour Emilia whose funeral I have described in a previous post. Even in a relatively modest cemetery like the one here there are some very beautiful and moving gravestones and some interesting insights into how people looked like and what they wore in a previous generation. (I love that quote from Dante!)

The most moving monument, however, is the one at the cemetery’s entrance commemorating the murder of eight men from Bagni di Lucca at the hands of Nazi-fascist assassins in that awful month of July 1944 when crimes against humanity here reached an atrocious climax.

Looking at the monument and reading their names I was again reminded of why Liberation Day is such an important event in Italy’s national calendar and is solemnly commemorated especially in these times when an invasion from an invisible enemy is threatening this country, as indeed it is threatening the whole world, without any seeming respite… particularly in India where I can’t help thinking of the lovely times we have spent in that fabulous country and of the very kind people we have met and friends we have made there.

I truly believe that what keeps us going in these hard times is nature, its cyclic progression through the seasons and, especially, its unfolding into spring. I have my little orto (allotment) to comfort me but even if one hasn’t a daily walk through a park can refresh the spirit enormously.

Anyway, those dappled apple blossoms in this patch of nature always instill so much happiness in my being.

Blossoming in light

disclosing hidden colours

nature kisses us.

Yesterday I took my first train journey in Italy for some time since I had an interview to attend at Lucca’s Questura to apply for my biometric ID card which is now necessary for all UK residents in Italy thanks to the glorious triumph of brexitism.

The journey went very smoothly through the delightful scenery of the media valle. I did notice some points, however, which marked the unhappy fact that this country is still in the middle of the worst pandemic since the Black Death.

First, the men’s toilets at Lucca station had been depleted of their urinals since they were considered too closely socially distanced.

Instead, recourse was had to the customary hole in the floor.

However, it was still possible to have a more sociable handwash.

Second, was a panoply of platform socially distancing spacing markers.

Ticket-stamping machines were also hygenically endorsed:

Third, were the various notices in the railway carriages denoting that some seats were not to be sat upon.

One could only enter or exit the carriages through separate doors:

Happily I was successful in the protocol formalities of obtaining my card and everything went very smoothly without any crowds from desperate asylum seekers (of which us UK citizens are often now deemed to be included – how any British visitors or even resident to Italy could have ever thought it would be in their interests to have voted to leave the world’s largest trading unit I shall never begin to understand – Britain is sadly now not just ‘una terza nazione’ but indeed a ‘third-world one’.)

Anyway, there was not too much to delay me from the delights of Lucca. I love this city but want to revisit it again when its treasures (and bars) are fully open to me although I enjoyed a walk by the walls of this delicious place.

Back at home I relished an afternoon snack consisting of my two indicators to an artificial paradise. First was the toasted Marmite slice. I’d made the bread using ciabatta flour and very fine it turned out to be. With the marmite on it the whole thing was heaven.

Of course, Marmite is a marmite taste to be sure. Am I to divide the world into those who would venture through crocodile-infested swamps to savour a slice of this yeast extract  and those who think marmite eaters are just plain potty … or jarry to be more exact? Not really. I would rather divide my primal concept of the universe into those who love cats and those who don’t, especially my ones.

The Marmite slice was followed by fig as well as chestnut jam afters:

Of course, no snack is complete without a suitable tipple. My solution of this equation is the following:

plus this:

equalling this:

Basking in the evening sunset of another lovely April day, having cut the grass (Italy appears to be one of those few countries where, approaching May, one has apparently to cut the lawn twice a day so quickly does it grow) I took a look at our modest family of spring flowers, in particular noting the first irises, the blossom whose symbol is that of the grand duchy of Tuscany itself. Welcome our spring!

The current lockdown is doubling UFO sightings in our part of the Lucchesia. There is, indeed, a veritable boom in reports.

The National UFO Centre in 2020 collected 57 percent more UFO sightings than in 2019 and there is no let-down in the reports of alien spacecraft in 2021. Indeed the projections show that this may become a record year for UFO sightings. Lucca is in first place for this phenomenon in Tuscany and Florence is in second position.

Maybe the Martians, disturbed by probes from Earth to their planet, are fighting back with the assistance of their interstellar allies. In 2020, the year of the pandemic, there was a very substantial increase in reports of unidentified flying objects. This is what the CUN, the National UFO Centre, underlines. 380 reports have been received so far with an increase of 57 percent compared to 241 in 2020.

Has our the forced confinement prompted more people to look at the sky from their window at home? Perhaps. What is certain is that in Lucca the number of reports places our province among the highest areas in Italy with UFO sightings.

