by Mary Contini
Roast in a hot oven, 220C/425F/Gas 7, turning them from time to time until toasted light brown and tender when pierced with a skewer.
17
The Lawnmarket, Edinburgh
October 1926
There was nothing Alfonso enjoyed better than spending a Wednesday evening in the back shop of Ferdinando Crolla’s with his friends. It was a small shop on the Lawnmarket, the road leading up to the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle, so there was plenty of passing trade. Solicitors and lawyers from the courts came in for a chat and a packet of cigarettes; shoppers and stall-holders from the regular markets and all the Italians in the area knew Ferdinando.
The Deacon Brodie public house was across the road but Alfonso and his friends would never have dared enter a Scottish pub. Firstly, they hardly drank spirits and beer, preferring a glass or two of red wine. Secondly, they were in the habit of playing cards together, a round of scopa. This would be forbidden in public places.
More to the point, their wives would forbid it. Sitting talking with the other men, out from under their feet, was one thing. Spending money in a pub, boozing and flirting with loose women, was quite another.
On this evening Alfonso was glad to have his friends all together; he had some good news.
‘Boys, I’ve heard from the Consul. They’ve finally put down a deposit on the two floors at 20 Picardy Place. We’ll have our own dopolavoro, after-work club. There’s a good-sized hall, big enough for dances. We’ll have an after-school club, a bit like the Brownies and Guides, to keep the kids busy. Better still, we’re getting an Italian chaplain!’
‘Does that mean that I can go to confession and the priest will know what I’m saying? That’s not a good idea, Alfonso!’ Emidio was quick to knock his brother’s enthusiasm. ‘And it’s round the corner from your fish and chip shop, Giovanni. You’ll be pleased. You can go to confession more often!’
Giovanni laughed. His fish and chip shop on Union Place was doing very well.
Achille Crolla, one of Alfonso’s young nephews, was very interested. ‘It sounds great. What a man this Mussolini is! Who’d have thought an Italian government would look after us emigrants and give money to help us!’
Zio Benny was against any involvement with the Fascisti. ‘I’ve never had anything from any government but bills, taxes and calling-up papers. What’s so different about this one?’
‘You are very cynical, Zio Benny. There’s good news all over the place. Pietro in Italy is cock-a-hoop. They’re getting roads built in the South, and there are new regulations that help young families. Mussolini says if you have more than seven children you don’t pay any taxes.’
‘Pietro never pays any taxes anyway!’ Emidio chipped in.
‘How much will it cost us, that’s more to the point?’ Giovanni Crolla was the most astute businessman of them all. Like Zio Benny he owned a lot of their shops and they paid him rent, and if not, they often owed him money.
Alfonso had all the details. ‘Its not a lot: ten pounds a year, less for the women. For five pounds the children can join the Balilla and get Italian lessons, sports, dancing and a trip to Italy, all free.’
Giovanni snorted. ‘How can paying five pounds be free?’
Alfonso’s brother was becoming notoriously cautious with money as he got older. To save repairing his shoes, he lined them with folded newspaper. He even put newspaper under his semmit to keep him warm in the winter. Rumour had it that it was he who started wrapping fish suppers in newspaper to avoid paying for wrapping paper. He never bought new clothes; his torn trousers were patched and he kept his hair and beard long to keep his head warm. A customer complained in his shop to the boy serving behind the fryer that an old tramp was annoying him. The old tramp was Zio Giovanni, and he owned the shop!
Alfonso was not worried about Giovanni’s doubts. Everyone had to make up their own minds about the Fascio.
‘Anyway, the hall will not be ready in time for the Armistice Day march so we have to choose another venue for the dance.’
‘Now you’re talking, Alfonso!’ Joseph, one of the younger men, wasn’t married yet and the Italian dances were a great stomping ground for finding a girl. The young Italian girls were not allowed to go to any other social events. If you didn’t snap up the prettiest girl at school, at church or behind her father’s shop counter, you were left with the plain ones. Marriage to Scots girls who set their sights on the brooding dark Italian boys was greatly discouraged.
