Ours is a throw-away age. The time for built-in obsolescence seems ever quickening , whether it be objects or people. Certainly if one thing this pandemic has taught us it is to treasure human relationships, or at least the memory of them, for so many of us have already disappeared.

It is easier to discard objects than people and for some time I was wondering what to do with a humble small saucepan which had one of its handles sheared off. This saucepan had been quite useful for making my spaghetti ragù sauce and it seemed a pity to take it to the ‘collezione indifferenziata’ of our local ‘isola ecologica’ (refuse centre).

The rushing streams, the presence of metal ores in the mountains and the continued tradition of smithies in several parts (although sadly much depleted nowadays) means that I could find without too much difficulty a ‘fabbro’ (smith) that was able to re-join the orphaned handle to its saucepan. Indeed, several villages in our parts have the prefix ‘Fabbriche’ meaning that they are centres of smithies.

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I remembered Stefano Palmieri who has his workshop at Via Campiglia 21, behind the Bagni di Lucca Villa post office.

I turned up yesterday morning and entered Stefano’s workshop where I was greeted by a lovely ginger cat. (In Italian these cats are called ‘arancione’, orange..).

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I asked Mr Palmieri if he could do the job and when I should return. He said he could do it on the spot and, pulling out his equipment, let fly a mini-fireworks display of sparks. Soon the handle was refitted and the little saucepan was brought back to its original state. I asked him how much it cost. ‘Don’t mention it’, he answered. (I should add that I had a few jobs done by him before at a very reasonable rate).

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I somehow recalled a traditional Welsh folk song called ‘Sosban Fach’ (little saucepan). Here it is sung by Will Huw:

Fortunately the fabbro’s cat didn’t scratch me like in the song!

There is a web site for Palmieri at https://www.coobiz.it/azienda/bagni-di-lucca-officina-fabbro/co7683417

His phone number is 0583 86124 – it’s important to phone up to make an appointment especially in these pandemic times.

Did the sosban fach come in useful? Sure it did! It boiled an egg

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which, combined, with my kitchen garden lettuce

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tomatoes, mozzarella cheese

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and all wrapped up in that delicious Neapolitan unleavened bread called ‘Saltimbocca’ which is the nearest thing one can get locally to the Italian equivalent of Arabian pitta bread

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produced an excellent sandwich lunch

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washed down, naturally, with a glass of my favourite Polish beer (yes, sometimes even the excellent Italian wines have to give way!).