DONA NOBIS PACEM 2024 - HOLD THE LIGHT

 

At times like these, when peace seems to be further away than ever, it can be very hard to write about it. Yet this is the time when it is most important to do so, to "hold the light", because we have to show that peace is possible, peace is desirable and that peace is essential, even and especially when we are being confronted with horrific images of war in our time every day and evening of our lives.

My generation, the "luckiest ever", some say, saw our first live images of combat and its effects during the dreadful conflict that was the Vietnam War and no one could say, from that period on, that they "didn't know" about it. Even at the time of the Kennedy assassinations, we had not been able to receive live reporting on them in Britain and most people there had not even gathered around a television set before the Coronation of Elizabeth II. The danger, once we were able to see those live images of horrifying events, was that we would lose our capacity to be shocked, become inured to it all. I don't think that most of my generation did, because from us sprang numerous peace movements; we wrote about peace, we studied peace, we campaigned for peace and we sang about peace.

What, then, can we do almost half a century after the fall of Saigon and all the conflicts in between, as we watch, day after day, shocking scenes of a population who are constantly being told to move on but have nowhere to go? A population with no adequate sanitation or access to healthcare, a population that is starving. No one is suggesting that the event that gave rise to all this was not also terrible, but when faced with human cruelty, do we also have to lose our humanity? 

We can protest, we can become part of a peace movement such as this and those of us who live in democracies can convey our concerns to those in power. In countries like the UK, where citizens have direct access to their elected representatives, we can write or speak to them and make our feelings known. Do you think they will not care? I assure you, they will care when they want your vote - which brings me to the matter we are all probably pondering, which is that so much will depend on what happens in the US tomorrow. Those of us in other countries can only hope that there will be light.

Light breaks where no sun shines, wrote the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. And to "hold the light" we have first to see it, so we must not look away from the harrowing scenes on our many devices or from the possibilities for doing something about them. We have to unite in peace, for peace and for the light.

With thanks as always to the wonderful, indefatigable Mimi Lenox, who continues to inspire us to blog for peace.

BlogBlast4Peace on X.

"SOME MORNING, UNAWARE"

 O, to be in England

Now that April 's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

 ...

wrote Robert Browning in Home Thoughts, from Abroad and went on to list, in the poem, some of the things you might see and hear in the English countryside on an April morning. But you see them distractedly, "unaware" because you take them for granted; you are "there" and able to see them every day.

Many words have been written about the momentous events of this week, so, planning this post, I wondered what I could possibly add to what great and renowned writers have already said. I had written about the Queen on this blog only in June, when we were celebrating her Platinum Jubilee, yet that seems a decade ago now. I pondered, wondered again and considered not writing anything at all but then I thought that perhaps I could write about what it is like to be British and hear such news when you are not "there",  do not wake in England or one of the other nations of the United Kingdom, cannot totally gauge the atmosphere "there" but suddenly, although you hope you have become bicultural, feel more British than you have for years. And you reel from the impact of the news you have just heard.

On the morning of what began as an ordinary day, Thursday, 8th September, I was looking at the British newspapers online and following certain developments on Twitter when suddenly I read that Her Majesty the Queen had been advised to rest as her doctors were "concerned". Alarm bells did not immediately ring in my head as we had seen Her Majesty accepting the resignation of one Prime Minister only on Monday and she had appointed the new one on Tuesday. In the photos, she looked frail but happy. She had rallied before; surely she would rally again? But then serious journalists started tweeting that something strange was going on in Parliament; notes were being passed round and Members of Parliament were looking grim. The Speaker interrupted the session to convey the best wishes of the House to the Queen. It occurred to me that the very fact that the Palace had issued a statement meant that things were very bad and, when we were told that first the (then) Prince of Wales and later the Princess Royal had gone to Balmoral, we knew. As Brits we all knew, wherever we were in the world. In the afternoon the Queen's other children and Prince William arrived at Balmoral and the only further news for hours was that the Queen was "comfortable". Again, as Brits, we knew that this probably meant, "Nothing further can be done" but we perhaps did not expect the  news we dreaded to come so quickly. At home I switched on BBC World News and saw that their main royal news presenter was wearing a black tie. 

At seven o'clock in Italy, which is six o'clock in the UK,  I took my dog out and when I came back, I went into the kitchen for a moment with the television still on in the living room. I heard the words "King" and "Charles" and then I knew for certain. I watched the written announcement that was displayed on the screen and a piece of my heart - the fragment that had woken in England "unaware" and had taken the Queen for granted - dropped out of my body. The National Anthem was played and although I was alone I stood up. I thought, "Oh, goodness, I've got to sing God Save the King" (for the Crown passes immediately to the heir upon the death of the Sovereign).

I thought back to the Coronation, when I was three. I've written before on this blog about how, when it was over, I had asked my great aunt when the next one would be and she had replied, "When the Queen dies." I had cried, because I didn't want this lovely young woman with the dazzling smile to die but I didn't want to wait either. And here I was, seventy years later, and I was standing in a living room in Sicily crying my eyes out just like that little girl so long ago.

