The Garden in Italy

Me with my partner Tobias Abse outside our house in Nugola, near Livorno, Tuscany.

This isn't a particularly good view of the wisteria.....look at this, though! There are cascades of it during the spring and summer, and it smells gorgeous!

We have a lovely old fig tree, from which I collected a lot of fruit in the summer....gave most of it away to friends, though!

One of the most beautiful parts of the garden is the rosemary hedge planted by my mother-in-law about twenty years ago. When you arrive at the house, there is such a wonderful scent of rosemary! It has tiny blue flowers in the spring.

Visit from Italian Partisan

(This happened in August, while we were at our house in Italy, I have only now been able to transfer it from the old blog).

Today ( 6 August 2009) we had the great honour of a visit from Garibaldo Benifei, an Italian anti-Fascist fighter and partisan, who is now 97 years old.

Here is a YouTube clip of him talking about some of his memories.(It's in Italian, obviously!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYvzawsyxJw

He came (with a younger comrade ) to visit us at our house in Nugola, to sign a copy of his autobiography and to tell us about his experiences as a political prisoner during the Fascist era and as an anti-Fascist campaigner after 1943. We owe this signal honour to the fact that he tracked down my partner, TOBIAS ABSE, in the Livorno phone-book! Toby is the author of a book about anti-Fascism in Livorno between 1918 and 1922.

 (It was originally his PhD thesis, and was expanded for publication).

On Sunday we were at a dinner to commemorate the laying of a stone in memory of a young anti-Fascist who was killed in Livorno in 1922, and somebody recognised Toby's name, and....this great hero of the Resistance came to visit us! He is the president of A.N.P.P.I.A (Associazione Nazionale Perseguitati Politici Italiani Antifascisti).  Go to the link (list in right-hand column) for more information)

As you can imagine, I am really proud of Toby and his contribution to the history of anti-Fascism.

This photo is of Benifei in Rome, June 1955, at the 24th. Congress of the Lega Nazionale delle Cooperative e delle Mutue. (First on the right in the front row).

In July 2007, he and Dino Raugi received the Livornina d'Oro, the highest medal the municipality of Livorno can bestow, in recognition of their consistent anti-Fascist campaigning.

This is Toby (left) in the garden with Benifei (right, in the beige jacket), and another comrade.

And here are two more photos of Benifei and the comrade who came with him.