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Tanya Pia-Starret This article appeared in the Guardian on the 22.03.08 Snapshot Mio nonno’s cafe, The Favourite
I first saw this photograph of my grandfather’s cafe in a book about the art deco movement of the 1920s and 30s. The picture was taken in the mid- 1950s, just as the last remnants of rationing were ending . The cafe was in Glasgow’s Maryhill Road and was run by our family from the mid-1920s to the early 1970s, when large-scale housing demolition in Glasgow robbed a number of family-run cafes of their core clientele. Like thousands of others,my grandfather, mio nonno, Tommaso Pia, had emigrated from Italy to the UK just after the first world war.He started out with an ice cream barrow that he would take around the streets of Glasgow’s West End. He then leased the shop and called it The Favourite, in recognition of the locals’ preference for his ice cream over the many rival Italians in the area. This was a time of growing prosperity for my grandfather that would end abruptly in 1940 with his arrest and internment as an enemy alien. He spent the next three years on the Isle of Man, but the cafe survived because of the efforts of my grandmother and their daughters, one of whom was my mother. The end of rationing saw the cafe once again flourish, but my grandfather would only enjoy a few years of this renewed prosperity before his death in 1960. It was always a family joke that no one would admit to being the person “caught” photographed in the doorway. I always thought it resembled my mother’s profile, but she unequivocally argued that she would never have worn those shoes! Sadly, my mum, too, died, three years ago. I never met my grandfather — he died before I was born — but to this day, I just have to look at this photograph and the sights, tears and laughter of 50 years of my family’s history come flooding back to me. Tanya Starrett Tanya is now living in Italy with David and running the Campo Grande Bed and Breakfast
Al Rizza 50 years of the Club Romano and it's associated football teams. Outline
As the 50th anniversary of the Club Romano is coming up we decided to highlight one of Scotland's longest serving Italian clubs.
The Club Romano was founded on the 2nd Tuesday in May 1956, at a meeting
called by Al Rizza in the Continental Ballroom, Dundee. The founding members
were Peter Ianetta, Flora Fugaccia, Michael Esposito, Philip Sciortino,
Joe Fugaccia, John Costella, and Al Rizza. John Costella was appointed
President, due to his position at the time as Italian vice-consul.
The purpose of the club was to unite the community through various social
functions, and to preserve the various ethnic activities.
A number of functions took place such as dance evenings, dinner dances and
general get-togethers. One such evening was the Charity Dance in aid of the
Hungarian Relief fund, chaired by Al Rizza, which included Ciano Soave,
Berto Vettraino, Joe Delnevo and realised over 2,000 pounds. Recently a
charity
dinner raised money for the cardiovascular unit at Ninewells Hospital in
Dundee.
The following piece and photograph comes courtesy of the Evening Telegraph "In the photo, the boys are pictured with FRANK CARLIN, who was secretary at that time with the well-known Club Romano outfit."
Alva Glen was first chosen as the premises for the Club Romano, but since then the club has acquired a new location, the future now is in the hands of the next generation. Prof. Julian Frullani (Italy) January 2002
 Prof
Julian Frullani, currently working in Florence has been kind enough to forward
me these interesting photographs.
This photograph on the left features Julian's father William Frullani with a Morris ice-cream van, ca. 1935. Julian tells me it was still is use in 1960 when he drove it himself ! (Click to enlarge)
This photograph on the right features Italian
immigrants in Gatehouse-of-Fleet ca. 1915
living in Swan Street. The older man in the photograph is Giulio
Frullani who worked in the copper mines
at Castramont, near Gatehouse.
A few years later he opened his fish and chip
shop.
He was interned on the Isle of Man with
his brother during the war years. He
thankfully was not involved in the Arandora Star
disaster. (Click to enlarge)
'Ha.penny a poke.' The exert on the left was featured in The Galloway News during the 1950's but features a photograph that is dated 1916. Click on the picture to enlarge it and read the article. (Don't forget to press Back on your browser to return to this page.)
Dr Mark J Pierotti and the Dubai & Abu Dhabi Scottish Italian Society. As if moving from Barga to Paisley was not traumatic enough a branch of the Peirotti family has moved to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, not to see if Scotsitalians can sell fish and chips and ice cream to the Arabs (they probably could), but to assist in aviation in the area. Dr. Mark Pierotti is the son of Alberto and Elizabeth Pierotti and Grandson of Guiseppe Pierotti and Olimpia Lamari from Barga. Today Mark is the CEO of AJA Private Jets an airline based in Abu Dhabi the UAE. Mark is also a professor of Air Transport Engineering & Air Transport Management and has published texts on Aircraft Maintenance Engineering. A far cry from the Paisley Pierotti family who ran numerous chip shops in Renfrewshire area. On this reflective note Mark comments that “It was a wonderful childhood being Scottish Italian in Paisley, thank God our Genitori had the pioneering spirit, can you imagine the fear of leaving poor from a small Tuscan village with nothing, to go to start a new life in Scotland???? My Nonno started pushing a wheelbarrow in Barrhead & Paisley selling home made ice cream. Here am I now in Abu Dhabi. I feel so humble.” Mark has lived & work in the UAE for 15 years and is the only member along with his four children of “The Abu Dhabi & Dubai Scottish Italian Club”, but he is hoping for more members. Marks children have a great mix of Scottish and Italian names, Marco, Luke, Iona & Kristian.
