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

MOTHER'S DAY THOUGHTS

Today is Mother's Day in Italy and many other countries, though not the UK, where it was celebrated on 26th March.  For those of us who neither have a mother living nor have become one, it can be a difficult day. For me it is a day on which to avoid social media and here in Italy I steer clear of pasticcerie before lunch, when you see everyone purchasing trays of dolci to take to the family table. It is not that I begrudge people time with their mothers - I am glad for them - but it would be unnatural not to miss mine on such a day.

As many of you know, I had two mothers - the one who bore me and the one who nurtured me -so there are two kinds of "missing" that vie within me on this day. My natural mother has a grave, lovingly tended by the sister with whom I was reunited only recently and my adoptive mother has no memorial except in my heart - because she wanted it that way.  In March my sister lovingly placed daffodils [a symbol of Wales] on our mother's grave on my behalf and I am grateful to her.

When you are no longer a daughter but are not a mother either, you begin to wonder where your place is at the table. I would add that not only does the non-mother not know where to sit, but she doesn't "own" the feast, having no brood to create it for.  She is never the main provider or creator of any feast, though she may be a helper. Many of you might envy this position, but the willing aunt, sister, cousin or friend at the table is not always happy.

If, like me, she is approaching her seventies and has not reproduced, she may look at her body and ask, "What was it all for?" as her body has reminded her what was expected of her every day of her life:  when her feminine attributes literally took shape, she learnt their power and their danger;  as her physical charms faded, she learnt what it was like to become invisible - a state not without its advantages - but did not have the respect due to a mother or grandmother to fill that void.  Women, said de Beauvoir, define themselves in relation to "the oher" and this is sadly still largely the case. The world likes to categorise us in terms of our relationship to others whilst continuing to judge us on our looks

So tied up is our psyche with the idea of motherhood that when my [adoptive] mother first showed symptoms of the dementia-related illness which would be her last, I, a successful career woman at that time, convinced myself that it was all my fault because I hadn't given her the joy of grandchildren. I felt that that had I been able to provide her with this "stimulus", everything would have been all right. I am also certain that there are childless women who abuse their own bodies because they consider them "useless", though I have yet to find any psychological research on this.

Today I want to think of all women who, for one reason or another, would have liked to have had children and did not, for this is a "loss" and rarely seen as such. I want to think of women like my natural mother, pressurised, so long ago,  by a judgemental society into giving up her child, all women who have suffered the loss of a child in any circumstances and, as it is the weekend and more migrant tragedies are probably occurring at sea as I write, of migrant mothers;  those whose children die as they cross the Mediterranean, those who have their children literally torn from them in slave camps in Libya, those who make the dangerous journey alone, in the hope of being able to send for their children later, and those who survive the journey, only to become separated from their children in the chaos. All are mothers, all have a mother's protective instinct and all deserve a place in our hearts this Mother's Day.

If you mised my posts about adoption and my reunion with my sister, you can find them here.  There are links to all my posts about migration in the Mediterranean on this page.

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 TREE GROWS IN NORWICH

This year, I am lucky enough to be spending Christmas with my sister, Jill and other members of the family with whom I was reunited two years ago.

Tonight I would like to tell you about a Christmas initiative from Norwich Cathedral which has helped me and, I am sure, many others: Outside the Cathedral is a "memory tree" and visitors have been invited to write the names of loved ones they miss at Christmas on star decorations.  Each visitor made a donation for each star they used and the staff hung them on the tree on their behalf.

Thus, in the city where my story began, stars hang for both my mums - the one I never knew and the one who brought me up - and also for the dad who gave me so much love.

Thank you, Norwich Cathedral.

You can find links to all my adoption posts here.

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!

OUT OF THE PAST - 6

My birth mother, Violet

My adoptive mother, Violet,
on her wartime wedding day

"Once again it's Christmas time", as the song says, and, at the end of another year, I am thinking about the incredible events which led to my happy reunion with my birth sister, Jill and the rest of my birth family. If you missed them, there are links to all my adoption posts here.