When you live in a foreign land, you begin to see your own country with new eyes, especially if you have had to explain its ways and traditions to others, which, as a teacher, I have had to do. I have spent a large part of my life criticising the monarchy but over the years, looking at it not from "there" but from "here", I have come to the conclusion that it has its merits. I think I began to soften towards the Queen in particular when I watched a documentary about her, filmed not long after Prince Philip's retirement from royal duties, in which she walked down what looked like the kitchen stairs of whatever palace she was in one grey, rainy morning, perfectly dressed in coat and matching hat as always, smiling and ready to leave for an engagement. It came into my mind that she must have felt very lonely, despite her entourage. Few would have criticised her if she had handed over to her heir at that time but she was her own woman: when she was twenty-one she had famously made a promise to the people of her nation and the Commonwealth to serve them all her life and she was going to keep it. And who will ever forget the photo that went round the world in 2021, in which she stood alone, because of Covid, on what must have been the worst day of her life - that of her husband's funeral? She may have been a Queen, but how she must have longed for a comforting human touch that day. As someone who spent Italy's first, long, very strict lockdown totally alone apart from my dog, I can tell you that her famous lockdown speech, containing the reference to the song We'll Meet Again which every British person understood, gave a seventy-year-old Welshwoman in Sicily the hope that she desperately needed.

Students often ask me if the royals are "snobs" and I always reply, "Absolutely not." On the contrary, they are trained to put people at ease and are supposed to be polite to everyone. (All right, one was gaffe-prone but we have forgiven him.)  It is often said that the Queen met "everyone" and today a photo of her shaking hands and talking to Kermit the frog of Muppet fame has emerged on social media. She is smiling and she would have been as courteous to Kermit the frog as she was to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Watching the documentaries shown during the BBC's coverage of the Queen's death, it has become much clearer to me that she did, indeed, meet "everyone" and how hard she worked. I am usually the first to say that it is not "work" as ordinary people know it but I do not think we can imagine what it takes to be constantly travelling (albeit in great comfort), make speeches which you may not agree with at the behest of a government which operates in your name but tells you what to do, to always smile, appear interested and, most skilfully, engage in conversation without really saying anything at all - to be the perfect "soft power" diplomat. It is because of her strictly kept political neutrality that the Queen was, and is, so respected around the world and it is also why the tributes - some of them from unexpected sources -  have poured in.

Of these tributes, two stand out for me, one from a head of state and the other from an elderly Sicilian gentleman whom I do not know but pass the time of day with in the street:

President Macron said,

For you, she was your Queen.

For us, she was The Queen.

She will be with all of us forever.

The Sicilian man said,

I am so sorry about the Queen. I was in love with her. For me it was as if she was Italian.

Her Majesty was, insofar as her job permitted it, her own woman but she was everybody's Queen.

I do not know when I will wake in England or Wales again, Your Majesty, but I do know that I will never wake "unaware" that you have gone.

For those of you who speak Italian, here is a link to a video in which I show and explain the Coronation Crown coin which I have kept for seventy years. (I'm about one second from the end of the clip and you will need some Sicilian pazienza to skip the ads!)

https://www.videomediterraneo.it/notizie/attualita/morte-elisabetta-ii-il-ricordo-dei-britannici-in-sicilia/

MARKING AN ERA

On the occasion of Her Majesty The Queen's Platinum Jubilee, I'm going to begin with another extract from my memoir, A Place Called Siracusa:

I think we must have got the TV for the Coronation and we had red, white and blue flags all over the house in the run-up to it. I dressed up as the Queen and paraded around pretending to be her for what seemed like months and when it was all over I kept asking when the next Coronation would be.

“Not until the Queen dies”,

said Auntie Mabel, disappointing me abjectly.

I did not want Her Majesty to die but I couldn't believe I'd have to wait till I was as old as Mum and Dad, or even Auntie Mabel and Grandpa! But meanwhile we had a new, young Queen with a dazzling smile and a year or two later my class at school was taken to watch her drive through Bristol. All we really saw was a flash of the strawberry-coloured suit she was wearing as she passed but we waved our little flags like mad, and afterwards drew excruciating pictures of the occasion for posterity. The Queen was soon to disappoint me again, however and the reason for this was our new, red sofa. I was so happy because it was red, my favourite colour at the time but Dad quickly decided it needed to be covered and covered it was, in heavy, drab material. I cried buckets and asked Grandpa when the covers would come off.

“When the Queen comes”, he replied.

I spent months with my nose pressed against my bedroom window, waiting for the Queen to come, but she never did. I've been disillusioned with the monarchy ever since.

Sixty-nine years on and I still don't want the Queen to die. I'm not even a monarchist but I can't imagine the world without her. In a very strange way, which is hard to explain to non-Brits, the Queen has been a part of our lives, though most of us have never met her, many have never seen her at a live event and a large percentage are indifferent to the monarchy, if not against it. I can only explain this sentiment by saying that she perhaps represents the collective memory of the nation. On this particular Jubilee, I am watching the coverage and celebrating in my little way because I believe it is possible to have doubts about the relevance of the monarchy as an institution, whilst maintaining respect for a woman who has always done what she regards as her duty. I also rejoice because, wherever we are, we have had very little to celebrate together for a very long time. I must say that yesterday (2nd June), as I watched the crowd in London walking peacefully to Buckingham Palace, as the people of Britain have, on important national occasions of both joy and sorrow, for generations, I was able to think, “Yes, that is the Britain I remember and the Britain I continue to love.”

In this spirit, then, I wish Her Majesty and the country that made me a very happy Platinum Jubilee. This little rhyme came into my head the other day:

So here's my Coronation Crown

and I paraded up and down,

a “pretend queen”, when I was three,

yet all things pass – and I, and she. 

BUON FERRAGOSTO 2021!

Me in Paignton (Devon, GB) 
c.1953

 

WE WERE HERE!

Buona Festa della Repubblica, Italy!

