That rain was needed here is undebatable. True, those long drawn-out post-summer days swimming in an autumnal Tyrhennian sea were enviable but for every languorous afternoon spent on the beach there was a thought ‘we might have to pay for this’. And we did! For over two weeks now the sun has been a very occasional,very pallid visitor and when it doesn’t pour like a myriad of celestial waterfalls the atmosphere appears still drenched by aqueous droplets.

Every river has its tributaries. Our main one, the Serchio, is fed by that temperamental stream, sometimes a torrent, other times a river, sometimes labelled feminine, other times masculine: il/la Lima. At Bagni di Lucca it certainly makes a howl, a roar even, that can be easily heard where our house is on the slopes of the hill leading to Granaiola.

The Lima has its own tributaries, of course, among which is one near us, the Camaione. Normally a tame torrent, sometimes dangerously dry, the Camaione has metamorphosed from its usually somnolescent self into an angry beck carrying every fallen branch with its amplified flow and sounding out every corner of our valley with its cavernous echo.

Never have I seen such a transformation in a usually purling brook whose waters are normally inhabited by dryads and nymphs instead of by tempestuous monsters.

Nevertheless I lay complete trust in that our house will stand firm especially since the construction of our Albanian’s wall. I also lay my trust that soon the sun will cease being so shy and come out again to dry my ever damp washing!

Today is my Dad’s birthday. He would have been 104 years old but died a few days before Christmas 1990.

I am grateful to my dad for many things but there’s one thing that stands out: he married an Italian woman. Serving in the Eighth army under Monty in WWII, and at the battle of El Alamein, he 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). Later one of my cousins sent me that picture. I had it framed and put on my living room wall:

Many years later Harvey and Vera returned to the place; the owners were still the same and it was truly a touching re-union. My mother, however, had to be ‘captured’ first and Harvey did this by inviting her to London in order for her to improve her English.

My mother, Vera, had been a student at Milan University and she also attended the conservatoire where she shared piano lessons with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. (She told me he appeared to her something of a cold fish. I cannot quite agree with this comment; Michelangeli’s interpretation of the slow movement of Ravel’s G major piano concerto has to be one of the most ravishing things ever heard on earth).

Later, because of the war (which turned her from an indoctrinated young fascist to someone utterly disillusioned with things political and never voted for anything again) Vera turned to medicine and social work.

In London Harvey would suggest places to visit for Vera. Respecting her independence of mind, he didn’t accompany her but would turn up ‘by surprise’ at the venues she decided to see. It was clear to her that these meetings were not just coincidental! It was the love of music that united them and I still have the old 78’s of several pieces including Beethoven’s fifth symphony conducted by Koussevitzky and Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto interpreted by Horowitz. My father had a particular affection for Mozart’s ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusic’. I still have my mum’s 78’s of Chopin’s ballades played by Alfred Cortot, her favourite pianist.

Eventually, a love affair blossomed on both sides, the fruit of which was my mum’s pre-marital pregnancy which resulted in my being born on 8 August 1948. This would have been a scandal in a morally strict Italy, but, fortunately, my mum’s uncle, who was a priest in a Turin parish, managed to arrange a church wedding which took place in April 1948 in Milan.

Interestingly, I have never seen my parents’ wedding pictures and when I discovered a 78 rpm recording dated April 1948 of the music played at their wedding – Elgar’s ‘Salut d’amour’ played excruciatingly badly and Franck’s ‘Panis Angelicus’ sung very well – my father told me that the recording was made much later than the actual wedding which had reputedly taken place in 1947!

Of my father’s history before his Mediterranean marriage I know little. I don’t even have a photograph him before that time. His father, who served at Gallipoli in WWI, was a respected councillor for Lewisham borough in South East London, tipped to become mayor, and lived on the Bellingham estate. Dad trained in insurance and was ‘the man from the Pru’. He eventually became self-employed and formed his own company which still bears his name and which was run by my younger brother until his own death in 2013.

My father’s marriage was not without its ups and downs. I remember one particular incident when we lived in Lewisham Park and I must have been about four years old. My father was weeping on the stairs. ‘She’s left me’, he confessed to me. Of course, my mum returned the same day.

Although Harvey had no higher education he was very well informed and I remember my first knowledge about things like the planets and the animal kingdom from him. He also wrote me little stories illustrated by himself which I treasure.

My father was a very dapperly dressed man as any effective insurance rep should be. He went particularly for Italian fashions and was one of the first Englishmen to wear those pointed shoes known as ‘winkle-pickers’ and also well-cut suits bought in Milan with silvery-grey textures. Even on our holiday jaunts my father would be most elegantly dressed as this photo, taken at a Welsh border castle (Goodrich), shows.

