Sitting in a backstreet in Florence ......... thinking of WLS radio station, Chicago

Florence, 2012

Now if you belong to that generation which was born just after the last world war, who grew up with the sound of Buddy Holly, and the Beatles, and trembled during the Missile Crisis of 1962 I expect Radio Luxemburg will stir memories.

In the absence of a dedicated British pop music radio station this was all there was till the “Pirates” arrived.

Of course it wasn’t perfect, it faded and returned and you had to put up with Horace Bachelor but it was still magic.*

And I was reminded of all that when my friend Susan from Canada told me of how “on clear nights throughout the 1960's, from my upstairs bedroom, close to the Manitoba/Ontario border, I could actually get WLS radio station in Chicago, almost a thousand miles away. They played songs I never heard anywhere else.”

Now my little transistor set bought for twenty-one shillings in Whitechapel hardly compared with Susan’s “purple and gold bakelite radio” but what they offered was something new, exciting and worlds away from our kitchen in Well Hall Road.

On the Highway Canada, 2011

All of which stirred the pot and made me begin to think of many things, but uppermost it was that idea of listening across the open lands of Canada to a radio station in Chicago and not for the first time I pondered on the vastness of Canada.

My cousins who live in Ontario will think nothing of a journey by car which will take them from their home to the small log cabin they built one summer.

It is a distance which if I replicated it here would pretty much take me from Manchester down across Europe to Vienna and would present me with a shed full of different European languages, histories and until recently even currencies.

The gas station, 2011

But for my cousin the journey would all be under a Canadian sun, with English spoken along the way and the sure knowledge that the petrol bought in Ingersol would come out of the same money as the payment for  the burger at the stop over half way and the groceries at the tiny supermarket close to their destination.

And if I push the idea, had my great uncle who was migrated to Canada by the Middlemore Homes acting for the Derby Union taken the Trans Canada Highway from St John’s in Newfoundland to Victoria in British Columbia he would have travelled 4,859 miles.

By comparison if I had continued on from Vienna to Istanbul I would only have clocked 2,108 miles from the suburbs of south Manchester to the Bosporus and the end of Europe.

That for me brings home the sheer size of Canada and of course also its southern neighbour but it also reinforces my fascination for my own Continent which offers tremendous diversity but also a sense of unity.

Rome, 2009

We may speak different languages, and some at least of us still carry our own national currency in our pockets instead of the Euro but there is much we have in common.

Sitting in a backstreet restaurant in Florence or in down town Naples with heaps of history and culture everywhere I am reminded that 2000 years ago my journey would have been one made across one empire with a single currency, and just two official languages and bits of the small town of Manchester would have been replicated in the grand cities of Rome and Byzantium.

Added to which much that followed the fall of the Roman Empire from the Middle Ages through to the Renaissance and the Age Enlightenment owed much to the Romans.

That said while sitting at that tiny restaurant in Florence the background music on the small portable CD player veered from a selection by the Three Tenors to that Harry Chapin song with the refrain “I am the morning D.J at W.O.L.D. .......... playing all the hits for you where ever you maybe...”

On the farm, 2011

And that is pretty much  where we came in, leaving me only to share the contrasting images from three of my favourite Italian cities with the stunning photographs of rural Canada by my friend Lori Oschefski and perhaps giving a plug to that endearing radio series on Lake Wobegon by Garrison Keillor "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

Now Lake Wobegon may have been an imaginary town set in the USA but it pretty much sums up what I think a small Canadian town out somewhere in the west of Alberta might be like and as such is miles away from those small Italian cities I know.

Alghero, 2013

The huge open landscape which just seems to go on forever runs counter to the close confines of those towns and cities where at the end of every street there is a piazza and  around every corner an ancient ruin.

That said there are plenty of ugly places where poor planning, low investment and shoddy development have created sink suburbs, dispiriting to live in and unremarkable to the eye.

Not so bits of Alghero which has it all, and may even have its own radio station dedicated to the music of the 60s.

Pictures; Florence 2012, Rome, 2009, and Alghero, Sardinia, 2013 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the Canadian heartlands, 2011, Lori Oschefski

* Horace Cyril Bachelor was as an advertiser on Radio Luxembourg. He advertised a way to win money by predicting the results of football matches, sponsoring programmes on Radio Luxembourg.

Down in the old town with the Lemon Man

Now the thing about holidays and a new camera is that you can get very, very serious about what you choose to photograph.