June 2nd is also important for me because it marks the anniversary of my arrival, with my dog Simone, in Italy to live - sixteen years ago today.

They have not been sixteen years without trouble, darkness and even despair and of course the Covid situation has brought sadness and despair to us all, wherever we are. Those of us who have our hearts in two countries also worry twice, despair twice and grieve twice, just as we rejoice with both our countries when things go well. So please do not think that, because I have left the UK, I do not care about it, because I very much do.

This day brings many memories back to me and it is perhaps particularly poignant this year, as it was in 2020. I imagined many scenarios, both good and bad, that could happen when I settled here, but never did I imagine a tragedy like Covid - how could I, when the best scientists and virologists in the world did not? Nor can I inagine what the situation would have been like for me if I had lived through it in my country of birth; I can only try to deal with the situation here and now, and be happy that this is one bank holiday - only the second since the pandemic began, I think - which we in Italy are not spending in lockdown. 

And of course, today I think a lot of my little Simi, who "went on", as my mother used to say, six years ago now, though I believe she is still with me. Sometimes when I am out with my precious Bertie I see her there, beside us, and I say, "Walk with us part of the way, sweetheart", and I believe she does. Then she is gone again.

So on this day of many memories, I offer you an extract, recalling June 2nd 2005, from my book. (Yes, I have written a book! )

Three days later, I boarded the bus from Cardiff Bus Station to Gatwick Airport. I would stay three nights in a hotel there, walk around London and bid it farewell – for I didn't know if or when I would be in the UK again - and then, on the morning of 2 June 2005, Simi and I would board our flight to Italy. And that is what I did. I didn't go out to Pinner - Mum and Dad were in my heart, wherever I was or would be. Instead, I lit two candles for them in Westminster Abbey. Then I walked slowly around Poet's Corner to thank all those who are commemorated there, lingering the longest for Tennyson, Browning and his Elizabeth, Shakespeare and of course, Dylan Thomas.

I had, of course, kept in touch with the pet transporter company and they had reassured me that Simi was fine. At the airport, she had to undergo a final health check at which I could not be present. When I arrived there, I asked about her at check-in and was told I should ask at the departure gate. I knew she had been sent there but nothing more. The gate staff told me to sit near them and they would make enquiries. I had to wait until all the other passengers had been checked in and then a kindly ground crew officer approached me and said he had just seen Simi and had given her water. He took me to the window so that I could see her little crate being loaded. (She wasn't allowed to be in the cabin with me and I knew this. I also knew that pets are flown in a special area in the hold. I had been worried but my Cardiff vet had told me it is actually better for them because it's cool and dark and they usually sleep.) Oh, my little baby! As I was watching, the co-pilot came along and said that he, too, had just seen her and that she was a little anxious but otherwise fine. A nice Scottish lady also came over to tell me she had overheard our conversation and knew how I felt as she had previously flown her Westie dog from Scotland to London. Not so far, but it was empathy and I appreciated it. Once I boarded, I spoke to the captain too and he told me Simi was just underneath the spot where we were standing. I felt better then, knowing exactly where she was. By the time I sat down, I was so tired that I slept most of the way.

As we came into Catania, I did not see Etna this time, but felt the familiar surge of emotion as we touched down on the soil of this most beloved of lands that I had decided to make my home.

We were here!

I loved you then, Italy and I love you now.

I will tell the kind readers of this blog more about the book next time!

A LETTER TO BRITAIN

Modica, Italy

13^th December 2019

Dearest Britain,

A park in Norwich, Norfolk

I don't live in you now and, though I left you 15 years ago for another country that had captured my heart, that doesn't mean I no longer love you, for it was you that bore me, nurtured me, educated and made me and there will always be a British girl inside the continental me. I write now because what happened to you yesterday was shocking, devastating, frightening and deeply upsetting; its consequences cannot be foreseen at this juncture, but 24 hours on they seem bleak. I may still love you – I always will – but I no longer recognise you.

The country I left was far from perfect and our imperialist past was not something that most of us boasted about. Of course there was racism, as there is everywhere and I witnessed it myself, but it also seemed to me that it was generally understood that democracy means that you cannot impinge upon the freedom of others. When exactly did that change? When did people begin to believe that they could make whatever anti-foreigner, anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-elderly, anti-you-name-it comment they liked with impunity – in one of the most diverse and tolerant countries in the world? I am too far away to know and I doubt you know yourself but it has happened. Tolerance, it seems, has gone and soon it could be followed off our little group of islands by accountability in the “Mother of Parliaments”, the independence of the judiciary and perhaps even the constitutional monarchy.

When you see your own country from afar, you are unable to balance your pessimism regarding events there with a healthy dose of observation of your countrymen and women just getting on with their normal lives, but I would guess that what happened is simply that democracy is fragile and, having enjoyed it for so long, we took our eye off the ball. Then the 2008 recession gave the charlatans the opportunity they had been waiting for to exploit discontent. And you fell for it, my country. Not having known an occupation within living memory, you failed to see the danger when it came and you are failing to understand it now. This tide will turn, of course, whether peacefully or not I cannot say, and I certainly would not hazard a guess as to how long it will take.

