43) My Grandfather
Francisco, Rafaelle, Crocefissa and Leonardo Demarco
In July 1976 my Grandfather, Rafaelle Demarco died, he was born in November 1882 so he was not far off his 94 birthday. He was not a very easy man to live with. I remember once asking my mother “When did Granpa get to be so awkward” She said that he has always been awkward, he had just got a bit worse as he got older. He came to Britain from Italy to make his fortune but when he was there he longed for Italy and when he was in Italy he longed for Britain. He moved his family between Italy and Britain a few times. I don’t remember the exact details but it did mean that my mother’s education was very severely disrupted. She must have been a very bright child though as she still managed to do well at school.
I don’t remember the whole story but I think my grandparents were in Italy when the Second World War broke out. They were both British citizens and did manage to get back home but I think it was a rather worrying time. I seem to recall that a friend of my fathers who knew Winston Churchill was asked to speak to the great man to see if there was anything that could be done to get them home.
Granpa was one of twins, he and his brother Frank were not identical twins but they did look alike and I remember that our cousins Paul, Laurence and Eric who did not see as much of them as we did could not tell them apart. Laurence used to say, “I’ve got two grand fathers”
When he sold his shop and retired, he and my grandmother came to live with us. I think I was about three at the time so it would have been about 1947. That would have made him 65 a good age to retire. He loved to listen to the radio and would put the news on early in the morning and say “Let’s see if Stalin is dead yet” He did not like the Russians and never thought that they would get a satellite into space before the Americans. He was sure that they were just telling lies and that they did not really have Sputnik orbiting the planet. We were not allowed to speak during the news, as he was listening. It was a real trial for us as the news lasted about 10min and it was a real ordeal to stay quiet that long. He got a great deal of pleasure out of the radio, in the evenings he would fiddle with all the knobs until he found an Italian station. Then he would tell us all, “That’s Rome” or Florence or Venice or whatever, but it was so crackly no one, not even he could understand a word of it. Still he got great pleasure in having been in contact with his homeland.
He liked smelly cheeses and the more we all complained about them the more he liked it. I swear he left them to get really “high” so that it would annoy us all. He also enjoyed making wine. He had large barrel in the back yard under a cover that he would bring out every autumn. He would go to the green grocers and buy up all the cheap grapes he could. He did not mind if they were passed their best as they were to be crushed and made into wine. He was sure that making wine was illegal and so kept the whole process very quiet. Only his very close friends were supposed to know about it. When the wine was ready it would be bottled and stored in the pantry. Then would start the procession of elderly Italian men with shopping bags. They would come to the front door, look up and down the road to make sure that no one was watching and then ring the door bell. Granpa would bring them in and in a little while they would leave. Granpa would go to the door first, open it and check once more that the coast was clear and then the visitor would slip away as stealthily as he could. (A bit like the Mafia) In those days it was illegal to sell home made wine, but if you were giving it away as Granpa always did there was no problem. We tried and tried to convince him of that but he would not believe us. Or maybe it was just that he liked the whole undercover scenario, it added a little spice to his life.
He liked to play cards too. Three of his friends would come round some evenings and they would sit around the dinning room table. They played with an Italian pack that was different to the ones we normally see now. They had more pictures on them I think. The game would start off quietly enough but as the evening wore on they got noisier and noisier. They would shout at each other and bang the cards down on the table. I remember being quite upset by all the noise, I thought that they were fighting and would soon come to blows but I got used to the noise eventually.
Another of his hobbies was the cinema. He would go a few times a week, in the afternoon when the pensioners got a cheap ticket. At the tea table he would tell us all about the film. We would protest and say, “Please don’t tell us we are going to see in at the end of the week” but he would just say “I’m telling Gran not you” if it was a film were to know how it ended would spoil it we had to take our plate of food into another room so as not to spoil our enjoyment of the film.
His friends were always welcome in the house but he was not so happy to see my Gran’s friends. Some Sunday afternoons an old friend of my Gran’s a Mrs. Macari would come to spend a little time with her. Mrs. Macari and her family owned a fish and chip shop in the town and so she had to be back in time to supervise the opening of the shop at about 5 p.m. The two old ladies would sit and natter for an hour or so and then Granpa would make some comment about it being 4.30. Mrs Macari would say “My the time has gone fast, I must be off now”. Once she was gone Granpa would return the hands of the clock to the correct time. Poor Mrs. Macari, every time she came he managed to put the hands forward and get rid of her an hour before time so that he could have his tea when he wanted it and not have to wait.
He was not fond of reading. To him books were for studying and information but certainly not for pleasure. If any of us laughed as we were reading a book he would get very angry. “How can you laugh at a book?” he would say. “There is nothing funny in books”
He would get very irritated if anyone could not find any of their belongings. If we asked ‘has anyone seen my….?’ Book or gloves or anything he would be very sarcastic and say “I’ll look in my watch” then he would get out his pocket watch that he wore on a chain across his chest and open it up and say “No, it’s not in here, why can’t you look after your things?”
