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Easter Lovat                                   Debra Tuckett

It must be sixty years ago, the day Antonio arrived at our farm. One of my strongest memories of the Italians is their singing. They were always singing. Not just Antonio, who sang most of the time he was working and, sometimes, for me but all of the prisoners-of-war. We could hear them coming down the farm tracks in army lorries singing their hearts out. Couldn't understand a word of it, of course, but that didn't matter. The sound of them cheered us up, especially in those long winter months; we would listen out for them everyday on the way to school. They were so damn happy all the time - or at least they seemed to be. Glad to be out of it, I'm sure and they were treated very well too. I think they were grateful. I know Antonio was. At the end of the war some of them stayed. They fell in love you see ...and married local lasses. It was that Italian charm and because they were different I suppose. Yes, they were different all right.

 Italy, May 1940

Antonio Colazzi was a reluctant soldier. He didn't want to fight or kill or maim. He wanted only to live and work on his father's farm in Umbria where the sun-baked hillsides are covered in olive groves and life is governed by the seasons. Instead, he was conscripted into Mussolini's army, the Regie Esercito as soon as fall mobilisation had been declared in May 1940. He was twenty-two years old and had left Umbria only once in his life to visit Rome for a few days. His call-up papers said that he should be at Perugia railway station by 9am on 26th May. That morning his entire family went with him in their horse-drawn cart. They stood with him on the platform, waiting for the train to come and take him away; his mother and sisters weeping, his father pacing up and down; Luigi, only seven, the youngest of the Colazzi children standing, silently, at Antonio's side, gripping his trouser leg as if that would stop him leaving.
    Eventually, the train arrived and Luigi had to be prised like a limpet from Antonio's leg. Nothing would comfort the boy as the train pulled out of the station. Antonio's waving figure disappeared into the distance and no one knew if they would ever see him again.
    Antonio could not find a seat on the train crowded with other conscripts from all over Umbria, so he stood in a corridor and wondered what lay ahead. He did not know why his country was fighting a war against the English. In that other war, which had ended the year he was born, the Italians and the British had fought on the same side. Now they were the enemies.
    He lit a cigarette and offered one to the young man standing beside him, who was gazing solemnly out of the window. "Grazie, Signore. Come si chiamo?" "Antonio Colazzi. E lei?" "Domenico Palumbi. Piacere Antonio"
    The two men grinned at each other glad of a distraction from the pain of leaving their home and family. They spent the rest of the journey exchanging information. It turned out that Domenico came from a village ten miles north of Gubbio and Antonio's home was five miles south of the town. They hoped that because they came from the same part of Umbria, they would be put in the same unit. They were and after six weeks of basic training they found themselves boarding a troop ship docked in Naples. Their destination was withheld from them until they were safely out at sea.