So with that in mind here is a little slice of life in Alghero in Sardinia on a sunny day when we went for a walk.

We were in the old town, which is full of old buildings, twisty little streets and unexpected surprises.

And amongst all those was the Lemon Man.

Enough said.

Location, Alghero, Sardinia





Picture; the lemon man, Alghero, 2010 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Of small towns and museums and walks through narrow streets

I always dreamed of finishing my days on a small Greek island but I am equally drawn to one of the little walled towns somewhere in Italy.

Over the years we have visited quite a few from the impressive city of Bergamo in Lombardy to the smaller settlement of Silvi in the Abrruzzo region and even smaller ones down south.

What they all have going for them is that mix of urban living set just minutes away from the countryside.

And then there are those narrow steep streets which let out on to a tiny piazza with its water fountain, small church and cluster of bars.

All very touristy I know and perhaps in a community of just a few thousand a little claustrophobic but I rather reckon I could live with that.

The downside might be that your rather old underwear flapping on the washing line in the mid day sun might become a topic of conversation amongst the house proud couple at the corner of the block, but the self same people will stop for a conversation shouting up encouragement as you sit on the balcony struggling with an article and gazing across the hills to the sea beyond.

And perhaps it is a scene which does suffer a little from romantic tosh and has to be measured against rising prices, the uncertainty of the Euro and Italian TV which especially on a Sunday bombards you with hours of celebrities, game shows and showcases of the pop music of the 1960s.

But I do like the life style, and the inhabitants are proud enough of their town to want to share it with you.

Here they seem to say is why we like living in this place and we want you to enjoy it too.

And nowhere is this more so than in the tiny little museums often no more than a room off the main piazza which tells the town’s history.

A few fading sepia pictures adorn the walls, a glass cabinet of some treasured artefact's pulled from the ground and a ponderous account of the communes role in the history of the region.

My favourite was the one in Alghero.*  It is one of those little places which owes much to the enthusiasm of its members and is defined by what they have been able to collect.

So if there was a theme or underlying logic to the collection it was just that.  Religious postcards sat beside memorabilia from the time of Italian unification, the Fascist era and the Second World War.  There were mannequins dressed in uniforms a few helmets, some guns and German army magazines from 1943.

Tucked away on one wall was a display dedicated to the Italian resistance against Fascist rule and the German occupation, which fitted with those on Garibaldi and his Red Shirts.

And on some evenings the museum mounted its own live entertainment.  It started with the presence of four of the group dressed in military uniforms from the 1860s with a demonstration of the firepower of their muskets.

In an age of sleek presentations, interactive displays and the ever popular heritage reconstructions there is something quite refreshing in these more simple museums which however amateurish they might appear are close to the people and the towns they record.

Pictures; street scenes from Alghero, Bergamo Silvi from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Sardinia, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Sardinia

A little bit of Sardinia’s street furniture …. now that’s a zippy title

Now once again there will be people who mutter that I should get a life, but in these days of staying in, there is great merit in revisiting that series on lost street furniture.

And having trawled though a series of old photographs I came across these from Sardinia.

We were in Isola Rossa, and as you do I went looking for those old, fashioned drain covers, and was rewarded with not one but three all very close to where we were staying.

Like their British counterparts, each had a different design, and manufacturer.

And that pretty much is that.

Other than to say, in the fullness of time I shall track the company's down who made them and see where that leads.

Location; Sardinia

Pictures; drain covers I have taken a fancy to, 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

"With affection" ……. in celebration of the picture postcard……the one from Sardinia via Milan

Now we don’t get many picture postcards through the door anymore.

There would have been a time when through the holiday season we would receive a shed load, from destinations as enticing as Greece, and Spain through to a host of British seaside resorts and the odd cultural one of a cathedral, a stately home with more than a few of bridges, and museums.

Go back a few more decades and there would have been those which were sent to arrange a meet up, announce a return from a holiday, or just to apologise for not writing regularly.

Of course, back then there were frequent postal deliveries and collections, making it easy to send a card in the morning arranging to meet at midday or ask for something special for tea.

Today it would be a simple text or a message on Facebook or WhatsApp.

All of which is an introduction to the card from Sardinia which arrived yesterday.

And like so many cards it arrived a full week after Rosa, Simone and Virginia had arrived home.