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Peter Muccini Non era gran cosa This article recently appeared in The Times newspaper and have reproduced it with the kind permission of the author. "The Italians first came to Scotland in the late 1800s as peddlers selling plaster saints door-to-door to devout Irish Roman Catholic working class families in and around Glasgow and Edinburgh. These itinerant traders came mainly from Tuscany and Emilia -- regions that straddle the northern Apennine mountain range -- from towns and villages around major centres such as Parma, Piacenza, Lucca and Pisa where there has long been a tradition of craftsmanship in the plastic arts. They soon realised there was a more durable market in the shape of a catering service for a largely undernourished industrial working class. Scotland was rich in both fish and potatoes so the Italians went into the fish and chip trade. By 1900 they were prospering and bringing over relatives suffering dire poverty in the motherland. Business expanded with the introduction of mosaic and marble ice cream parlours and tea rooms where young couples of modest incomes could have a taste of luxury. This attracted immigrants from other parts of Italy, mainly from the south around Cassino and Naples who had traditionally gone to America. Scotland was nearer and the opportunities were just as good. More came after the United States closed the door to further Italian immigrants. In the meanwhile the Italians spread out all over Scotland and today every telephone directory from John O’Groats to Gretna Green has a goodly sprinkling of their names. Some retired back to their native villages in Italy where even today they startle British tourists by suddenly switching from a melodious Italian into English with a broad Glasgow accent." Read about Peter's recollection as a child of Italian parents living in Scotland during World War II.
Jules It's a small world........ I'm actually English - but who's perfect? I have a small business selling
holiday property around the Garfagnana area and was always amazed at the number
of apparent Glaswegians in the area. This was an accent I easily recognised as I
had a day job working for a large American company that was setting up a call
centre at the end of Bath Street, Glasgow at the time. I realised it was a small world when I stopped for lunch in Coreglia Antelminelli and met the young Scotsitalian lady who runs the hairdressers in the town. She told me that her father ran an Italian restaurant in Sauchiehall Street. I told her that I frequently visited Glasgow and what I was doing. She then correctly identified the building I worked in and told me her father's restaurant was next door. I realised I'd had dinner in there the week before !!!
Stevie Rodgers (Australia) June 2001
The above photographs have been kindly sent in by Stevie Rodgers a third generation Scots Italian now living in Australia. The early van belonged to his grandfather Leonello Giovannetti (featured) who originated from Barga but plied his trade in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats area between the '50s and '70s. The van for those of you who remember was a familiar sight on Ardrossan North Shore during the summer. (Click to enlarge) Many thanks Stevie for your contribution. Peter Muccini Blood, sweat, tears and….mushrooms. Accomplished author Peter Muccini recounts his experiences as a child growing up in Scotland during World War II in the following article....
Our family was awakened by a distressed Mrs Agolini who lived near us in Kilmarnock. The police had arrested her husband Vittorio and thrown her out on the street while they searched her house. She warned they would soon be calling on us and, sure enough, just as she said this, there was a loud banging on our door. One of the lawmen was Sergeant Nairn, a good friend of my Dad and he was very embarrassed and apologised profusely. However, the two others in plain clothes, probably from Special Branch, were cold and unpleasant. They told us they were going to confiscate any material they considered could be useful in espionage work. So they seized the wireless, an atlas, a Kodak camera, a pair of binoculars and a toy microscope, none of which was ever returned. We spent the night in the cells (which I found exciting) and were released the following morning. Dad was not interned because he had been in the country for almost 40 years, but his brother, Alessandro, was taken to the Isle of Man. Dad’s business was given to a local businessman who paid the absurd rent of £2 a week. This was dad’s only source of income so he was forced to become a garzone, an employee. To most of the older Italians of the time, used to being their own boss, this was humiliation and rather like being declared bankrupt. We were exiled to Newmilns, a sleepy village nine miles up the Irvine valley because Kilmarnock was a prohibited area with 20,000 troops stationed there including Poles, French and Canadians. We were under curfew and forbidden to leave our home between 1030 at night and eight in the morning. At first some of the villagers treated us with suspicion. Mum who used a small torch to find her way around in the blackout was reported once or twice for allegedly signalling to enemy aircraft. However, the hostility soon vanished. Some of the Italian girls had married local lads then serving in Dad’s Army (the LDV or Local Defence Volunteers, as it was then called, which later became the Home Guard). This and the fact that the younger generation of Italians were serving in the British forces persuaded the villagers that we were not fifth columnists. Nevertheless we were still kept under curfew and had to apply for permission to travel more than five miles from our home. There had been heavy rains followed by the warmth of an Indian summer and Dad said the local woods would be full of funghi porcini, those delectable wild mushrooms irresistible to Italians. The problem was that they had to be gathered before dawn because they would either be eaten by slugs or rot in the sun. Despite the curfew the exiles decided to rise early and go into the woods nearby. They reckoned they could fill their baskets and be back within an hour without anybody noticing it so they left me blissfully asleep and unaware of their expedition. “The
Germans have invaded,” he told me. All around me the grown-ups were pale
with fear while the kids seemed to be enjoying it all. “Where’s my Mum and Dad,” I asked. His reply filled me with dread. “They are under arrest for helping the
Germans.” Scared out of my wits I ran to the police station and was met by Sergeant Harper, a large, kindly, red-haired Highlander who was a friend of Dad’s. The sergeant tried to cheer me up with a mug of cocoa and a copy of the Beano but I was too upset and kept calling for my parents. “I shall ask you once more,” he thundered. “What were you doing in the woods?” “I have
already told you,” Dad replied with a hint of desperation in his voice.