Beyond those reports almost certainly attributable to the passage of satellites of the Starlink constellation, many sightings of unidentified flying objects refer to night lights at high and low altitudes. In many cases, after the appropriate checks, it was possible to detect that they were planets or stars, in others still reflections. There is no shortage of reports of UFOs which are actually lights from discos or airplanes or, again, drones or particularly bright meteors.

According to the CUN, over 50 percent of the reports are attributable to natural phenomena that the viewer has not been able to recognize; 20 per cent certainly to reflections or photographic errors, while the remaining 30 are largely unidentified night lights and smaller percentage, daytime objects or spheres.

In Lucca, the first report comes from Barga, on the morning of Sunday 9 February 2021. From the elements collected, it was identified as a reflection. The second sighting comes from Viareggio: on the evening of 8 March a starlink satellite was detected and reported. On the same evening, a report came from Santa Maria del Giudice, and also in this case was classified as a sighting of a starlink satellite. This April, an apparently unknown object appeared above Seravezza. A sighting from Viareggio may have been a helicopter. The latest report is from last Wednesday. This time it comes from Bagni di Lucca, where a light appeared in the night, which CUN classifies as “anomalous nocturnal light”. Anyone who wants to think about any Martian invasion may still hold hopes.

The other day I received the following report from trustworthy and long-standing friends who live in an area just to the north of where we are.

Hi Francis, with reference to one of your older posts; UFOs return to Garfagnana..

Well an interesting phenomena was witnessed this evening in the night sky, I was on our balcony bringing in the bedding at about 21.15 and saw a long red light, yes cigar shaped with a much smaller white light beneath it hovering over the hills, south direction, it then descended below the treeline until it was no longer visible. My husband also saw it. I would like to mention no alcohol had been consumed at this time. There is a probably a completely rational explanation for it but it was definitely not an airplane although we are on a flight path here and frequently at night hear and see the red flashing lights moving haphazardly across the sky. This red light was much bigger and almost static.
If we are not all abducted by aliens that includes the cats we hope to see you soon.
I do believe living at this altitude, covid isolation, and lack of British tv is having a profound effect on our wellbeing.
Signed

Because of the current uncertain situation I have devised a survival pack in the possibility of an abduction by alien beings.

1. Mobile phone (although its range may clearly be limited).
2. A supply of Kit Kat bars as alien food may be unpalatable
3. Leave sufficient food for your pets. You never know how long you will be away (if you ever come back).
4. Paracetamol or similar medication against the effects of space travel sickness.
5. Weighted shoes to counteract anti gravity in the alien craft.
6. Water purification tablets.
7. Sun cream.
8. A fedora or similar hat to protect against cosmic radiation.
9. Polaroid sun glasses.
10. A mascot.

These items should always be kept ready at hand, (mine are underneath my bed).

PS Foreign phrase books should not be necessary because of different modes of telepathic communication among a variety of inter galactic beings.

Finally, be positive about your alien abduction experience if it happens to you. Not many have been privileged to go very far in these locked-down days when just hazarding a journey to the local supermarket is a momentous experience…

The parish church of the nearby village of San Gemignano, although restored, has been closed since the tornado which devastated our part of the world in March 2015.

To one side of the church is another building also no longer in use. It’s the old Vicarage for many years left to the elements but which is still used as a store for wine bottles and agricultural equipment. This mansion has a fine staircase and its rooms with original beams are ample although becoming ever more dilapidated.

The plaque above the entrance door memorialises the tenure of a much loved previous vicar the Rev Adami who was also a local historian.

The vicarage extends along to a separate house, still part of the original structure, which is for sale. In an excellent position, this house gives views on both sides of our valley and has a large garden with a charming well. Unfortunately, it was renovated in a typical 1970-s style which means that all the original beams have been removed and replaced with flat steel-reinforced ceilings and that, especially in the kitchen and bathrooms, there is the most ghastly tiling. No traditional terracotta paving survives on the floors either but rather those horrible garishly polished tiles.

When I descended into the cellar, however, I did find this fine old arch.

The shut-up church itself has four beautifully carved baroque side altars, each with elegant 17th-century canvases of saints, a lovely pulpit restored about ten years ago and a fine organ also recently restored.

It is so sad that this picturesque ensemble of buildings has suffered its lock-down years before we unfortunate humans are experiencing ours. Let us, therefore, hope that these buildings, as well as us humans, will be able to look forwards to a sunnier, more varied, future.