The delay may have had something to do with the Milano Roserio CMP which is the postal centre devoted to forwarding and sorting mail, including international mail.

In the past the centre had a bad reputation for quickly processing mail*, but I suspect that the late delivery of our card is just that inevitable result of a busy holiday period.

That said it was still a pleasant surprise, and has an old-fashioned charm, made all the more interesting for the addition of a bar card, which as we all know separates it from all those that have arrived over the years.

Location, Sardinia, Milan, Manchester

Picture; Saluti da Golfo Aranci, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*Caos Poste, a Roserio si cambia, la Republica, August, 2nd, 2008, https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2008/02/08/caos-poste-roserio-si-cambia.html

Of conquests, ethnic cleansing and a tourist trade

It was the little old man who first caught our attention on one of the adventures in the old town.

He was certainly old enough to have remembered those days when the place was bombed in 1943.

But more than that he had the sort of face and expression that would not have been out of place at any time in the last 300 years of Alghero’s history.

I rather fancied he was one of the 22% of the town’s population which spoke a version of Catalan.

Now we were in an Italian town on an Italian island which first came under the control of part of Italy in the 18th century.

But you don’t buck history that easily and for 400 years our town had been under the less than tender care of Catalonia and then united Spain who were quick to put down revolts by the people of the town eventually indulging in a bit of ethnic cleansing, where the indigenous inhabitants were moved out and Catalan settlers moved in.

I have yet to discover what happened to them and I doubt I will.  History is less than bothered with the defeated, and it is something like 800 years ago.  So put the two together and these original inhabitants don’t even warrant a full stop in a history of Alghero.

But the fort or at least bits of it still stand as witness to the importance of this spot on the north western side of Sardinia.  To the east of the island is Rome and further south Naples and Sicily.  Even to me the strategic importance of Alghero is obvious.  For the cities of Genova, and Pisa it was an important trading centre and later for anyone wanting to oversee the trade routes you could do worse than have a fortified presence at this point on the island.

So back to our old man in the Carrer de Petuna, Via Columbano.  Even if he remembered the bombing of 1943 he would have not been born when the Fascist government drained the marshes, although it would be under a democratic Italian government that the mosquito would be eradicated in the 1950s.

Which no doubt helped when the tourist trade took off.

Now I have been to areas where mosquitos still flourish and while they do not trouble me, I know the misery they can bring.  At best it is the perpetual nightly preparations of spry and tablets, and at worse sleepless nights and painful bites.

So I wonder just how much of this recent history this old man has witnessed and what he made of it.
Certainly tourism has brought money.  The sprawl of holiday apartments and the profusion of restaurants are testimony to this.  As are the large numbers of gift shops.

But beneath the entire tourist buzz you can see things are not all that they seem to be.  Away from the old town along the way to the apartments the restaurants are empty and even in the old town many shops display sale signs offering up to 50% off and this before we reach the high season.

So maybe this is the return to tougher times, but nothing like the Italy before the 1950s.  Then there was real grinding poverty for many, where life was played out under the control of powerful landlords, and later Fascist thugs.

All of which is a long way from our cheerful afternoon’s walk in the streets of the old town.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Visions of Sardinia ............. films from the Dante Society .............. today

Now here is one not to miss, hence the advance warning ....... from The Dante Society.

Visioni Sardea

"A selection of short films about the people of Sardinia. We will discover how contemporary issues affect their lives – In Italian with English subtitles.

Introduction in English by Silvana Serra

Free admission

The screening will be followed by a social gathering with Sardinian wine and nibbles

Sunday September 22nd at 4.30pm       

Cross Street Chapel – Cross Street Manchester M2 1NL

Societa’ Dante Alighieri and Comites Manchester are pleased to invite you to the following screening

To allow us to organise the seats and nibbles please book in advance at dante@newfuture.org

The Societa’ Dante Alighieri has a branch in our city.*

“It was established in 1996, and the Manchester branch is one of the Society’s many branches around the world.

The Society’s headquarters are in Rome, and its mission is to promote the Italian language and Italian culture abroad.

Membership is open to both Italians and non-Italians, and members and supporters enjoy a wide programme of events throughout the year.

Members and non-members alike are welcome to attend.”*

So that is it.

Location; Manchester


Pictures; courtesy of the The Societa’ Dante Alighieri, and from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*The Societa’ Dante Alighieri, https://dantemanchester.org.uk/

News from Santa Teresa Gallura ........... enjoying high summer

Santa Teresa Gallura on the north east coast of Sardinia according to one guide book comes alive in the summer.