Once at the meal table he was having trouble getting the tomato sauce out of the bottle. He shook the bottle and still it would not come out so he shook it again. Then while he was holding it upside down he had a look into the bottle to see what the matter was. Well just as he held it to his eye the sauce that had been shaken and shaken decided to pour out of the bottle and all over his face. We all looked at the mess in stunned silence, we knew he would loose his temper, but the whole incident was just too funny and we all burst out laughing. He did not like being laughed at and we thought it gave a new twist to the saying having “egg on one’s face”; it seemed much funnier to have tomato sauce on Granpa’s face.
I don’t remember the whole story but I think my grandparents were in Italy when the Second World War broke out. They were both British citizens and did manage to get back home but I think it was a rather worrying time. I seem to recall that a friend of my fathers who knew Winston Churchill was asked to speak to the great man to see if there was anything that could be done to get them home.
Granpa was one of twins, he and his brother Frank were not identical twins but they did look alike and I remember that our cousins Paul, Laurence and Eric who did not see as much of them as we did could not tell them apart. Laurence used to say, “I’ve got two grand fathers”
When he sold his shop and retired, he and my grandmother came to live with us. I think I was about three at the time so it would have been about 1947. That would have made him 65 a good age to retire. He loved to listen to the radio and would put the news on early in the morning and say “Let’s see if Stalin is dead yet” He did not like the Russians and never thought that they would get a satellite into space before the Americans. He was sure that they were just telling lies and that they did not really have Sputnik orbiting the planet. We were not allowed to speak during the news, as he was listening. It was a real trial for us as the news lasted about 10min and it was a real ordeal to stay quiet that long. He got a great deal of pleasure out of the radio, in the evenings he would fiddle with all the knobs until he found an Italian station. Then he would tell us all, “That’s Rome” or Florence or Venice or whatever, but it was so crackly no one, not even he could understand a word of it. Still he got great pleasure in having been in contact with his homeland.
He liked smelly cheeses and the more we all complained about them the more he liked it. I swear he left them to get really “high” so that it would annoy us all. He also enjoyed making wine. He had large barrel in the back yard under a cover that he would bring out every autumn. He would go to the green grocers and buy up all the cheap grapes he could. He did not mind if they were passed their best as they were to be crushed and made into wine. He was sure that making wine was illegal and so kept the whole process very quiet. Only his very close friends were supposed to know about it. When the wine was ready it would be bottled and stored in the pantry. Then would start the procession of elderly Italian men with shopping bags. They would come to the front door, look up and down the road to make sure that no one was watching and then ring the door bell. Granpa would bring them in and in a little while they would leave. Granpa would go to the door first, open it and check once more that the coast was clear and then the visitor would slip away as stealthily as he could. (A bit like the Mafia) In those days it was illegal to sell home made wine, but if you were giving it away as Granpa always did there was no problem. We tried and tried to convince him of that but he would not believe us. Or maybe it was just that he liked the whole undercover scenario, it added a little spice to his life.
He liked to play cards too. Three of his friends would come round some evenings and they would sit around the dinning room table. They played with an Italian pack that was different to the ones we normally see now. They had more pictures on them I think. The game would start off quietly enough but as the evening wore on they got noisier and noisier. They would shout at each other and bang the cards down on the table. I remember being quite upset by all the noise, I thought that they were fighting and would soon come to blows but I got used to the noise eventually.
Another of his hobbies was the cinema. He would go a few times a week, in the afternoon when the pensioners got a cheap ticket. At the tea table he would tell us all about the film. We would protest and say, “Please don’t tell us we are going to see in at the end of the week” but he would just say “I’m telling Gran not you” if it was a film were to know how it ended would spoil it we had to take our plate of food into another room so as not to spoil our enjoyment of the film.
His friends were always welcome in the house but he was not so happy to see my Gran’s friends. Some Sunday afternoons an old friend of my Gran’s a Mrs. Macari would come to spend a little time with her. Mrs. Macari and her family owned a fish and chip shop in the town and so she had to be back in time to supervise the opening of the shop at about 5 p.m. The two old ladies would sit and natter for an hour or so and then Granpa would make some comment about it being 4.30. Mrs Macari would say “My the time has gone fast, I must be off now”. Once she was gone Granpa would return the hands of the clock to the correct time. Poor Mrs. Macari, every time she came he managed to put the hands forward and get rid of her an hour before time so that he could have his tea when he wanted it and not have to wait.
He was not fond of reading. To him books were for studying and information but certainly not for pleasure. If any of us laughed as we were reading a book he would get very angry. “How can you laugh at a book?” he would say. “There is nothing funny in books”
He would get very irritated if anyone could not find any of their belongings. If we asked ‘has anyone seen my….?’ Book or gloves or anything he would be very sarcastic and say “I’ll look in my watch” then he would get out his pocket watch that he wore on a chain across his chest and open it up and say “No, it’s not in here, why can’t you look after your things?”
Once at the meal table he was having trouble getting the tomato sauce out of the bottle. He shook the bottle and still it would not come out so he shook it again. Then while he was holding it upside down he had a look into the bottle to see what the matter was. Well just as he held it to his eye the sauce that had been shaken and shaken decided to pour out of the bottle and all over his face. We all looked at the mess in stunned silence, we knew he would loose his temper, but the whole incident was just too funny and we all burst out laughing. He did not like being laughed at and we thought it gave a new twist to the saying having “egg on one’s face”; it seemed much funnier to have tomato sauce on Granpa’s face.
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