SO WHO ... WHAT AM I?

Luigi Matteo Antonio Criscuolo

The last time I saw him Luigi Matteo Antonio Criscuolo didn't look very well but I couldn't be sure that he was ill. He'd always been very thin. He worked in the forests in the Lattari Mountains that are the spine of the Sorrento Peninsula.

I was thoroughly amused, when I first met him, by this Italian who had an archetypal Englishman's tan - the white T-shirt tan.  He really was a lovely man. Generous to a fault. Didn't say much. Only spoke when it was necessary to do so. When he had something to say or to ask.

He'd married when he was a young man - I don't know how young - but it seems that the marriage never worked out and he shared a house in Amalfi with his wife for no more than a few months before moving back to the family house in Pontone and spending the rest of his life sharing the house with his sister who never married.

He'd spent a few months - probably not much more - in Hastings in the '60s working in his brother's restaurant - Il Saraceno. Now and again he'd remind us with a single word of English spoken with a heavy southern Italian accent and a massive smile.

From him I learned loads of those little things that you normally learn from your nan and grampa but these came from a different world to the ones I learned from mine - always let the spring water run over your hand and wash the sweat off your hand before you use it to scoop the water into your mouth (not the sort of thing you learn in Buckinghamshire ... or Crewe). Don't drink while you're eating; Only drink between courses. He taught me how to make real lemonade with lemons the size of grapefruits. He showed me how to make vino paesano, how to set a pizza oven going, how to carry a crate of grapes without doing myself a mischief and how to get the lemon trees ready for the winter.

My son adored him. He wanted a hat like Luigi; he wanted this, that and the other like Luigi.  He smoked and drank but not in any way that we'd recognize. Half a bottle of Peroni or Moretti with dinner and one fag afterwards.

In the middle of May 2007 - I don't remember the date exactly - I got an email from a friend in Bari to say that Luigi was very ill. I phoned the mother of a cousin in Amalfi. He had liver cancer. That's why he'd looked so ill when we'd seen him the previous summer. I phoned my cousin and asked her to tell me the moment she got any news - good or bad. A few days later, on the 27th of May, she texted me - Stamattina Luigi è volato nel cielo (this morning Luigi flew to heaven). He was 71.

He was buried next day. I didn't even get to fly over to pay my last respects. I was gutted. Gutted almost sounds trivial or flippant but it's the right word. I felt like my guts had been ripped out.

He and his sister accepted me as family, no questions asked on that day in October 1999 when we first met them. They took me into their house, no strings attached and made me one of them. Generosity of spirit like that is rare.

Luigi was one of those people whose whole face lit up when he smiled and he smiled a lot.

For the last 36 years I've expended a good deal of time and energy trying to keep the promise I made to grampa and 10 years ago, when I re-established contact with the family in Pontone, I achieved something that he neither envisaged nor hoped for and something that he would have loved if he'd lived to see it. I still cry when I allow myself to brood on the fact that he never lived to see me married; never lived to see his grandson; never lived to meet Maria, Luigi, Matteo, Orazio and a thousand others.

But after all this time, I sit down sometimes (invariably with a bottle of red wine or two) and think about the promise and me.

Despite all that I have achieved and all that I have tried to achieve, it seems to me that, in a perverse and pedantic way, no matter what I do, I shall never be able to keep it. I promised never to forget that I am Italian. Those were the words. It is a pedantic point but, no matter what way I cut it, I am forced to the conclusion that I am not Italian and never will be.

I am Mark Anthony Criscuolo. I speak Italian. My paternal origins lie in Pontone di Scala. I have family there with whom I am extremely close. I love the place and the people. Despite all that, I am not Italian. I have never been properly socialized as an Italian. I am an Englishman ... if someone whose paternal line is foreign can ever be an Englishman. Let me put the question more obviously and simplistically. Could I ever be a Chinaman even if my family had lived there for three generations?

On the other hand, dad's maternal line is English as is mum's paternal line. Her maternal line is Jersiaise ... or, in some cases, Guernesiaise. French. But they don't give me my name. My name is Mark Anthony, son of Anthony Thomas, son of Alfred, son of Nicola, son of Pasquale, son of Luigi ... . I'm working on the rest.