Of course, his brother would make fun of my dad’s shoes saying ‘how on earth’ can you fit your toes in those?’ to which my father would reply ‘they’re actually very comfortable.’ I would imagine they would have been when compared to the clod-hopping toe-capped outdated footwear most Englishmen wore at that time.

My father’s principal asset, however, was to be immensely practical in all things. In several spheres he was, indeed also a pioneer. At a time when a typical English holiday consisted of a week in Bognor Regis my father would drive us across to Italy in his Ford Consul using maps and itineraries, courtesy of the AA.

Not only was he a brilliant driver (he’d driven tanks during the war and enjoyed telling me that if a tank received a direct hit it was the driver who’d have had the least chance of escaping – hence the pistol supplied to tank drivers to shoot themselves in order to avoid a worse death by being burnt alive) but he was a brilliant DIY person. When we moved from our leasehold Edwardian property to a new freehold Taylor-Bros-built house at the top of Westwood Park SE23 my father and his friend, a Mr Whitehead (who sadly died while still helping my dad) built our bunk beds, cupboards shelves, a conservatory and much else.

My mother would not have survived life in the UK without my dad, she would tell us, for Harvey looked after all the tedious administration and bureaucracy of living in a fifties and sixties Britain. (Indeed, I hoped I would never become a grown-up and face all those ghastly things like paying bills, running bank accounts and the rest of the palaver.)

My father’s marriage did not go well with some of his relatives. I heard from at least one that he had been a different, more amiable person before the continental union. Obviously, I have no evidence to support this claim. What is clear, however, is that, as my mother became dependent upon my father for the practicalities of life, like being driven to her places of work (she was a social worker in the ‘lunatic ring’ surrounding London working in such places as St Ebba’s and West Park hospitals) and sorting out her admin – she never obtained a driving license or ever replaced a fuse, for example – so my father became dependent on her. On one occasion, when my mother had gone to visit some relatives in her country of birth and my father was left alone, he confessed to me that ‘when your mother is away I feel very lost’.

I suppose we are all dependent on each other in a marriage but I also feel that we should also be able to be independent of each other in equal measure. After all, we never know when it’s our turn to cross the rainbow bridge…

My father went from this earth in the best possible way: instead of lingering away for years like, sadly, my wife’s babbo he suffered a sudden heart attack while on a short stay in the Whittington hospital, London. My mother spent nineteen years without my dad before she died, fittingly, in the country and town of her birth, Milano. The last words I said to her were that I was glad that she had been my mum and an Italian one at that, and so grateful that she’d unknowingly introduced me to my wife-to-be, Sandra, by gifting me membership to the Italian Institute in Belgrave Square London where Sandra’s dad was secretary-general.

It is something of a deep sadness that we never managed to start our own family although we were certainly willing and able and, indeed, saw all the famous experts of the time, like Dr Steptoe and Dr Winston. On the other hand, we console ourselves with the thought that the world we live in today is going ever more calamitously further in the wrong direction.

My dad could have wedded any English lass (he was ace on the dance floor) but marrying my Italian (subsequently English-naturalised) mum was a stroke of genius on his part for which I shall be eternally grateful.

Happy birthday papà! (that’s how we called him).

Playing Devil’s Advocate I rejoice that, as a remainer myself, the leavers won the referendum by that slight majority just over a year ago. The wonderfully farcical start of the divorce proceedings with that perfect ‘no’ pronounced by the President of the European commission to the UK’s proposals regarding EU citizen rights in the UK was hilariously up to ‘Yes Minister’ standards, paradoxically.

And so it will remain, for that key word, ‘immigration’, – apparently eclipsing anything to do with the people’s daily bread: the tangible economy of the country which, in 2015, was proceeding swimmingly – affects EU citizens who are a minority. For the majority of immigrants to the UK are what the Italians call ‘extra-comunitari’ or ‘non EU’ citizens’.

This immigrant label would be joined in the future by UK citizens, were it not for the fact that I predict, with every certainty that intuition teaches me and, more significantly, rational thought points out to me, that the whole brexshit palaver will have fizzled out by the end of next year in a euro swamp of personal recriminations and apologetic self-immolations.

That’s simply because, at the very most, the ‘softness’ now the ‘reduced’ PM will have to accept in any deal will hardly differ from the present extremely generous terms the EU have given to the UK’s eccentric individuality, except for the fact that she’ll have to pay a multi-billion euro fee for the privilege.

As the humourist George Mikes said: ‘in Britain everything is done the opposite way round.’