So let us think back for a moment to a generation, that of my parents, who did recognise a serious threat to their freedom, for what I really want to talk about tonight are memories. Whenever I fly back to you, Britain, as the plane comes in over the Channel and Kent, I think first of Folkestone, a town of which I have no memory but to which I was sent at the age of eight weeks – to an orphanage there, because my natural mother couldn't afford to keep me. (Do you really want to go back to that, Britain? A narrow, judgemental state in which single mothers are forced to give up their children? It seems that you do, judging from remarks made by the now re-elected Prime Minister.) Seven months later, in the cold November of 1950, two kind, loving people who longed for a baby – a Bristol newsagent and his wife, both of Welsh origin – visited that orphanage in Folkestone and they drove back to Bristol with an extra passenger - me. My bond with the man who had just become my father was instant and I miss him to this day. I was told that I also went willingly into my mother's arms but took longer about it!

As the plane nears London, I look down and try to get my geographical bearings of that enormous city and its outskirts and I remember that somewhere down there I went to school, accompanied my big-hearted, generous but flawed dad to both casinos and Gamblers Anonymous meetings (somewhere near Buckingham Palace), became part-Londoner and grew up. Also down there his ashes mingled with my mum's, in the Ruislip Garden of Remembrance named after the only English Pope, Nicholas Breakspear. I only went back there once after their respective funerals (twenty years apart), on the 25^th anniversary of my dad's death and I learnt that they were not there, for they are where I am. If I hadn't known that, I would have been unable to leave.

Westminster Abbey

They sat in their North London Garden, the girl and her dad, and he spoke to her sometimes in Latin, sometimes in French and he bequeathed to her his love and knowledge of books. Without him, she would not have become a linguist. He also bequeathed to her his humour, his quintessentially British irony and his gift for repartee. They served her well as a teacher and they serve her well now, when humour is all there is, she thinks, to help her deal with the situation.

Chronic illness had prevented dad from fighting (much to his frustration), so back in Bridgend, Wales, he had worked in the Arsenal, then in Bristol hosted American soldiers and joined the Home Guard. He and mum had been horrified by fascism and, like many of his era, he had, before what was always referred to as “The War”, been a member of the Communist Party because it was thought to be the only way to stop Hitler. Later, disillusioned, he left it and received threats for doing so. During the war and during our Bristol years he worshipped Churchill. That was a different kind of Conservatism, though – a party of the rich for the rich, yes, but there was a sense of decency and of responsibility for the fate of their fellow-Britons. In London during the Heath premiership, dad switched his allegiance to the Labour Party because, he said, they cared for the ordinary worker.

Dad (second from left) in the Bridgend Arsenal

My journey from the airport usually continues by coach and down we go, towards the South-West. I still have a sense of childish excitement when I see the motorway signs to “The South-West and Wales”. It's best before evening, when you can still see the green on either side, and as we near Bristol I muse that in some of these fields, cut through by the very road I am travelling on, the little girl and her dad used to go mushroom-hunting. Then she became a teenager and suddenly she was hurtling along the nearby country lanes in her boyfriend's car. She wept and wept when they left for London in the spring of 1965.

And now we come to the Bridge - the span across the River Severn which takes you into Wales. And Wales it is which gives me my real British identity. I grew up among its gentle accents, heard and sang its music every day, assimilated its culture and regarded it always as “home”. As you cross the Bridge you can still see the loading point for the old Aust ferry, which (if you were lucky) took you across before the miracle of the First Severn Bridge. (If you are unfamiliar with that part of Britain, you may be interested to know that the Severn has the third highest tidal range in the world. Hence the two bridges across it that now exist are true feats of engineering.) Sometimes you queued for hours, only to be told that they could take no more cars across that evening, either because of the current or because of the time, and then you had to get into Wales by driving “all around bloody Gloucestershire” as dad would bad-temperedly put it. Once in Wales, we were home and we stayed with my uncle and aunt or in the Cardiff Central Hotel owned by dad's cousin Frank. Years later, as a university student, I spent many drunken nights in its bar – Frank, the hotel guests and its staff had long gone – and later still it was all destroyed by fire. Wales was, and is, the sound of kindly, sing-songy voices, the land of the cwtch (cuddle - and believe me, there's nothing like a Welsh one), the aroma of Welshcakes cooking on a bakestone, a carpet of daffodils in March and April and the land of childhood warmth.

In Wales you'll find daffodils even when there aren't any!
Here, daffodil ornaments are on sale
 at Cardiff Christmas Market

But now I make another journey on these rare trips home: from Cardiff to Norwich, or sometimes straight from London to Norwich, another town of which I have no childhood memory, and yet it is where it all began. For that is where I was born and spent such a short time with my natural mother, who already had a three-year-old daughter called Jill, my sister. How we met after 64 years is a story I have told elsewhere but it is in Norwich that my British life comes full circle and yes, I do have a strange sense there, too, of coming home, of having been there before. Sadly I can only visit my natural mother at her graveside and I take her Welsh daffodils or, at this time of year, a little Christmas tree, and I hope she knows that Jill and I are there together. I have come to love Norwich in its own right, too – its lanes, the glory of its Cathedral, which I have found to be welcoming, and the peace of the nearby Broads.

A peaceful morning in Norwich

A Christmas tree for my natural mother

And on the way there I cross London again and remember other times, fashions and events, both in its life as a city and in my own.

To borrow from Rupert Brooke, all these things I have loved in you, Britain and, even though I do not recognise you now in your national life, they endure, for no politician can take my memories, though age may do so. Therefore I set them down now, for I want you to know that I have loved you, and I hope that you will come through this dark period as you have come through others – stronger, more determined to preserve what is good and, hopefully, kinder – and that if I do not live to see it, others will.