Candles for two Violets

To start with, I would like to take you back to 9th October 2014, a beautiful, sunny day in Modica, Sicily. I am walking along a familiar street, greeting people and looking at what is on the fruit lorries, as I do every day, but my thoughts are a world away, in another era, for today is different:  I am on my way to meet my birth sister, after 64 years. Can you imagine how that felt? All I can tell you is that I was happy, experienced no anxiety and felt as if I was truly going home, a sensation which intensified the moment we fell into each other's arms and sobbed the years away.

Chiesa di San Giacomo Apostolo,
Ragusa Ibla

I had trusted Jill from the first communication we had had just a few months before and I knew I would like her. But as I spent time with her that week, I began to realise how very much I loved her. Yes, she was the person with whom, had the world been a little less cruel in 1950, I might have grown up and we might have shared so much but it was no use going there now, for we cannot know what might have happened. All we could, and can, do is to enjoy what we have and nurture it as if it were a little garden of sisters.

And when we visited another garden one evening that week, the beautiful Giardino Ibleo in Ragusa Ibla, I found, to my surprise, that the charming church of San Giacomo Apostolo was open and there I lit a candle for each of my two mums, who were both called Violet [though my birth mum didn't like the name]. I'm sure they were with us.

A graveside in Norwich

This year it was a great pleasure to be able to spend some time in Norwich, UK with Jill and her husband and to meet the rest of my wonderful birth family, all of whom I would like to thank here for their warmth, kindness, acceptance and love.

When Jill and I visited our mother's grave, I had thought I was prepared but nothing could have readied me for the tide of emotion that would engulf me. In Romina Power's book Ti prendo per mano, a novel based on the time she spent nursing her own mother through terminal illness, there is a poem entitled Il Profumo della vita [The Scent of Life] which expresses all that I wanted to say so I read it out in Italian and in English, thus bringing a little of Italy to my first Violet. Then I fell into my sister's arms again and cried till no more tears would come: all those years of wondering about my birth mother - whether she was still alive [I always hoped], what she was like [spirited, intelligent, kind and brave, I now know], whether she looked like me [the answer is very much so], whether she thought of me sometimes [of course she did, every day] and a thousand other questions. And it all ended here, at this graveside in Norwich - except that it hadn't, because love does not die. In this season of love, I am holding on to that.

I never thought I would receive Xmas cards like this.....

....... or be wearing items that belonged to my birth mum.

Romina Power reads Il Profumo della vita

HOMETOWN

However much we love our new country, sooner or later most expats feel like this:


But that wasn't the only reason I took a quick trip back to the UK a couple of weeks ago, as you will see.
Firstly, it was an opportunity to spend some time with my new-found sister and meet the rest of my birth family and their friends.
"We're having a little party for you tomorrow", announced my sister Jill upon my arrival. I was astonished and delighted to find that she had invited what seemed like the whole of Norwich and I must say, she was rather Italian about food, as it kept coming!  Don't you just love brother-in-law's specially made shirt?  

The "sisters" poster was made from a photo taken when Jill and her husband were here in Sicily last year and yes, there were fireworks too!
As I said, the delicious food just kept on coming.....

I very much enjoyed walking around Norwich with my sister and it made me feel closer to my birth mother to walk through the market there, as I had learnt it was something she often did.

Then there was a visit to the Norfolk Broads:

Here I am the next day, hair done and ready to go and meet my blogging friend Ellee Seymour for the first time!  We were off to London for a very special occasion indeed and Oxford Street looked beautiful from the bus:

The occasion was the Charles Aznavour concert at the Royal Albert Hall and all I can say is that both Monsieur Aznavour and the venue were merveilleux.  And thank you, Ellee, for the dedicated copy of your very interesting book, The Shop Girls. I loved it!

Wednesday morning and I was off again, to WALES at last!  I'd had the hiraeth for a long time, you see and I also needed to reconnect with the mum and dad who had brought me up.  Of course, I cried as the coach came into dear old Cardiff but was "the 'Diff" going to be ready for my Catania hat?