Of course, this all raises the question whether it matters, and if it does, why it matters.  Why should I care whether I am categorized as English or Italian? What difference does it make? Aren't both a gross oversimplification in any event?

I know the answer to the third question and it's 'yes'. Dad's dad's family is from the Sorrento peninsula (Amalfi, Scala and Minori to be exact). Dad's mum's family is from that area where Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire meet with a bit of Wiltshire thrown in. Probably safe to say then that they're Germano-Celtic (on the assumption that the advent of the Angles and the Saxons didn't constitute a population replacement event).

Mum's dad's family come from Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. All Scandinavian then (on the basis that the Viking thing was a population replacement event. At least north of Watling Street). Mum's mum's family is from Jersey, Surrey and Wiltshire. A bit of a mix but Scandinavian (the Norman French having started their journey in Scandinavia), and Germano-Celtic in that order.

So ... why do I feel the need to be, or be seen to be, Italian? There's probably more Swedish in me than there is Italian.

One of my brothers had one of those ethnic DNA tests done at www.genetree.com. He got 94% European, 5% East Asian and 1% Sub-Saharan African. Nothing unusual in that. His European broke down to 43% South-Eastern European, 40% Northern European, 12% South Asian and 5% Middle Eastern. I had great hopes that my questions would be answered when he told me he was getting the test done but what sort of answer is that.

Actually, it is an answer (of sorts). The average Italian profile is 46% South-Eastern European, 35% Northern European, 10% South Asian and 9% Middle Eastern. That's a fairly close match. Fairly close. This tells me that my DNA looks pretty much like the DNA of the Average Italian; especially when you compare it with the average Northern European profile (6% South-Eastern European, 82% Northern European, 1% South Asian and 11% Middle Eastern).

Is that my answer?

Amalfi seen from Pontone

So what is an Italian? What a banal question. An inane question even. They're not necessarily banal or inane for the obvious politically correct reasons although that might well be true too. It's questionable whether there is such a thing as 'an Italian'. The country was only created about 150 years ago. As a state, it's even younger than the US and the people are fiercely regionalist.

It's true that they love their food and their wine but there's more to it than that. If you've never been out to eat in a restaurant with a group of Italians, you should. Can you imagine going to a good restaurant and arguing with the chef about how this, that or the other should be cooked? The Italians will. Vociferously ... and the chef doesn't take offence. Why would he? Would you drive clear across Rome for a cup of decent coffee? The Italians will. Would you do the same for decent ice cream. Absolutely.

Their curses are real curses. They don't just call you names. When they tell you to go away, they tell you to go and commit sodomy with your mother. One of the worst things you can call a fella is a cuckold. They put curses on your dead ancestors, the fella who rings the bells at your funeral and the fella who saves you on your deathbed. They implore the Gods to kill you or to throw away your blood. These are invoke only rarely though. More often than not they simply curse misery or the saint of nothing - I have to admit that I've only ever heard any of these used in jest and never in anger.

They've got their 'Sun readers' as well. As a generalization, it is fair to say that there is real animosity between the north and the south. So much so that there is a political party (Lega Nord) whose principal policy is cutting the south (below Rome) adrift to fend for themselves. My impression is that these people constitute a vociferous minority but that may be because of the type of people I mix with and could be a totally false impression.

In the UK the scapegoats are the Poles, the Portuguese or the Romanians. In Italy it's the Albanians and the North Africans. Their complaints about immigrants are no different to the complaints we hear among readers of the Mail, the Express and the Sun. Their politicians are as bent as ours are. They have the same love-hate relationship with the yanks (Amerdicani) as the Brits do. The rich are just as filthy and the masses just as unwashed as they are in the UK.

La grande marina, Amalfi

This is a country where they have two police forces - one a militia (carabinieri (the men who carry carbine rifles)) and one civilian (polizia) - and where they fear the tax police (Guardia di Finanze), who carry .38s and sub machine guns, more than they fear the police. When people find out that I'm a 'finanziere' (a tax collector), you can see the blood drain from their faces. I have to reassure them that 'i finanzieri' in the UK are peace loving people. We don't get a .38. The only thing we get given to do our job is a pen and piece of paper.