DONA NOBIS PACEM - BLOG FOR PEACE 2019

It is never hard to wish for peace - peace in your personal life and peace in the world - but it is certainly hard to write about it when both your life and your country are in turmoil. The turmoil in my country of origin, Britain, is nothing like that in war-torn countries around the world but there are worrying and upsetting events there - things I never imagined happening in Britain, of all places - and I am among an estimated 1.2 million British people in EU countries who feel, to say the least, unsettled and insecure.

I am not displaced; I am not a refugee; I have faced no danger but I do know that it is hard to begin a life in a new country, even when you are there, as I am, from choice, let alone when you have endured a perilous sea crossing and have been tortured, threatened and physically assaulted along the way, only to find that you are less than welcome when you reach your longed-for destination. My heart goes out, as it always has, to all who experience such trauma.

As I have said, I have experienced none of those things but events in my own country have led me to reflect on how quickly things can change, how events which you can influence little, if at all, can destroy your sense of security and take away your sense of control over what happens to you, simply because of where you find yourself geographically at the time. There is, in my case, also a feeling of guilt. I have no way of knowing if this is shared by others in my position but sometimes I wonder whether, I were in Britain, I would be able to help change things by adding my voice physically instead of, or as well as, through posts like this or through social media. But even if the answer to that were "Yes", it would not be possible so I have to ask myself what else I can do:

When Mimi wrote that her climate change theme this year could include our inner climate, I thought about that a lot and I began to ask myself what inner peace actually is. Millions of dollars have been made by gurus who believe that they can tell you, and perhaps some of them can. I can only say what it is for me and I think I find it in appreciating and remembering moments of love because these are the moments that enable us, sometimes fleetingly, to feel safe. So I would like to share with you some of my moments of love, and therefore of safety and peace, of this year: I found inner peace in February, sitting on a park bench in Norfolk, England, with the sister I never thought I'd meet; I found it in lighting a candle for my wonderful (adoptive) parents and another for the birth mother I never knew in Norwich Cathedral's Peace Globe; making Welshcakes for people is always a pleasure and for me, their aroma is that of home and, therefore, of safety and it was a joy to be able to make them in my sister's kitchen for St David's Day this March; and I have many precious moments of love every day with my dog Bertie, who loves me when I'm happy, grumpy, distracted, focused, tearful, energetic or tired and in the latter case she nuzzles me. She's a rescue dog but I always say it was she who saved me.

I am also lucky in being able to love where I am and my spirits were lifted recently on an autumn evening walk in Noto when I witnessed again the beauty of the sunlight on the stone of the Cathedral. I always go to the Noto Infiorata (carpet of flowers) in May and this year, as part of the "Italians in North America" theme, this flower portrait of Gaetana Midolo, who emigrated from her home town of Noto, Sicily to America, only to lose her life at the age of 15 in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, made a lasting impression on me. Gaetana had had a dream of another country too, and I know what it is like to arrive somewhere full of hope and to have your dream shattered. I recovered but poor Gaetana had no chance, in old age, to cherish her moments of love.

To Gaetana, to all who dream of a better life, to all who are struggling to change their inner climate and to all who dream of peace, I dedicate this post. To the big dreamers who are out there protesting to change our world, I send my thanks and I would like to say to them that sometimes, when you are deeply in turmoil or despair, you can only do small things, such as remembering love. But sometimes that is enough.

Dona Nobis Pacem

SPRING TIDES, 2017

A mere 36 hours have passed since the events that shocked the world happened in my country and already, as if their situation were not bad enough, migrants are being blamed in some quarters. I ask, as I have asked many times, what woman, knowing that she could go into labour at any moment, would step onto a totally inadequate, crowded boat and attempt a dangerous sea crossing if she had any choice? What kind of parents would take or put their children onto such a boat, knowing the risks? Who would gamble in such a way with their own life if there were any hope in their own country? Surely you do not have to be a psychology professor to work out the answer.

As I write tonight, up to 240 migrants are feared dead in yet another tragedy that has taken place on the "central Mediterranean route", that is, the one with Italy as its destination, which is again being favoured by people traffickers following the closure of the Balkan route. The tragedy happened when two migrant boats got into trouble off the Libyan coast on Wednesday and so far five bodies have been recovered. All five, presumably men, were aged 16 - 25 and had died from drowning. This news comes on the day when a Libyan court blocked a Memorandum of Understanding on migration between Italy and Libya.  At the same time, the court in question blocked further negotiations on the matter between the two countries. The reasons are too complicated to go into on this blog but you can find more details here.

With the spring comes better weather and with better weather come more migrant boats: at the weekend Italian operatives saved 3,315 people in 25 operations in 24 hours.  Subsequently 1,477 of these migrants were brought to Augusta. Three bodies were also recovered. In addition, the SOS Mediterranean ship Aquarius, working in conjunction with MSF, saved 946 migrants off the Libyan coast in nine operations coordinated by the Rome Coast Guard on Saturday - Sunday night. The migrants had been travelling in seven dinghies and two wooden boats.  These migrants were brought to Catania and on the way, a baby called Mercy was born after an eight-hour, difficult labour. The midwife who attended Mercy's mother on board the Aquarius said she must have been desperate to have undertaken the journey in her condition. Mercy, as you can see, is healthy and is said to be doing well. Who could look look at her and feel no compassion? 

However, for every "Mercy" born, hundreds die at sea - so many, over the years, that no one knows exactly what the figure is and worse, the world does not seem to care. I am as upset by the London attack as anyone not directly involved but please, politicians and right-wing media, don't blame migrants.

In 2015 4,600 people died on the central Mediterranean migrant route and more than 10,000 are estimated to have died attempting this journey since 2014.

