As an indication of how multicultural London has become I hear more English being spoken in our Apennine outpost of Bagni di Lucca than in the great Wen. As I come out of our local (mini) supermarket English is being spoken loud and clear. Round the villa’s cafes chatting sounds resound with the Anglo-Saxon tongue.  Sometimes the Home Counties accent is tempered with northern twangs especially Scottish, often acquired by local emigration to Glasgow. Then there are other intonations, barely decipherable to denizens of southern counties.

There has been, undoubtedly,  considerable migration of Londoners to the metropolis’ outer suburbs and beyond. Indeed, in much of London to be white and native-born is to be in the minority. During my recent visit there I visited cousins living in such outlying places as Reigate and Sittingbourne where the fabric of London population I remember from my school-days still survives. Some of my friends have escaped even further afield. The west and border counties seem to be particularly popular in this respect with Devon and Dorset, Hereford and Hampshire being especially favoured.

Some people have taken emigration route and landed up in Italy and Spain. Of these a portion are permanent residents of those countries who have sensibly decided to remain within the EU. They may pursue careers or, as in many cases, have retired there.

Regarding retirement a big question enters into the minds of those senior citizens. Are they going to be buried (or at least remembered) in their new lands or in the country of their forefathers? One English-born owner of a mill situated by the side of a turbulent stream which had washed away his means of access, a footbridge, at least six times (after each incursion of the waters it had been patiently rebuilt) was concerned that he might not die in his native land. This thought so possessed him that he eventually sold the idyllic mill to live in a retirement bungalow near Worthing.

Young families may regard Italy as the perfect place to bring up their young. With its traditional socializing patterns, Mediterranean climate, mythic catering, schools with educational patterns considered outmoded in England and strong cultural emphases Italy seems an ideal family-centred environment. Some families transplant with success. Others, however, decamp after a year or two to well-tested areas of the United Kingdom. The main reasons put forwards are that their kids did not get on well in Italian schools, that they could not cope with the bureaucracy, that  their language skills remained insufficient, or that their aged parents at home required company and care.  If these families are lucky enough to have a pleasant place to go to in the UK, like the West Country, then there is every reason to return. If, however, they hail from some of London’s less salacious hinterlands (some even include Dartford among these) then there is every excuse to remain in Italy and prevent their children (as they believe) from growing up to form a part of some pugnacious and drug-ridden gang.

It would be interesting to see how many British emigres to our Italian part of the world return to die in the British Isles. Of course, expiry in Britain may be accidental, perhaps during a trip to visit relatives for example. How many, on the other hand, are quite happy to die in their new-found paradise-land. A sculptress whose fine work included making statuettes for a well-known tMidlands pottery (an interesting location since Bagni di Lucca is famous for its own world-renowned statuettes) had her wish to become part of her beautiful Italian garden fulfilled and thus followed the path of another countryman, the composer Sir William Walton who found a place in his garden on the island of Ischia.

As for me, my wish where to be buried is the following. If fate commands me to die in Italy then I shall be cremated, courtesy of the Livorno branch and my ashes placed in a casket to be spread over the municipal grave we purchased for each other years ago in the borough of Plumstead, London. And if my decease takes place in the UK all the more convenient for my executors. (For more on Plumstead Cemetery see My Final Home | From London to La Costa (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Three (wordpress.com)

In both cases the order of service shall be the following:

Address.

Music:

Delius Walk to the Paradise Garden.

Poem: Donne Holy sonnet X

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and souls deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die