What does it mean to be Italian? I have absolutely no idea.  The question I don't know the answer to - or one of them at least - is why I'm bothered about being one thing or the other.  I dislike people who wrap themselves in their national flag and descend into a nationalist fervour. I hate it particularly, when the Brits and the Yanks do it. They seem to become more obnoxious than almost anybody else when they get themselves into that sort of mood.

That being the case, why is it so important to me to be 'an Italian' rather than 'an Englishman'? Especially given Cecil Rhodes' reassurance - 'remember that you were born an Englishman and have therefore won 1st prize in the lottery of life'. Why should a man who hates nationalism be at all concerned about what national badge is pinned on his lapel?

I have never been comfortable being a member of things and go out of my way to evade classification - when someone remarked on the earrings in my left ear with approval because only 'queers' wear them in their right ear, I went out and got a ring put in my right ear. I'm a civil servant who looks like an aging anarchist - four earrings in my left ear, an earring and a bar in my right ear and several tattoos (all of which are easily hidden, I hasten to add. I'm not that much of an anarchist).

It might reasonably be said that I've gone out of my way to paint myself as being anything but respectable. I'm the one who, in pretentious company, pours his tea into his saucer and drinks it from the saucer. That doesn't answer the question about the badge on my lapel though.

Did the promise have that much of an effect on me? Have I become a slave to the promise? I don't think so. Is it just a desire to be different? Now that's entirely possible.

So am I Italian or ... or simply Marco Criscuolo? We went back to Amalfi this year. Flew out from Liverpool on Friday the 25th of September and back on Monday the 5th of October. Too short? Yes and no. Yes too short by a lifetime. No because I felt more like a foreigner in some ways than ever before.

Whenever we go over, I go out there putting myself under tremendous pressure. I have to stop by and see everyone that I know there - friends, relatives, acquaintances ... each and every one of them. I have to eat in every restaurant whose owner is my friend and that's becoming expensive. Believe me. Especially with the Euro and Sterling practically at one-to-one.

Lattari Mountains

I love the place. I could happily spend the rest of my life wandering through the Lattari Mountains with my camera trying to capture moments of exquisite and immortal beauty with my digital machine.

I could happily spend the rest of my life sat in the square in Pontone with a bottle of Peroni (not Nastro Azzuro) in the blissful peace that envelopes that square.  I could quite happily spend the rest of my life sat at a table in Piazza del Duomo in Amalfi with a glass of wine watching the constant stream of humanity pass me by ... every now and again a person stops, throws his or her arms around me and chats for a few minutes about everything and nothing.  I love it. Love it.

Notwithstanding all of that, until I can master the language I can never truly be a part of it. I wasn't brought up bilingual. I taught myself Italian when I was 13. I bought an internet radio for the kitchen so that I can have Italian radio going constantly in the hope that it would deepen my immersion in the language and, consequently, my fluency. It didn't work. I made stupid mistakes and I hate making stupid mistakes. It's only me that cares about the mistakes of course but that's not the point.

Has the promise possessed me? Have I taken it too much to heart? I don't know the answer to those questions. Who am I? Where am I? I don't know the answer to those questions either. I was chatting to a friend when we were there and I did or said something and he asked me what I was doing. I told him not to worry about it. I'm an Englishman was my excuse. No you're not, he said. You are Marco Criscuolo. You are Italian. The name is enough?

I did learn a few things from this holiday and a few useful things too. The pressure thing is pointless and counterproductive. It's a holiday. It's time to chill. I should behave there just as I would at home. Shall we go out tonight? No, we'll stay at home and watch 'Verso il Millione' (Who wants to be a millionaire) and eat fried pepperoncini in front of the telly. Let's go out for a stroll along the seafront and have a coffee or an ice cream or a beer ... or even a glass of wine. Let's do nothing. Let's not have a holiday there. Let's live there for two weeks.