BREXIT - THE PLIGHT OF EXPATS

"Come home, then", was a comment I received on twitter a few nights ago in response to a point I had made about the situation of expats in the era of Brexit and it has to be said that, although curt, this comment was nothing like as rude as others that we "remainers" have been subject to in recent months. When, I keep asking myself, did my tolerant and open country become intolerant and closed?  It is a heartbreaking change to watch.

"Come home":  I'm afraid that for many expats, including me, the situation is not as simple as that. It is a myth that we are all slugging gin on sun loungers in sunny British enclaves and it is equally a myth that we are all rich. It would not be financially possible for most of us to come home and I am not the only one who would have nowhere to go in my native country.

Therefore, when we raise concerns about the future of our pensions or access to healthcare in the countries where we now live, they are real concerns, for a freezing of our pensions would spell poverty in old age for thousands of us and the threat of cutting off our right to healthcare, at the time in our lives when we are likely to need it most, fills us with fear.

Now, before I am shot down by those who think that, having decided to no longer live in the "green and pleasant land",  I deserve everything that is, or more likely is not, coming to me, and before I am told that, for the same reason, I have no right to any British pension at all , I would like to point out the following: I believe I served Britain tolerably well in my role as a teacher and then as a lecturer. The schools I taught in were far from "élitist" and I worked hard for my pension. With regard to healthcare, the agreement in place at the time I moved to Italy was one of entitlement because there is a reciprocal agreement in place for Italians living and working in Britain. I have never sponged off either system in my life. When you move to another country, you do so under a certain set of circumstances and you do not expect retrospective legislation to pull the rug out from under your British feet.

Incidentally, if the value of people's pensions had been cut by up to 25% in the UK , there would be uproar, yet this is exactly what has already happened to expats since the Brexit referendum and we are all afraid to say so publicly because we will be branded "selfish, élitist remoaners." Well, it is about time someone said it and I do so here.

Another fear we have is that, even if a "right to stay" agreement is reached, it may be dependent upon some sort of property qualification. No, I am not restoring a castle or tending my vineyard - like many other expats, I pay my way but I do not own property in either country.  We do not figure in  the British Prime Minister's narrow vision of the "jams" [families who are "just about managing"] but that is often the reality for expats.  [Oh, and I'm not out here with family, either - I am truly dispossessed!]

Why, some of you may wonder, would anyone want to leave Britain in the first place?  My answer is because I am a modern languages graduate and I fell in love with Italy at an early age. Loving another country does not mean that you love your own any the less; in fact you can come to love it more, because you see it with new eyes from abroad. Moreover, having had the chance to teach in Italy, I believe I have contributed in my small way to the spreading of British culture here.

When the British State educated me and trained me as a teacher, it did not do so in order that I might live exclusively in one country or the other;  it did so in order that I would have a choice.  That's what education does. I was given the ability to make a choice and I made it, believing, like others, that I was protected in it by treaty. That our native land now wants to rip that treaty up is hardly our fault and we are appalled by our formerly gentle nation's abandonment of its own citizens in the EU.  This is not the Britain that I recognise and it is not the free and fair Britain that I have told so many Italian students about.

I am hurt, as I am sure other expats are hurt, by the name-calling we have had to endure: I am not a "remoaner"; I am merely someone who wishes to embrace more than one culture and my languages have enabled me to do that fully.  Where was I on the day that such a wish became a crime in Britain?

The general view in Britain seems to be that a million or so expats are just a few snail-eaters who do not matter and I have no information on how many of us still have voting rights there. But elections and referendums, as we have seen, can turn on very few votes.  Perhaps one day soon the British government will wake up to the fact that we matter. I hope it does not do so too late.

BREXIT - A VIEW FROM ITALY [2]

Most of my regular readers will know that I view Brexit as a disaster and I explained why on the night of the referendum. I have to say that my spirits have not risen regarding the matter since then and I have spent the past few days in shock and disbelief at what the UK Prime Minister said in her "Brexit Plan" speech on Tuesday.

What, though, is the general view in Italy?  We all know that members of the European Parliament- with a few exceptions including one notable British one - are fuming but reactions within Italy have generally been calmer than those in many other EU countries. But then, the Italians have not yet been insulted by Mr. Johnson. 

To say that the Prime Minister's speech went down well here would, however, be overstaing the case and the threatening tone she used towards the end of it did her no favours. Il Giornale di Sicilia asked how the UK can expect to enjoy free trade with the EU post-Brexit but not contribute to the EU budget and commenters on the article ranged from those who called us selfish and wanted us "chucked out now" to those who congratulated us upon "freeing" ourselves.

Several papers highlighted the fact that work permits are likely to be necessary for Italians working in Britain post-Brexit and it is ironic that this comes from a country that still demands documentation which should not be necessary under European law for non-Italian EU residents here. 

La Repubblica reported that we are going for "hard Brexit" and will therefore be "out of everything". Il Sole 24 Ore called our insistence on border control and withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice the "British Maginot Line" and I empathise with the incredulity implied - freedom of movement of people is, after all, one of the founding principles of the EU and we signed up to the organisation in full knowledge of that.

Alessandro Barbera, writing in La Stampa yesterday and referring to Mrs May's Davos speech [she's having a busy week!] asks how we can close our borders and, at the same time, claim to be a champion of free trade. He suggests that Mrs May, "the new Iron Lady", dreams of a "global Britain" but would rather it wasn't too global. Spot on, I'd say!