Of course, the whole shambles could have been avoided if every remainer had dragged themselves out of their homes to the polling stations on that fateful date, 23rd June 2016.

But if the remainers had won then the nightmarish thorn of the Eurosceptic would have returned again and again to taunt the Conservative party and prick their often malleable skins.

And, again, in an additional forty years’ time another prime minister could well have come to power with the inebriated ineptitude of a robotically programmed artificial thought process, and be forced to carry out the absurdity of holding another referendum on policies so important to the country that they could only be debated and voted upon by experienced people’s representatives, the Members of Parliament themselves.

As Shakespeare – a definite remainer were he to be around today in person (as he shall always be around for anyone who reads his works which will forever remain a paradigm of how to analyse and sort out the complexities of human existence and relationships) judging by how many of his plays are placed within the European Union (exactly half of them, in fact) – had Hamlet say:

Tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard; and ‘t shall go hard

The ‘enginer’ (the one who devises a plan in this case) in this case was Hamlet’s mum’s second husband who delivered letters to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern plotting to have Hamlet done away with. Hamlet spotted the letters in time and, manipulating them in the manner of contemporary suicide bombers, had the two disloyal friends finished off instead.

Yes ‘it shall truly go hard’ with those who have shot themselves in the foot to leave one of the world’s strongest economic and cultural unions.

At least, however, we shall have a seriously funny sequel to that brilliant comedy series written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. The problem, however, is that we shall have to live it with uncomfortable pay packets rather than watch it in the comfort of our armchairs…

(Below a picture of Lucca from its walls – open to the whole world to visit this beautiful city!)

Where can one find a Zoroastrian altar, a herd of alpaca, a Shinto temple, and a smattering of often amusing sculptures? There’s no need to travel to the four corners of the world to find them for they are all here situated near the shores of that lake beloved of Puccini, Massaciuccoli.

Born from the renovation of a rural building, at the behest of the Pomara Scibetta Foundation, the Podere Lovolio is placed on the flat, fenland-like expanse leading to the shores of the Tyrhennian Sea.

In this pleasant environment the podere hosts holistic retreats and training courses. It also hosts luscious fruit trees, vegetable gardens and olive grove, producing a delicious organic oil.

How did this mixture of pragmatism and esotericism arise?  Its founder Doctor Scibetta, now approaching eighty, says ‘the farm was born from a deep desire of mine, that of producing an excellent olive oil with production methods that were simpler and more ecological than those normally used. Once the farmhouse was renovated, the olive trees planted, the animals introduced I wanted to do something to enhance and develop the local sensitivity and artistic vocation of the area. I, therefore, financed the creation of a series of works by local artists. I not only wanted works of art to “tell” stories and show paths, but also to suggest questions that everyone can try to answer. In short, the aim of art is to lead everyone to question themselves about living beings, about the world around us, about the beauty of creation and its contradictions. For me Art is the best imprint that every man can leave behind: it summarizes the beauty of the world”.

Fine and highly valid thoughts indeed! Agriculture here has been transformed from a material to a spiritual experience through the vision of this rather special doctor.

We wandered down the avenue of the seasons with its metaphorical statues.  

We stepped down a path displaying a coloured puzzle reformed into different nature shapes.

Crossing a luscious olive grove we found ourselves by the side of a peaceful lakelet with a Japanese shinto-buddhist temple on an island in its centre.

As the building floated on placid waters I was reminded that we too are surely directed to float on the timelines of our lives and regain the peace and harmony which is our true destiny. In this world where ignorance and fear breed ever more differences and combative oppositions it is absolutely essential to keep this ideal in one’s mind. Thank you doctor Scibetta for reminding us of these simple but too quickly forgotten truths.

Incidentally we had the whole of this arcane plot to ourselves. Not even the farm shop was open. The place, apart from a Senegalese who was strimming the orchards, seemed deserted, although very well-kept. The animals were contented and a lovely peace permeated the podere. Let’s return there in the spring…

There are certain areas of the world intimately associated with music that I admire and love. Often this music is linked with humbler, even notorious, districts: ports with their bars and brothels, especially. I shall always treasure the time I spent in one of these places in the Piraeus, Athens’ port where spicily plangent Rebaki music was sung brilliantly by a languorous lady. The same emotionally-tinged strains infuse Portuguese Fado and one of the principal reasons for visiting Lisbon must be to hear it sung by the successors of the great Amalia Rodriguez. Blues, of course, especially Delta blues has underpinned rock bands ever since the likes of Robert Johnson were discovered by post-war pop artistes. Italy has its own brand of music comforting those stricken with the vagaries of passion especially Neapolitan song. It must be tunes from this country that influenced my favourite among the scenario of music reaching out to those who have impossible longings and aching hearts: Argentinian Tango, again a product of those seedy, down-trodden districts surrounding ports, sailors and their women.