It turned out that it was and one of the first things I did was to have a walk in the park in the rain. I met up with lots of friends, gazed open-mouthed at the sheer number of new shops in my hometown and spent several hours just trying to orientate myself! I was very relieved to find that the universal greeting there is still, "Hiya, love".  
Later I visited the Senedd or Welsh Government building - it hadn't been built when I was last in Cardiff - and was impressed, especially when I was told that it is probably the first Assembly in the world to have achieved gender equality in its membership.

These lovely gentlemen deserve a BIG photo all of their own for they are none other than the members of the fabulous Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir and they kindly allowed me to attend their rehearsal. There's nothing like the sound of a Welsh male voice choir and a more rousing version of the Welsh national anthem I have never heard in my life!

There was another concert, this time at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and performed by the students of the Brass and Percussion Ensembles. I'm sure some of these young people are going to be stars.   I had to have a "full Welsh" breakfast before leaving and the dear friend I stayed with lovingly prepared this excellent Jamaican Pepperpot Stew.  Then it was time to go and, as I passed the entrance to the Castle grounds at twilight, I couldn't help shedding some tears for the little dog I walked there so long ago.  "Ta'ra, love", I said to the 'Diff.  "I'll try and come back soon!"

Not that Cardiff is full of "tumble- down old shack streets" and not that my friends there are "corny country cousins" but this is for my hometown and for them:

SICILY SCENE'S REVIEW OF 2014

Here we go again!

Let's start with my event of the year, which was undoubtedly this:

For those of you who are interested, you can now easily access all my "adoption" posts from "My adoption posts" in the pages bar underneath the blog header photo.

My recipe of the year, from those I've invented myself, was this one:

These polpette came a close second:

My gadget of the year - well, more of an implement, really - is this €0,99 easy-ice-cream-scoop:

Of the books I've read this year, my favourite in Italian was this biography of the journalist Oriana Fallaci and my favourite in English has to be Edge of Eternity, which completes the Century Trilogy by my fellow-Cardiffian Ken Follett. More historical novels please, Ken!

My Scrooge of the year award goes to the Comune di Modica for scrapping the "single inhabitant" reduction when they introduced the hated new rubbish tax, the TARI, a few days before Christmas. Come on, Modica! There's no way I generate the same amount of rubbish as a family of five and I think I'm going to start a twitter campaign about this injustice.

Whilst we're being negative about poor old Modica, my most-read post of 2014 was, surprisingly,  this one, which attracted the attention of the local press. Sorry, Modica - I do love you, really.

On a more cheerful, seasonal note, the most original Christmas decoration award goes to Bar Cicara for their cork tree:

The Italian logic prize goes to the shopkeeper who, having discounted certain items by 50% and sold two to customer number one, then told customer number two - me - that the former had been "extravagant" as soon as she'd left the premises. I give up, Italy!

My favourite Italian TV programme of the year continues to be Masterchef Italia, which has just started its fourth series, closely followed by BakeOff Italia.  For those of you who missed it, here is the contestant who endeared herself to the entire nation by throwing her éclairs around the kitchen when they went wrong. Hasn't every cook been there?

I must show you my fun thing of the year:  it is this makeup box, a Christmas present from two of my youngest students and using it to update my all-important look is a very enjoyable way to pass the time!

My heroes of the year are the Italian Navy, Coast Guard and all who continue to risk their own lives and willingly give up their comfort at this time of year to save and help migrants and others, at sea and on land. Let us hope that there will be no more migrant tragedies in 2015, or tragedies like the two we have seen so far this week.

That brings me to my hopes for 2015:  as always, I hope for world peace, for peace in my own life, for more time with my precious Simi [now 16] and, this new year, for more time with my newfound sister.

Happy New Year to all of you and thank you for reading Sicily Scene!

Buon anno a tutti voi e grazie di aver letto la Sicily Scene!

OUT OF THE PAST - 5

Jill with our mother

Me with my mother

If anyone had told me a year ago that tonight I would be looking through an album of photos of my birth mother, given to me by a sister who had found me after 64 years, I would not have believed them. Jill brought the album when she visited me in October and there are photos of her, of my lovely new brother-in-law and of their children, too. On the front of the album the words, "To Pat from your family" are inscribed in gold and that means so much to me.