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has been measured in his comments, welcoming a commitment from May to cooperate militarily with the EU [made prior to Tuesday's speech and I can find no details as to the extent of such cooperation] and saying that Italy would discuss the issues with Britain in a spirit of solidarity and friendship.

Meanwhile Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said, while Mrs May was speaking on Tuesday, that the Italian government will defend the interests of Italians living and working in the UK. Now wouldn't it be nice if the "new Iron Lady" showed such concern for British citizens living and working in other EU countries?  

SICILY SCENE'S REVIEW OF 2016

The year which drew to a close yesterday was the one in which it became clear to me that the world has learnt nothing from the tragedies and disasters of the last century. Here, a little late, is my review of it:

Ups

Most unexpectedly, falling in love again.

Spending Christmas in Norwich with the sister I have known for only two years and walking through a bauble in that fair city!

Downs

The down side of falling in love - being dumped. It is a much worse experience, I have discovered, than it was when I was young, for there are now so many places to be dumped from, such as social media.

Brexit - even more devastating.

Continuing to hear of needless migration tragedies as the world looks on and does nothing.


Recipe of the year

Of those I have invented myself, this is the one I like best.

Chicken with cedri and Prosecco

Books of the year

The two best books I read in Italian during 2016 were Pesce d'aprile and Lacrime di Sale, Dr Pietro Bartolo's account of migrant tragedies as they affect Lampedusa. I'll shortly be reviewing Lacrime di Sale on Sicily Scene.

The most interesting book I read in English in 2016 was Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Besides telling a gripping story, the book explained to me a conflict which took place during my lifetime but which I knew next to nothing about.

Film of the year

This is related to my second book choice above. It is Fuocoammare.


Italian logic prize

This goes to Rai and the Italian government for this scheme and their strange definition of the term rata [installment].  Predictably, after July consumers were required to pay not one "installment" for the TV licence fee but the remaining six in one go!


Hopes for 2017

Once again, I hope the world wakes up to the fact that we are all migrants and I want to see safe corridors for today's migrants and an end to migration tragedies. I want to hear more from the voices of peace and less from those of belligerance.

I wish you all peace, health and love, wherever you are.

Happy New Year and thank you for reading Sicily Scene!

Buon Anno e grazie di aver letto la Sicily Scene!

You can find links to all my migration posts here and to my adoption posts here.

A TOUCH OF MAGIC

It's always lovely when someone brings you a present from home and when you live so far away, I think the memories that these thoughtful gifts evoke can flood your mind - in a good way.

My maternal grandad was a Cornishman [though he spent most of his life in Wales] so when a friend brought me a Cornish pixie wall plaque the other day, I immediately thought of Grandpa and felt I could hear his soft,West of England tones as he told me the pixie-themed little brooches or ornaments he would bring me back from his annual holiday in Cornwall held magic powers.  Of course, Devon has pixies too and they are not to be outdone in the magic stakes! Mum, Dad and I used to head for Paignton every summer and I've had the pixie ornament from Dawlish Warren since I was about five.

Now that Mr Dawlish Pixie has some company, I'm convinced my luck is about to change!

THE PROUD EUROPEAN CHALLENGE

"The Proud European Challenge:  Post five photos that make you proud to be European and show what that means to you."  

This was a friend's suggestion on facebook and I thought it was a good idea. Here is what I wrote and the first collage shows four of the photos I posted. In these I am in Montpellier, France in 1970 [yes, I know we joined the EU in 1973 but we were on our way in and things were already getting easier];  in Messina in 1998; on my way to Elba in 1977 and in Legnano [Milan] in 1996. 

"Freedom of movement has allowed me to study and work in several European countries, where I have been lucky enough to meet people from all over the world. If the barriers go up again, we will all be the poorer, in every sense, for it."

But of course I didn't want to stop at five photos so I'm posting some more here. Below is the Charles Bridge in Prague, which became one of my favouite haunts in that lovely city; in 2009 I am being interviewed in Buggiano [Tuscany] about my translation of the poet Antonio Lonardo's book; I have very happy memories of my 45th birthday in Modica in 1995; and Prague again with colleagues in 2003 [the 5th photo I put on facebook].

Then there is what being in Sicily means to me:  it means being in a particularly fascinating, culturally mixed, part of a country I've loved since I was 19. Sicily for me is the purple sea at Eloro, the bread arches of San Biagio Platani and having the opportunity to share a little of my own culture with Sicilians, for whom I always make Welshcakes on St David's Day. The island is also rich in the Greek heritage from which culture as we know it in the West first blossomed. When I'm feeling low, I remember Agrigento and am reminded why I am here.

Being in Sicily also means looking across the Strait of Messina to the Calabrian coast, the beginning of a journey to the New World for so many in the last two centuries. They were economic migrants trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, a perfectly natural desire that is being derided these days. They weren't caged and beaten before they left, killed on board ship for asking for a drop of water or thrown overboard when they grew weak but their journey was long and arduous, as was their path to work and acceptance at their destination.

I, too, am a migrant, albeit from choice and I am here to understand.  I want to be part of a Europe of opportunity, not a Europe of barriers and I want the country that made me to be part of that too.

A VIEW FROM ITALY

On this portentous night when, to quote the newspaper La Sicilia, "the fate of Europe depends on the mood of the British", how is it all being viewed here?  With incredulity, puzzlement, dismay and a little grudging admiration, it seems to me.

To understand the first two reactions, you have to understand that in most EU countries the organisation is still seen, notwithstanding its faults, as the best guarantee we have of peace in the region.  This is a view to which I subscribe, for you cannot spend most of your life studying and teaching French and Italian without being influenced by the literature those countries produced during the Second World War and its aftermath, nor can you ignore the ideals of Jean Monnet.

