With all the current commotion regarding racism and statues I thought I might say something about my experiences with the phenomenon. At first sight I might not be considered to be a candidate for racist attacks as a white, British born and bred person. However, I am the outcome of an immediately post-war marriage between an Anglican Protestant English father and an Italian Roman Catholic mother.
Their union in the still very narrow-minded milieu of both countries at the time was a challenging one especially as it was also a shot-gun marriage. My mother had to put up with a lot of flack from some of my father’s relatives and having a very strong-willed character did not help either. She did however, make several friends. First and foremost they were among similarly exiled Italians, one of whom I remember very well and which is featured with his partner in this photograph taken in Knole palace’s great park.
Knole is such a lovely place that we have never wanted to stray from it for very long. Indeed, it’s also inspired the following from me.
THE DEER PARK
Beyond the oak leaves a palace
is hidden. By a curve
suddenly we see its brick face:
milord’s and deer’s preserve.
Like a compact town it throws spires,
gables, columns and courts.
From its chapel sing silent quires:
religion’s decayed thoughts.
Within, the tapestries are thread
with classical lovers
and casements lead to gardens spread
with spring songs of plovers.
And as we walk around the wall
the hollow tree still stands
where, hidden in its ancient thrall,
I imagined strange lands.
You and I now have this demesne,
the house is ours to keep,
and through it we shall yet regain
lost kingdom’s broken sleep.
(A Deer Chatting up Sandra at Knole)
Other friends included those of Roman Catholic persuasion especially priests and abbots; particularly devoted to Aylesford Priory my mother was present at its re-foundation.
Eventually Vera found an exhausting but very rewarding job as a social worker among mentally troubled Italian immigrants – a job which eventually led to her becoming more involved in mental illness therapy as a Freudian psychoanalyst.
It must be remembered that at the time Italians were still caricatured as mandolin players and spaghetti eaters. (This was before the average Brit was introduced to the delights of continental cooking by that pioneer cookery writer Elizabeth David). Italians were the butt of various jokes of this sort: ‘How many gears does an Italian tank have? One forward and four reverse’ – a cruelly inapt joke seeing that even the Germans recognized the heroic aspect of many Italian campaigns – especially in Russia where they launched the last (albeit futile) full-scale cavalry attack at Isbuschenskij).
(The last great cavalry charge, Isbuschenskij 1942)
My wife recollects that the place where her father worked and where they had tied accommodation, the Italian Institute of Culture in London’s Belgrave square, was subject to vandalism and spite gestures including the introduction of faeces into the letterbox.
With both some relatives and some mean-minded Brits brought up in a milieu of ignorance and bias my mother could not have gone far without experiencing racism. One instance I remember with embarrassment on my part as an eight-year old occurred while waiting in the family doctor’s (Iris Copeman) surgery in Lewisham High street. My mother was speaking to me in her excellent but clearly differently accented English. Suddenly another person in the waiting room, a middle-aged man, hearing her speak said to her gruffly ‘You bloody foreigners! Why don’t you go back and live in your own country’. My mother and I were taken back and the man must have realised he had behaved inappropriately for he left shortly afterward without waiting for his appointment. My mother turned to me and said ‘Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you speak up for me, your mother. ‘ I couldn’t reply but felt very downcast at my inability to have said anything to the man who launched what I was later to define as a racist attack.
(St Saviour’s Church Lewisham where I was baptised)
For at school we never even were told what racism was. True, there were still only white pupils at my primary school of Dalmain road. Even when I was at secondary school and met up for the first time with students from Africa and Asia I did not think them any different or in any need of special protection or awareness. After all we were in the same school, in the same boat suffering under the same schoolteachers!
This leads me to consider the current slogan ‘black lives matter’ printed on tee-shirts and present at every anti-racist demonstration. Actually, of course, every life counts, not only because we are all humans, but because even white people suffer racist attacks, as happened in the case of my mother. I would go even further and say that all people who find racism abhorrent are likely to suffer racist attacks because of their belief in the essential equality of all humans.
It’s easy for white people to look at people of a different colour and state ‘we’d better not say anything against them because after all we could be arrested for inciting racial hatred.’ However, it’s also the case that white people launch racial attacks against other white people. The Eastern European fruit pickers in places like King’s Lynn are subject to such attacks. ‘Why can’t they speak English like the rest of us.’ is a typical refrain from those parts. I know some non-English white people who are afraid even to open their mouth in an all-white English context for fear of showing up where they come from. At its worst this situation contributes to the ghastly undercurrent running in Brexitism. This is why I truly think that most racists voted for Brexit. I cannot believe that there was any majority of remainers among the thugs gathered in Parliament square over the week-end.
As for statues the United Kingdom can talk! For every statue (and some really do thanks to modern technology – witness Thomas Coram’s statue outside London’s Foundling hospital) does talk and say something about the time they lived and the attitudes they carried. Each one is an essential part of our history and must in some way be preserved and not purged. Are we then going to descend into the realms of Pharaonic ancient Egypt or Neronian Rome when new rulers would assert their power by wiping out all traces of their predecessor?
(Ramses II)
At its utmost nemesis this transforms itself into an incarnation of talebanic proportions. Are we going to blow up the Colosseum because it supported the eating of Christians by lions or the massacre of gladiatorial slaves from the African and eastern provinces?
What then is the situation regarding the Elgin marbles? First of all their name should be changed to Parthenon marbles. Second, they should seriously be considered for return to their country of creation – the glory that was Greece.
(The Parthenon Marbles)
After all India did offer to return her collection of Viceroy statues back to the former heart of the Empire only to have the generous offer refused by its former overlords. In the face of refusal the new republic of India dumped them all in Coronation park – a marvellous open-air museum displaying the follies of an empire based essentially on racism since it saw other races as subject races (as the British are, as comically emphasised in Italian TV broadcasts, ‘sudditi di Sua Maestà – subjects of Her Majesty).
(Coronation Park New Delhi)
Meanwhile Bagni di Lucca where I reside, can truly be proud of its reputation towards people from other countries. It has been the refuge of artistic and political exiles from the English poet Shelley to the Hungarian freedom fighter Sándor Teleki. It remains a sanctuary for those seeking a different life away from the hectic cities they have abandoned and it offers a safe haven for those fleeing from political persecution and hunger.
(Plaque commemorating Byron’s stay in Bagni di Lucca at the Villa Webb. The inscription translates as ‘Georg(sic) Gordon Byron / During the summer of 1822 he found in the serene peacefulness of this land relief from the anxieties of his life.’
