My dear mother has moved nearer to me and is living at a beautiful assisted living residence in Billericay. I've been sorting things out for her back at her flat and I came across a letter she wrote back in 1994, she's approaching 78 this year so she must have been 52 when she wrote this. It just brought back memories of what she used to say to me and the stories that my Nan used to share. She has allowed me to share it with you.
1st November 1994
Dear Sir,
There was once, at about the beginning of this century, a part of London that was alive with Italian and Irish emigrants. It was known as 'Little Italy' and was largely in Clerkenwell, slap bang in the middle of the city. It must have lasted about 50 years before they all moved out.
It was poor but there was a colourful and vigorous rapport between the people, the like of which I don't think this country will ever see again. If it was skillfully investigated and made into a series, it would put Eastenders to shame!
My mother came from such a family, one of nine children. She had an Italian father and an English/Irish mother, and to this day she can tell many stories about her colourful childhood memories. She is now 84.
I have written a commentary on this and also one or two stories.........
The Ghetto in the Heart of London
As I sat back with my mother the other Sunday to watch Eastenders I thought that Phil Mitchell's scriptwriter must have lots of time off as he only has a vocabulary of about 5 words (I can't say much more for Kathy) and yet this series entertains millions of British people 3 times a week. It is one of the most highly watched shows on television.
I thought to myself what an illiterate and witless state our nation must be in to feed on this stuff and yet I am one of them. I suppose I watch it because there isn't much else on.
Later that day my mother was telling me about one or two incidents in her childhood, a childhood she has talked about very often over the years. Yet even though she often repeats the stories I keep listening because it gives her a lot of joy to recount those happy years in Clerkenwell, and I still get pleasure in just listening.
Just imagine I thought, if they did a TV series of Clerkenwell, it was in the heart of the city of London, it was known as 'Little Italy' and was really an Italian ghetto. I guess it started at the beginning of the century and in about the late 40's and 50's the people started moving out to the suburbs of London. Although the greater proportion of the people who lived there were Italian, the community was a unique mixture of Italians, English and Irish, all blending in together to make a society whose richness of wit, humour and love remain in the hearts of all who lived there and indeed in their children who heard their tales, learned their songs and enjoyed their humour. It was a society without racism, violence or hatred but bustling with a vigorous and defiant spirit to combat poverty. Yet poverty was their bonding, as well as a simple Christianity, forming bonds that were to last a lifetime.
Just imagine, the very heart of the city, it was a Dickensian setting. Saffron Hill, Farringdon Road, Leather Lane, Holborn, Hatton Garden. I can remember as a child being taken up to see the Italian Procession in the Farringdon Road and seeing my Aunty Carolina, an old Italian lady sitting in a chair outside her home in one of the many cobbled back streets that were there then in that area. The elderly people were always given an amount of reverence then, they were the centre of family life. People did sit outside their homes then and the doors were always open. They were a vociferous people and the streets were never quiet. As I look around the silent, empty streets of Essex today I often find myself longing for a different society, maybe a society of the past. Nowadays people just seem to come out of their front doors and get into their cars and off they go to join the metal highway - fast, noisy and lonely. Hardly anybody just goes for a walk anymore.
Then everybody would dress up in their best clothes on a Sunday evening and go for a walk, four or five abreast, linking arms, what a parade it was! It was also a time for the boys to eye the girls and vice versa. Then, we weren't fed on a diet of instant sex films, and it was also likely that most girls had a chaperone backing of brothers or cousins, so courtship was always a necessary process (well, nearly always). Also, there was no bad language then. Well, with the two most articulate races in the world (the Italians and the Irish), it wasn't necessary!
There they went the Sabini's and the Cozzi's, the Costello's and the Donahue's. Needless to say, there were many mixed marriages, and from what I hear the cultures blended well together.
There were many stories to tell about those years, but really they are best coming from the Clerkenwellian's themselves. They are told in such a lyrical way that writing them down does not do them justice.
I, for one am convinced that life should be like a mixed salad, each race and culture complementing one another. I don't mean intermarriage because some cultures aren't compatible, but mixing together in other ways. Perhaps my little story will help.
Clerkenwell
One story
Every Saturday evening at 8:00 pm the bell from St. Peter's Italian Church would ring out:
"Quick! Nutley's is closing, let's get down there!" shouted one kid to another, and they would all run down in a mad scramble to Leather Lane and dive under the fruit and veg' stalls to pick up the pieces. Nutley's, the main greengrocers, would hand out the leftovers to whoever was lucky enough to be there. They would bite the bad bits out of the apples and pears and eat the rest, nectar to a hungry belly, and take the rest back home to their mothers who would soon dispose of them, many having large families of seven or more children.
Song "I came all the way from Italy and ended up in Saffron Hill."
Nicknames
There were quite a few nicknames around Clerkenwell, they were terrible mickey-takers, that was the Irish influence. One of them was 'Bosco Rowen'. He was some poor creature who lived around Clerkenwell who had two crossed eyes. To put it into context, if you were searching for something at home and could not find it, your mother or brother might say, "it's there, right under your nose, Bosco Rowen!"