‘Alfonso, now that you are our Duce will you be laying the wreath again this year?’ Emidio was a bit sarcastic. He was finding business difficult. He hadn’t managed to make a go of the shop in Elm Row. It wasn’t a very good site for an ice cream shop.
‘You can lay the wreath if you like, Emidio. I don’t mind.’ In fact Alfonso did mind. It was the highlight of his year when he marched up the Mound to the Mercat Cross leading the ex-combattenti, following the Colonel from the Royal Scots Greys and the Royal Artillery. When Alfonso took his turn with each official to lay the wreath at the cenotaph he felt immensely proud.
‘Do you remember last year? What a laugh!’ Emidio got a dirty look from Alfonso.
‘It wasn’t funny, Emidio. You never know when to take something seriously.’
‘Oh, Alfonso, get off your high horse. It was funny! We were strutting our stuff up the Mound when some daft man in the crowd shouted that we were out of order being at the front of the march.’
‘I had been told to lead the march, Emidio. It wasn’t my choice.’
‘I know, but the crowd didn’t know. So what do you do? Reverse us down the hill to the back of the procession, like a bunch of dafties.’
The men in the room were all laughing. It had been a fiasco.
Joseph stood up and mimicked the Mayor in charge of the march. He hung a rope of garlic bulbs round his neck to represent the gold chain of office. In a posh Edinburgh accent with a strong Italian lilt, he pronounced:
‘Halt! These honourable Italians are guests in our country and should be treated with respect. Corporal Crolla, with respect, please lead your men back to the front of the march.’
Joseph marched round the table, everyone shouting in turn, ‘Uno, due. Uno, due.’
Zio Benny was not amused. ‘Boys, it’s all very well to laugh. But if you remember correctly, the crowd was objecting to you as Fascists at the front, with your black shirts on, not as ex-soldiers of the Italian army.’
‘I know, Zio, you have a point. But they were confusing us with the British Union of Fascists, run by a chap called Mosley. He’s a thug.’
‘I know that, Alfonso. But be careful. You’ll be tarred with the same brush.’
This was all getting too serious; Joseph preferred to talk about dances. He had his eye on the D’Agostino girl and knew she would be going.
‘Let’s concentrate on the job in hand. Let’s organise the dance. What about music? Can we get something more modern? How about a big band like Rowland Powell’s Broadway Dance Band? They’re playing in the Caledonian Hotel for their Hallowe’en Ball. Maybe they’ll do a session for us on the sly. We could get Zia Maria doing the Charleston.’
That got a laugh and turned the conversation back to lighter topics.
They chatted away for an hour or so, deciding in the end that Alfonso should book the same hall as last year and the proceeds from the raffle should go to the Italian Widows and Orphans fund. When Joseph said he would look after any widow who was under twenty-five and had blue eyes and a nice figure, Alfonso scolded him.
‘That’s enough, Joseph! You’re going too far!’
‘Oh, Zio. I was only trying to be patriotic!’
They all laughed. The young boys enjoyed their popularity in the community. With not many of them to go round, they were always being fêted and charmed by all the women, young and old.
Ferdinando put a straw fiasco of wine on the table and brought out the cards.
‘Enough talk of wreaths and widows. You’ll have me
watering down my vino with tears. Who wants to deal the cards?’
He had taken the eights, nines and tens out of the pack and divided out fifty spent matchsticks to each of the men to play with. He put a packet of ten Capstan Full Strength cigarettes in the middle of the table as the prize.
‘Shall we play to twenty-one? I’ll tell you, boys, it’s just as well we’re not in Cockenzie. I’ve heard Marietta likes a game of scopa and she’s a fierce opponent!’
Alfonso burst out laughing. ‘I’ve heard she cheats. Cesidio says she keeps a spare sette bello under the table and whisks it out when she’s losing.’ He looked over at Zio Benny, ‘Never trust the Government, Zio Benny? Never trust a woman!’
That got the biggest laugh of the night. That’s what they all loved about Alfonso. He was happy to make fun of himself. They all knew Maria gave him a hard time, but so did all their wives!