Every night I gaze at my birth mother's face, the first face I ever saw, and I find myself stroking her hair in the photos and saying,

"It's all right. I understand."

Then I pick up a picture of my other mum, the one who brought me up, and, running my fingers over the image of the face I knew so well, I tell her,

"It's all right. You're still my mum."

In the four months between our first contact and our meeting, Jill and I had exchanged many messages and letters and we were at ease with each other. The opportunity to learn more about my birth family was a gift that I had never thought I would have but of course there was sadness too: with one letter Jill enclosed a document showing that my birth mum had tried to find me in 1986 and I was so sorry that we had missed each other.

As I understand it, the adoption law in Britain was changed in 1975, making it possible for birth mothers and adoptees to have contact provided both wanted it and that the adoptee had gone through a period of counselling. For this to be possible, both parties had to register their interest with the General Register Office.  The document I received from Jill is a brief, cold, to-the-point letter to my birth mum, telling her that her interest had been "noted" and that, should I apply to the same office for access to my birth records, the counsellor dealing with me would be informed. Nothing else, no promises and not even a sentence at the end offering to help with any other queries regarding the process. The letter contains hand-written alterations and additions - I'm sure we had correction fluid by 1986! - and is dismissive in tone. Or is it just the heartlessness of officialdom?

In 1986 I was 36 years old, was being a career woman and generally battling with life. I had had an accident the year before which had led me to have three operations and I wasn't particularly well. This makes me wonder if my birth mum sensed it in some way; I believe it is possible. I have explained my reasons for not trying to find her here but I had no need to apply to the General Register Office for my birth records as I knew the story and I had the adoption documents. As I have said previously, we all do what we think is best at a given time.

Some years later Jill rang the General Register Office number that is on the letter and found it to be obsolete. Not even knowing my surname, what could she do? But she didn't give up and her friends knew of her quest. One day, a friend of hers heard that there was a conference in London for people trying to find adopted relatives and he attended on her behalf. That is where he was given the contact details for the lady from the Norfolk County Council Adoption Department and these he passed on to Jill. This was the lady who found me that day in May. I cannot thank Jill's friend and the Norfolk lady enough.

November 1950, the month in which I was adopted, was exceptionally rainy even for the UK and all these years later, at the end of an unusually dry November in my part of Sicily, here I am with photos of my birth mum to cherish and a new family to love. Christmas is approaching and believe me, I know the extent to which the festive season can make you feel like an outcast if you are on your own. So I would like to tell you this: two years ago, in November, an incredibly difficult period began for me and I reached a very low point. If you ever feel as bad as that, please hold on: yes, life can fall apart but it can also become wonderful again just when you don't expect it. Please, please, hold on.....

To be continued.

SABATO MUSICALE

Tonight I'm dedicating this version of Il nostro concerto, sung by two of my favourite Italian singers, to both my mums.

Ovunque sei, ovunque adesso sei

Dove sarai, mi troverai vicino a te.

Wherever you are, wherever you are now,

Wherever you are in the future, you'll find me near you.

Orietta Berti e Claudio Baglioni - Il nostro concerto

OUT OF THE PAST - 4

"All I can say is that she was beautiful."

Jill with our mother

Me with my mother

I cried for a long time after reading those words that my birth mother had written about me in her last letter to my sister, Jill. Then I looked through the photos again and, although in some of them there were unmistakeable signs of sadness in my birth mother's face, there were also photos of her with Jill in which she looked radiant. After the unimaginable pain of the sacrifice she had made for me, and later for our brother, I was so glad that she had known the joy not only of a lovely daughter in Jill, but of grandchildren.

This knowledge made me feel calmer and now I needed to gather my thoughts and reply to the kind letter I had received from Jill.  As I began to do so, I suddenly realised that there was a problem and it was a linguistic one: what should I call my birth mum when writing to Jill? It seemed disloyal to call her "my mum", though she undoubtedly was, because the mother who had brought me up was undoubtedly "my mum" too. I couldn't betray her now with a possessive adjective. I decided that I had to be honest with Jill and said, in that first reply, that I hoped she would understand if I referred to my adoptive mum as "my mum" and my birth mum as "our mother". I needn't have worried; Jill immediately understood and I already loved her.

