Tomaso's gifts

Tomaso said as he passed today, "Do you want some broccoli plants?" He gave me some last year, and they were very productive and very good. So although it was raining and I was trying to get a patch dug before my bladder gave out, I followed him to his allotment. On the way, he said, "You're not frightened of me, are you?" (He's about four foot tall and over 90). "Because people will gossip if they see you with me and say you are my girlfriend!"

After showing me round (again), he pulled up some broccoli plants, and then offered me some fennel plants too. I don't really like fennel all that much, but it looks impressive, and I thought if I put it up the top in the bit that I've just cleared, the Italians would praise me as they passed. Besides, it's all food, and food is sacred. So I said yes, and he carefully counted out ten plants. He put them in a sugar bag, saying he'd been making jam from his plums, then handed me another bag and told me to look inside. Inside was this circular twist of bread which I think he said his daughter "who has the shop" had made. It was a bit dried out, but it tasted delicious: it was flavoured with fennel seeds and salt. As I was starving by then, because it was nearly tea-time, it was very welcome.

As I left to go back to my allotment, Tomaso gave me a hug and said, "You are like my wife and my daughter!"

Carmela, Plot 336

This is Carmela. She is related to someone on the right hand side as you walk from my allotment to the top gate - Joe, I think she said (but which one?). She has three sons and two daughters (or was it the other way round?). One of her sons, Mario, runs the Fabbio Restaurant in Regent Circus. She says he uses her courgettes in the restaurant.
She comes from Filadelfia, like Tomaso, and is going there for three weeks on holiday next week. She says she no longer has any family there, but she has a house and friends, and her friends take her to the beach every day. I said, wasn't it too hot at this time of year, and she said, no, it's high up so it's cool and breezy.

My allotment yesterday

This is how the allotment is looking at the moment. I have at last started digging the bit at the top by the tank, much to the delight of all my neighbours. It's quite easy to dig at the moment, because the soil is so dry it just falls off the weed roots. I've transplanted a lot of French bean plants there, and Tomaso gave me some broccoli, which I've put there too (under the hoops). I'm not sure what kind of broccoli it is. He gave me some Calabrese last year, which was wonderful, but I'm not sure if this is the same. The leaves are long and narrow, like an Italian vegetable called (in my seed catalogue) Nero di Toscana Precoce.

Tomaso (Nos. 220 & 341)

This is Tomaso. He is 85 years old and runs two allotments, 220 and 341, though at one point he had six! He was born in 1923 and comes from Cadanzaro, Calabria (he said he came from Philadelphia, but I shall have to check that out*). I found it quite hard, by the way, to understand what he was saying, so I must make excuses in advance for the accuracy of what I write.

His family were farmers, but starting at 16 he worked as a turner, making bombs, etc. He went into the army in 1942 aged 19, and served under Mussolini. He was a machine gunner, operating a 25 mm anti-aircraft gun.

When Italy fell, he deserted and made his way (from Avalino or Padua? - the front line anyway) back to Calabria. It took him 25 days, during which he was in constant danger and had no food. He had jumped over the fence of the army camp because if he had stayed, the Germans would either have shot him or taken him back to Germany. He said he had destroyed his papers and passport, so they could not prove who he was. When he met soldier on the way, they would ask "Mussolini or Vittorio?" If you said Mussolini, you were taken off to Germany. If you said Vittorio (the king) you were left to pass in peace. During the nights there was constant bombardment from the air.

However, when he did get home, it was only to re-enlist on the allied side. This time he was a sapper, building roads and bridges. He said he worked his way through Salerno, Naples, Averso, Monte Cassino, Bari, Ancona and Falemara.

After the war was over, he was in the army a further 18 months working in a supplies depot (postilieri), where he issued everything from clothes to food. He worked from 7 in the morning to 11 at night, then went out and enjoyed himself. He was demobbed on 25th July 1946.

He went back home and worked in agriculture for ten years, during which time he married and had two boys (he later had a daughter). But the pay was no good, so in 1956 he came to England to work. Here, he worked on a farm in Garford, near Abingdon, for four years. He did everything from the milking to repairing tracks. He was given a big house, but until his family joined him five months later, he had to do his own cooking and housework after a day's work.

He says he got fed up with wearing wellingtons: anyway, he found work in the railway factory in Swindon, and from then on worked in industry. He got his first allotment on Pickard's Field the same year - 1960.

He did two stints for the railways, first cleaning and stripping coaches, then painting them for 6 months, then as a boilerman shovelling coal on the steam trains. Each stint lasted about 2 1/2 years.

After that, he worked at Cheney Manor, and was at Plessey for 25 years. His wife died several years ago, and he buried her in Italy. His children don't have allotments or garden, but he supplies them with vegetables.

(*He comes from Filadelfia in Calabria).