After a few games, not on a winning streak, Zio Benny got up to go.
‘I’m off, lads. Thanks for your company.’
Alfonso stood up as well. It was past eleven and Maria would be looking for him. ‘I’m off too, boys. See you next week. I’ll go ahead and book the hall.’
As they left the shop to walk together down the Royal Mile and on home, Benny noticed three constables standing across the road from the shop.
‘Evening, officers.’
‘Evening.’
As they moved out of earshot past Deacon Brodie’s, Zio Benny spoke in a low voice. ‘Strange, three policemen up here at this time of night. They must be watching for something.’
The next morning news flew round the Italian community that seven police officers had raided Ferdinando’s shop in the Lawnmarket and arrested eleven Italians for gambling. Alfonso was lucky he hadn’t been arrested. Those policemen that they had seen when they left must have been watching the shop.
He was angry that the men had been arrested. He’d been there. They weren’t doing anything wrong. Now he was even more convinced that they needed the Fascio hall. Then the men could play scopa in peace among their own, without this harassment. It was Alfonso’s job to keep talking to the police and other officials to make sure they understood the Italians and didn’t make rash judgements about them that would end in disaster.
Some of the Italians had been in court before on gambling charges. They saw nothing wrong in having a game of cards after work. They weren’t gambling. They were pretty taken aback that they had been raided by the police.
On the day of the trial, Alfonso and Benny sat anxiously watching in the courtroom.
Mr Macpherson, the prosecuting officer, began the proceedings on a serious note.
‘I would like to remind you all that you are aliens in this country. You men are strangers here. Our laws are different from those in the country you have left. I remind my right honourable friend that the 1845 Gaming Act declares it illegal to open, keep or use a house, office, room or place for the purposes of betting with persons thereof.
‘I therefore ask your client, Ferdinando Crolla, Mr Gibb, were he and his compatriots playing the game scopa for the purposes of betting?’
Poor Ferdinando was in a state of shock. He had been released on bail but was terrified he would be jailed or, worse still, deported. The courts were very strict.
‘Mr Macpherson,’ – Alfonso had primed Ferdinando to be very polite and address everyone by name – ‘scopa is a pastime. It’s a traditional game we play, just for fun. We played for cigarettes, not for money.’
‘Did you and your compatriots drink alcohol on your premises after hours?’
‘We drank lemonade or Bovril; some of us had a glass of wine. The back of the shop is my home, where I live. We were not in the shop.’
‘Some of you are known members of the Fascist group in Edinburgh. Were you conducting a Fascist meeting?’
Ferdinando started to sweat. Why were they mentioning the Fascio? They had just been having a drink and a game of cards.
‘Yes I am a member of the Italian Fascisti club, but this was not an organised meeting.’
‘Why were so many of you – mmm, eleven in all, I believe – why were eleven men present together so late in the evening?’
‘We were organising the dance for the Armistice Day celebration and we meet after work as our shops all open till eight. It’s the only time we are all off work together.’
‘Mr Ferdinando Crolla, can I ask you why you remove the eights, nines and tens from the pack of cards? Why?’ Mr Macpherson was raising his voice and becoming almost aggressive.
‘Objection!’ Mr Gibb knew Ferdinando. He was in Ferdinando’s shop at least twice a week. ‘My lord, if my right honourable friend, Mr Macpherson, had done any basic research into this case, he would have found out that the game of cards referred to, scopa, is played with an Italian pack of cards,’ and here he turned to the prosecutor and sneered, ‘which does not contain any cards to the value of eight, nine or ten!’
After two days in court, Councillor Spears declared his verdict.
‘Mr Macpherson, I am sorry to say to you that I do not understand the game of scopa. What I can say is that I cannot find anything illegal in the evidence.’
He banged his hammer with a flourish. ‘I therefore find Mr Ferdinando Crolla Not Guilty. I find the other ten accused Not Guilty! Court Dismissed!’
Next week, when he popped into Ferdinando’s for his cigarettes, Councillor Spears asked if they would teach him to play scopa. It seemed to be a very interesting game.