Even today, although the people have spread out, the name is used among their friends and family in everyday language.
1st November 1994
Dear Sir,
There was once, at about the beginning of this century, a part of London that was alive with Italian and Irish emigrants. It was known as 'Little Italy' and was largely in Clerkenwell, slap bang in the middle of the city. It must have lasted about 50 years before they all moved out.
It was poor but there was a colourful and vigorous rapport between the people, the like of which I don't think this country will ever see again. If it was skillfully investigated and made into a series, it would put Eastenders to shame!
My mother came from such a family, one of nine children. She had an Italian father and an English/Irish mother, and to this day she can tell many stories about her colourful childhood memories. She is now 84.
I have written a commentary on this and also one or two stories.........
The Ghetto in the Heart of London
As I sat back with my mother the other Sunday to watch Eastenders I thought that Phil Mitchell's scriptwriter must have lots of time off as he only has a vocabulary of about 5 words (I can't say much more for Kathy) and yet this series entertains millions of British people 3 times a week. It is one of the most highly watched shows on television.
I thought to myself what an illiterate and witless state our nation must be in to feed on this stuff and yet I am one of them. I suppose I watch it because there isn't much else on.
Later that day my mother was telling me about one or two incidents in her childhood, a childhood she has talked about very often over the years. Yet even though she often repeats the stories I keep listening because it gives her a lot of joy to recount those happy years in Clerkenwell, and I still get pleasure in just listening.
Just imagine I thought, if they did a TV series of Clerkenwell, it was in the heart of the city of London, it was known as 'Little Italy' and was really an Italian ghetto. I guess it started at the beginning of the century and in about the late 40's and 50's the people started moving out to the suburbs of London. Although the greater proportion of the people who lived there were Italian, the community was a unique mixture of Italians, English and Irish, all blending in together to make a society whose richness of wit, humour and love remain in the hearts of all who lived there and indeed in their children who heard their tales, learned their songs and enjoyed their humour. It was a society without racism, violence or hatred but bustling with a vigorous and defiant spirit to combat poverty. Yet poverty was their bonding, as well as a simple Christianity, forming bonds that were to last a lifetime.
Just imagine, the very heart of the city, it was a Dickensian setting. Saffron Hill, Farringdon Road, Leather Lane, Holborn, Hatton Garden. I can remember as a child being taken up to see the Italian Procession in the Farringdon Road and seeing my Aunty Carolina, an old Italian lady sitting in a chair outside her home in one of the many cobbled back streets that were there then in that area. The elderly people were always given an amount of reverence then, they were the centre of family life. People did sit outside their homes then and the doors were always open. They were a vociferous people and the streets were never quiet. As I look around the silent, empty streets of Essex today I often find myself longing for a different society, maybe a society of the past. Nowadays people just seem to come out of their front doors and get into their cars and off they go to join the metal highway - fast, noisy and lonely. Hardly anybody just goes for a walk anymore.
Then everybody would dress up in their best clothes on a Sunday evening and go for a walk, four or five abreast, linking arms, what a parade it was! It was also a time for the boys to eye the girls and vice versa. Then, we weren't fed on a diet of instant sex films, and it was also likely that most girls had a chaperone backing of brothers or cousins, so courtship was always a necessary process (well, nearly always). Also, there was no bad language then. Well, with the two most articulate races in the world (the Italians and the Irish), it wasn't necessary!
There they went the Sabini's and the Cozzi's, the Costello's and the Donahue's. Needless to say, there were many mixed marriages, and from what I hear the cultures blended well together.
There were many stories to tell about those years, but really they are best coming from the Clerkenwellian's themselves. They are told in such a lyrical way that writing them down does not do them justice.
I, for one am convinced that life should be like a mixed salad, each race and culture complementing one another. I don't mean intermarriage because some cultures aren't compatible, but mixing together in other ways. Perhaps my little story will help.
Clerkenwell
One story
Every Saturday evening at 8:00 pm the bell from St. Peter's Italian Church would ring out:
"Quick! Nutley's is closing, let's get down there!" shouted one kid to another, and they would all run down in a mad scramble to Leather Lane and dive under the fruit and veg' stalls to pick up the pieces. Nutley's, the main greengrocers, would hand out the leftovers to whoever was lucky enough to be there. They would bite the bad bits out of the apples and pears and eat the rest, nectar to a hungry belly, and take the rest back home to their mothers who would soon dispose of them, many having large families of seven or more children.
Song "I came all the way from Italy and ended up in Saffron Hill."
Nicknames
There were quite a few nicknames around Clerkenwell, they were terrible mickey-takers, that was the Irish influence. One of them was 'Bosco Rowen'. He was some poor creature who lived around Clerkenwell who had two crossed eyes. To put it into context, if you were searching for something at home and could not find it, your mother or brother might say, "it's there, right under your nose, Bosco Rowen!"
Even today, although the people have spread out, the name is used among their friends and family in everyday language.
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