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!

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