18
Cockenzie
1933
The front of Di Ciacca’s Café in Cockenzie became the village’s meeting place.
On Sunday mornings, after the eleven o’clock service, the parishioners of the Auld Kirk would drift into the shop for Sunday treats: jugs of ice cream, sweeties and chocolates.
On Sunday evenings, the Plymouth Brethren walked around the village and stopped at five-thirty exactly to preach and sing Christian songs. They sang outside the Thorntree Inn to offer Salvation to the fishermen and then outside Di Ciacca’s to preach their take on the Bible to the Catholics.
When the Orange Order marched through the High Street on the Twelfth of July in celebration of the historic Battle of the Boyne, they whistled their way past the shop. It was apparent to everyone that they beat their drums louder and more enthusiastically as they passed the shop. They were excited to have real Italian Catholics in the village who would know they were prepared to ‘kick the Pope’.
Immediately after their walk, they would all pour into the shop for fish and chips and a bottle of Dunn’s ginger beer, unabashed by their religious bigotry.
‘Nae offence, Sis. I dinnae even ken the Pope.’
‘There’s a picture on the wall in the back shop, Tam, if you want to have a look at him.’
The Fisherman’s Box Walk took place every September. Marking the end of the summer fishing season, this was a celebration of survival over the elements and was as significant to the fisher folk as the feast days were to the Italians in Fontitune. The fishermen marched through the village with their ancient banners displaying the traditions of the sea followed by their womenfolk and a lively village band.
Since the Italian family had now been in the village for almost fifteen years the fishermen added an honorary stop at Di Ciacca’s to their traditional route. This was a great honour to ‘Sis’ and ‘Mary’, who stood outside their shop proudly to listen to the music. It was a colourful affair. The fishwives, dressed in traditional costume, danced and sang.
In the evening after they had all gone home for their supper an old boat was burned in a huge bonfire on the Boat Shore, an event to which Cesidio and Marietta were invited.
Cesidio and men from the village outside the shop in Cockenzie, c. 1933
The ‘Box’ was a social fund organised by the skippers of the boats to help the widows and families of their neighbours in times of need. In those days, the fledgling Social Security, the ‘brew’ or the do
le, was means-tested. The real poor often fell neglected between its bureaucracies. It was common knowledge that Sis did his part in helping those who were down on their luck in the community.
During the years that the miners from Prestongrange were on strike, or when demand for coal was low, they often had no money to buy food. Real poverty and hunger raised their ugly heads. The children and the miners would go down to the shore and pick up the ‘sea coal’ that was washed from the bing at Prestonpans into the sea and back up onto the shore. In the summer and autumn the poorer miners had an unwritten rule with the farmers that they would ‘glean’ the fields after the harvest and pick up any damaged potatoes, cabbages or sprouts that had been left by the pickers.
Many a fisherman or miner down on his luck would hang about the shop at the tail end of the night. ‘Sis, hae ye any scratchings?’
The crispy bits of batter and small crispy chips that were left at the end of the night were given away to whoever needed them. If he could, Cesidio would throw in a free ‘haddie’ or a haggis with the scratchings, offering a helping hand discreetly, with no thanks asked for.
The fishermen’s association owned the flats above the shop. When one room came up for rent, Cesidio and Marietta took it and moved in above their shop.
Starting with one room, a shared toilet and no running water, they gradually bought it, then a second and third room as they came up for sale. They modernised them, adding plumbing, gas and electricity when they could. Eventually Marietta had a good-sized kitchen, with a gas range with two rings, and electric lights.
When, after many years of living in Cockenzie, she had a bathroom installed, Marietta was thrilled. A sink, a flushing toilet and a big white porcelain bath with running hot water from the hot-water tank in the roof was the lap of luxury.
Even so, they spent most of their time downstairs in the shop. The children had been working since they were little, helping behind the counter, sweeping and mopping the floor, cleaning the potatoes for the chips, counting the piles of farthings, ha’pennies and pennies every night that their mother took out of the drawer in the shop.