“Gathering mushrooms.” “Mamma! Papà” I screeched. “Shut that door,” the man in the trench coat commanded. I carried on wailing and then, as Sergeant Harper kept trying to comfort me, the telephone rang. The call was for the man in the trench coat. He strode out of the interrogation room, picked up the phone and listened for a few moments before saying: “Good. Message received and understood.” Then he went back to the interrogation room and told the detainees: “All right you lot. Pick up your rubbish and clear off home.” Scarcely believing their luck, Mum, Dad and the others made themselves scarce. What had happened? That morning a gamekeeper told the police he had found dozens of German parachutes scattered about the woods. The police sounded the alarm and Newmilns was swiftly invaded by armed troops. They fanned out across the countryside and when they got to the woods they were confronted with Mum, Dad, Mr and Mrs Biagioni and Mrs Peri carrying baskets of mushrooms. They came to the conclusion that they were spies supplying sustenance to the enemy and immediately arrested them. “I thought they were going to put us up against a wall and shoot us,” Dad said later. Peter also reflects on how some others coped with the War years, living in Scotland under suspicion.... The contrast between the older generation who had retained their Italian citizenship and their offspring born in Britain was heavily tinged with bitter irony. Moreno Agolini subsequently served in the Royal Air Force (as did my brother Romeo) and his brother Elio joined the Cameronian Highlanders where he cut an imposing figure whenever he came home on leave in his dress uniform of kilt, tunic and Glengarry. The older generation, resident in Scotland for decades and known and well liked by the local population, were locked up as potential spies and many perished on the Arandora Star while their children were called up for military service and several gave their lives.
It was the normal practice for the King to present the Victoria Cross either to the recipient or posthumously to his next of kin. Donnini’s elderly parents, technically classified as enemy aliens, were initially not allowed to go to Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Cross was to be sent to them in the mail. However, Dennis Donnini's parents' great-great-granddaughter Amy Turner assures us that the King had to give his own personal permission for them to receive the award and they did indeed go to Buckingham Palace.
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Nadia from Toronto's story
My grandpop's with his ice-cream bikes: He invented these bikes as I am told. They owned an ice cream shop in Glasgow.
His name was Loretto Jaconelli - My mother is
his daughter (1 of 9 children). My
name is Nadia and I reside in Toronto, Canada.
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An
email has reached me from Al Rizza of sunny Florida one of the founder members
of the Club Romano and main organiser of Dundee Juventus an offshoot football
team, first derived in 1968 (see photo above). Al used to own The Silvery
Tay fish and chip shop in Menziehill.
Football
seemed to always be a big part of the Club Romano. Indeed
Dundee Italians were always very active in the field of sport and in
the sports communities.
Ever since 1936,
they had a
competitive football team, and wore the Italian colours back then.
Follow
this
thrilling tale as Twelve-year-old Nunzio opens the boot of a wrecked
Pontiac Bonneville in his father's scrapyard. But who will believe the tale of
the horror that he has found there when all evidence is lost to the 
There was the amazing case of Dennis
Donnini, a 19-year-old private in the Royal Scots Fusiliers, who won the
Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award for valour, in February 1945. Fusilier
Donnini, who was actually a Geordie Italian from Easington Colliery in
Northumberland, saved the lives of a dozen of his comrades by single-handedly
fighting back a German detachment in a Dutch village street battle. The citation
tells how Donnini lost consciousness when he was struck on the head by a
ricocheting bullet. After coming to, he ran 30 yards down the street through a
hail of bullets, lobbed a grenade into the house from where the enemy were
firing and put them to flight. Donnini then