As with other forms there have been many schools of Tango there’s even a Finnish one for instance. But so long as they derive from the Rio Del Plata region and so long as they descend from the classic Spanish habanera that found its way into Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ they are recognizably ‘tangoish’.

The marvellous concert given by a combination of accordion and guitar in Borgo a Mozzano’s public library last week was beautifully illustrated by the accordion player Massimo Signorini,who gave us an account of what tango is all about. Principally it is a song form, most famously sung by that victim of a thirties air crash, Carlos Gardel. Giacomo Brunini, who organises these concerts was the guitarist. Tango is both a joy and a lament – the frequent major-minor key changes see to that. It is both a sensual and a spiritual kind of music. To play, dance and sing it to the highest expressions requires an absolute sense of rhythm, impeccable virtuosity but above all a total feeling for the music. I thought, in fact , that the word ‘tango’ came from ‘touch’ (like Christ’s words ‘noli me tangere’ = don’t touch me) It does but it also derives from a Yoruba word for a festive gathering thus underlining the African influences through transported slaves into the new world.

In our concert the accordion took the place of the bandoneon – an instrument traditionally associated with the tango but actually invented by a German choral composer in the nineteenth century for the purposes of conducting Bach! ‘Comparing it with the bandoneon is like comparing an orange to a lemon’ expressed our instrumentalist who displayed a flexibility of expression I have rarely heard on that instrument. Both artistes were indeed superlative (although I could have wished a better balance between the instruments – the accordion is rather louder than the guitar…).

All facets of tango were played in our somewhat intimate concert. From the milonga variant, through classic Tango to the new tango of Piazzolla and his acolytes, Piazzolla whose family originated from this  part of the world; Massa di Sassorosso in the Garfagnana to be exact where there is even a Piazzolla Tango trail.

If the quality of these concerts organized by master guitarist Giacomo Brunini is anything to go by I shall make the best efforts not to miss any of the succeeding ones.    

This was the concert’s programme:

Carlos Gardel; Soledad

Pedro Laurenz: Como dos extranos

Juan Carlos Cobian; Nostalgias

Astor Piazzolla: Triunfal, per chitarra sola

Hector Stamponi: : Flor de lino

Anibal Troilo: : Sur

Eladia Blàzquez: : El corazon al sur

Richard Galliano: Tango pour Claude, per fisarmonica sola

Pedro Laurenz: Milonga de mis amores, per fisarmonica sola

Cacho Castaña: Café La Humedad

Astor Piazzolla: Café 1930, Libertango

Excerpts from the concert may be heard at:

These are the next concerts in the series Giacomo Brunini has organised as part of ‘I luoghi del bello e della cultura’.

         

Incidentally I’ve found I’ve written various things regarding the tango. They can be looked up here:

Tantalizing Tango | From London to Longoio (and Lucca and beyond) Part One (wordpress.com)

Tango! Where Astor Piazzolla Originated From | From London to Longoio (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Two (wordpress.com)

Intangible Tango? | From London to Longoio (and Lucca and beyond) Part One (wordpress.com)

Don’t cry for me Sassorosso | From London to Longoio (and Lucca and beyond) Part One (wordpress.com)

It Takes a Mass to Tango | From London to Longoio (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Two (wordpress.com)

Piazzolla a Piccadilly | From London to La Costa (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Three (wordpress.com)

An Orangery Full of Music at the Palazzo Bove | From London to La Costa (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Three (wordpress.com)

Piegaio’s zucca (pumpkin) festa was back again for its sixteenth annual appearance last weekend.

As ever there was much to please children of all ages from 1 to 100: with handicraft stalls:

animals including a regal one-banded buzzard or Howard Hawk:

and much else including, of course, some of the most fantastically shaped gourds:

That ghastly interim, otherwise known as the pandemic, seems so far away now although sadly we have all lost loved ones while it raged and apparently still does for we have received memos for further injections before the winter falls upon us and reminds me that only last February I finally caught the dreaded plague.

Incidentally ‘zucca’ not only means a gourd or pumpkin in Italian but a head, especially a bald one. Indeed one of Donatello’s most famous statues is called ‘Il zuccone’ or large bald head. It represents the prophet Habakkuk and was commissioned for the campanile of Florence cathedral in 1425. You can see why it was this nicknamed here::

https://images.app.goo.gl/pWyoz2v3io3k38pRA