As I started to tell friends, both here and back in Britain, what had happened, all were pleased for me, particularly here. I was aware, however, that there were some who were judging my birth mother, though only one said anything to my face. To that person and others like her I can only quote the Bible:

"Judge not and ye shall not be judged."

My birth mother had had three children out of wedlock with three different fathers but she had loved us all and had done what she thought was best for each of us.  I would also say that, if you have the comfort and security of a life partner, you have no business judging those of us who do not. I was, and am, glad that my birth mum found happiness, however fleeting, in the arms of three men for whom she obviously cared very much, for I know what it is like to be without such solace. Secondly, we should remember that we are talking about a very different era, a cold and still censorious culture, men who were away from home and a woman who had survived wartime Britain.

When a second letter from Jill came, I learned that my birth mum had played her part in that war, for she had been in the ATS. I felt so proud of her! Then, as the letters began to flow between us, I found out more about my birth mum and was delighted to learn that she had been a great reader and that, like me, she was fond of all kinds of music.

There were things that Jill and I had in common, too, although we had had very different lives:  we both knew what it was like to live "behind the shop", for instance, as my parents had run a newsagent's in Bristol for the first nine years of my life and Jill and her husband had run three newagent's shops. We seemed to share the same kind of humour, too, had been rebellious at school and we both write easily.

But the most important thing that we have in common is that we had loving childhoods and, although I haven't found the kind of love that we all seek, I have been very lucky, for I was deeply loved by my parents, not once, but twice and now I have the love of a sister.

To be continued.

OUT OF THE PAST - 3

I had learned, for sure, that my birth mother had loved me and now I had to wait for a letter from my half-sister, Jill, who had been looking for me for 15 years. It wasn't going to be an easy letter for Jill to write, so I understood that it might take some time. It came surprisingly quickly, during another Sicilian siesta hour, with a covering email from the lady in the Norfolk Adoption Department.

"Are you ready for this?" she  wrote. "It's very emotional."

I was as ready as I would ever be. I had an afternoon appointment within minutes, but I had to look. First, I opened Jill's letter, in which she told me about her search for me, her family and our half-brother in America. It was so kind and affectionate in tone that I felt close to Jill immediately, as I had known I would. There was a photo of her as well and I liked the pretty, gentle-looking woman I saw. Jill had enclosed my birth mother's last letter and several photos labelled "photos of birth mother, etc." I  was  already crying, so I realised I would have to leave the letter till I got back, but I couldn't resist opening the photos.

Suddenly, before me, was a woman whose features I recognised because - and this dawned slowly - they were also mine and she was smiling out at me. This was the first time I had seen a photo of any birth relative and I cannot describe what it was like. The overwhelming feeling was one of, "So there you are, with me at last" and I kept wanting to reach out and touch her. I think I did. 

Of  the second photo, Jill had written, 

"This is a photo of mum with an American soldier called *****, in London in 1949. Could this be your natural father, Pat?"

My birth mum and natural father,
London, 1949

I knew that he was, from the name  [which I won't give here] on the adoption documents, so after 64 years, I was sitting in Sicily looking at a picture of my natural father, too!  I certainly hadn't expected that....

Still feeling I was dreaming, I walked to my appointment, but my mind, as you can imagine, wasn't in Modica at all. I was thinking of a young couple in London in 1949 - it was even possible that my birth mum was pregnant with me when the picture was taken - and of another couple who were happy in London at around the same time:

My adoptive parents,
London, 1940s

Later that day, I came home and opened my birth mum's letter. I caught my breath as I saw her handwriting with the same upward slope as mine had when I was younger. After explaining that my natural father had died in America and that she had been under a lot of pressure to have me adopted, my birth mum writes, of me,

"I can't go into it all now and all I can say is that she was beautiful."

Then I put my head down on the desk and wept.

To be continued.

Post scriptum:
I can now tell you that when I posted this sabato musicale at the end of May, it was for my birth mum.