Dismay enters the picture because most people here think that if Britain leaves the EU, it will signal the beginning of the end, with Italy, a country which has suffered greatly during the recent recession, exploring the "out" option next. It has to be said that many people I have spoken to would not consider this a bad idea.

I am, as you will have gathered, culturally and emotionally European and this would be the case whether I still lived in the UK or not. However, as an expat Brit living in the EU, I have other concerns about a Brexit, for the jury is still out on whether or not the "acquired rights" of British citizens who have settled in EU countries would be affected.  I have read two contradictory articles about this in two days and have concluded that actually, no one has a clue.  Italians and other EU citizens who have settled in Britain
have similar worries.

Yes, it is unlikely that Italy would deport all the Brits and that the UK would deport all the Italians  - what would happen to the UK restaurant trade?!  There would probably be an agreement between the two countries and indeed, I have a feeling that there already is one, which pre-dates Britain's membership of the EU. However, a country like Italy, never happier than when it is inventing new bureaucracy that in the end even its authors do not understand, would surely create new legal hurdles for expat Brits to jump. As I have often had to deal, here, with officialdom that thinks that because Britain is not in the eurozone it has never been in the EU, I am not hopeful that the average Italian town hall clerk would be familiar with the terms of any international agreement on my status.

My impressions of this referendum campaign and of my countrymen during it come mostly from the media and obviously, I am viewing the situation from afar but tonight I want to make a plea: Both sides have, in recent weeks and for different reasons, used the slogan, "I want my country back." Well, I want my country back too and, before I get shouted down, in some quarters, because I "don't even live in the UK", I would point out that I pay taxes there and still have UK voting rights. and of course I care what happens to the country that made me.  

I want my country back because I want the fun of being British back: what happened, during this campaign, to our healthy scepticism about almost everything, to our understatement, to our sense of irony and our ability to find humour, but not at the expense of those unable to take it, in all but the bleakest of situations?  What happened to our ability to laugh at ourselves [a characteristic we share with the Italians]? I also want  to be able to say that in my country racist posters are illegal, that we can have a disagreement without name-calling or yelling untruths at one another and that politicians are not gunned down in the street for their beliefs.  I want to say that I come from a nation that cares about the fate of those less fortunate than its own citizens, that takes pride in diversity and that is, above all, tolerant.

Whatever happens later on tonight and in the early hours of tomorrow morning, I want my gentle, self-deprecating, tolerant country back.

De toutes les superstitions, la plus dangereuse, n'est-ce pas celle de haïr son prochain pour ses opinions? 

Di tutte le superstizioni, la più pericolosa non è quella di odiare il prossimo per le sue opinioni? 

Of all superstitions, is not the most dangerous that of hating your neighbour for his opinions?

Voltaire - Traité sur la Tolérance / Trattato sulla tolleranza /  Treatise on Tolerance, 1763

SICILY SCENE'S REVIEW OF 2015

The year that has just ended began, for me, in the worst possible way, with the loss of my darling Simi on January 8th. In the days and weeks that followed, there were several points when I thought I was going to go as well and of course, these days coming up to the anniversary of her death are also difficult.

But in February my Bertie-Pierrine, whom I love not as a substitute but in her own right, bounded into my life and we saved each other:

Other highlights of the year were visiting my new-found sister in Norwich, seeing Charles Aznavour live in concert in London and revisiting Cardiff, all of which I've written about here .

Elm Hill, Norwich, UK

It was also the year which marked the tenth anniversary of my move to Sicily and you can read about that here.

I was surprised, checking my blog stats tonight, to find that my most read blog post of 2015 was this Sabato Musicale  - I must have a lot of readers who are Annalisa fans and very welcome they are! The second most read post was the one I have linked to above about Simi's death.

My recipe of the year. among those I've created myself, is my Brit-Indian-Sicilian Shepherd's Pie:

I don't have a gadget of the year but I do have new [to me] uses for two old ones!  Both Mary Berry and Nigella suggest peeling ginger with a teaspoon in their latest books and I would like to thank them. It seems so obvious but I had never thought of it. Nigella recommends a microplane grater for grating citrus zest into dishes. I've had one for years but never realised how easy that would be!

My book of the year in English is The Dust That Falls from Dreams by Louis de Bernières and my book of the year in Italian is Giuseppino by Joe Bastianich.

Instead of the Italian logic prize this time, I am awarding an Italian scandal of scandals prize and it goes to the TV advert that horrified the nation in January because - are you ready? - it showed a MasterChef winner adding a stock cube to her caponata!  I am pleased to be able to report that this ability to be more scandalised by the use of stock cubes than by all the worst excesses of Italian politicians is alive and well, as a hapless would-be MasterChef Italia 5 contestant found out a week or so ago.  "Ci hai messo del dado?"- "You put a stock cube in?!" exclaimed a horrified Joe Bastianich and the ice-cold eyes of Chef Carlo Cracco turned icier than ever.

It was yet another sad year for migrants and tragedies have continued to happen, not only in the Mediterranean but on the land routes too. Italy's European partners continue to fail her and, consequently, all who are in need of a safe haven. You can find links to all my migration posts here.

My hopes for 2016 are a safe corridor for migrants and an end to migration tragedies. As always, I hope for peace and health for those I love and for all of you, wherever you are.

Happy New Year and thank you for reading Sicily Scene!

Buon anno e grazie di aver letto la Sicily Scene!