It’s normal population of about 5,000 increases to between 10,000 and 15,000 during the tourist season.

And it is easy to see why.  It has all you might except of a holiday destination in the sun.  The beech is sandy, the water warm, there are views across to Corsica and there is a fort.

Added to which there are plenty of those tiny little streets that climb up to the church and main piazza which mix ordinary houses with workaday shops and the full range of touristy places which grew in number as you reach that town square.

On a hot summer’s day in high summer the streets are full of people many of whom gravitate to the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele I which is as you would expect is full of bars restaurants and shops.

On one of the many days we wandered into town the local council were mounting a play school in the place with dozens of children doing everything from hula hoop to ball games and a series of sack races using bin liners.

Now I have to say this last activity seemed pretty lethal given the number who fell over on to the hard tiled floor.

But the kids survived, and the locals looked on with that degree of disinterested interest which comes from living in the place all year round.

All of which was very different in February when despite a bright sun shining down many of the tourist shops and bars were closed and the Central Bar which was one of our haunts had cleared away its outside tables and chairs and offered a service confined to the inside.

But that is what happens to so many of those beloved tourist havens which for part of the year teem with multitudes of people and then sink into a quiet existence.

For of course it is not only the tourist who go but also many of those who work in the hotels and bars.

Sitting in a bar in the small village of Conca Verde we got into conversation with a group of hotel staff, one was from Sicily another from Naples and two more from the north.  All had been there since April and would stay till October.

After which like the people they served they would leave possibly never to return seeking a new resort with the new season.

I suppose it’s the bit of a holiday we forget or choose not to think about and instead sit back in the Central Bar order another espresso and watch the life of the town pass by.

And it is well to remember that while according to one source the island is in the best economic position among Italian regions south of Rome, unemployment rose from 8.6% in 2008 to 14.6% by 2012 which compared with 11.1% in the rest of the Peninsula.*

Added to which 25,000 of these had registered between July and September some of which had been in the tourist industry.

Of course this coincided with the general global trade depression and maybe three years on there has been an upturn.

Well we shall see.

*L’unione sarda. Disoccupati: è record nell@ Isola, LaBarbagia.net, dicembre 1 2012, http://www.labarbagia.net/rubriche/rassegna-stampa-di-michele-arbau/800/lunione-sarda-disoccupati-e-record-nellisola-

Pictures; in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele I, Santa Teresa Gallura, August 2015 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Under a midday sun in Alghero, and a passing nod to Noel Coward

Like most of us I had always had a passing affection for Noel Coward’s song “Only mad dogs and Englishman go out in the midday sun” and it sorted of fitted with another of our adventures into the old town during that moment when morning passes into afternoon.

Except that Simone is Italian, and I doubt that with one German grandmother and two other Scottish grandparents I count as much of an Englishman.  Indeed the last remaining grandparent was no archetype Englishman either, well not the sort envisaged by Noel Coward.

And despite the humour and mild satire of the lines there is no getting away from the fact that it is to modern ears a tad racist.

But then it was written in 1931 as he drove from Hanoi to Saigon and the British Empire still seemed pretty invincible despite looking a little worn at the edges.

But the point is still true; few people who live in hot places will venture out in the midday sun.  Here in Alghero like most of Italy and the Mediterranean, shops close from 1 till 4 and only those catering for the tourists will be at their cash tills.

Much the same happens on the beach.  As the sun reaches high into the sky most Italian families leave for a meal at home and a quiet rest in the cool before venturing out for an afternoon by the sea.

All of which is a prelude to some photographs of our walk in the old town at lunch time.  Needless to say off the main piazza behind the fort and in the warren of little streets all is closed up.  A few tourist shops and bars are open but nothing much else stirs.

So we wander the old town and are confronted with ranks of empty restaurant tables.  I take a few pictures and make a note to return in the evening with the family which we do, and those tables are full, which all goes to show that only mad dogs and Englishman go out in the sun, or to be more accurate, only two old duffers away from the family on an adventure are daft enough to be out in that midday sun.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Sardinia ........... a selection of films hosted by the Dante Society

Now here is one not to miss, hence the advance warning ....... from The Dante Society.

Visioni Sardea

"A selection of short films about the people of Sardinia. We will discover how contemporary issues affect their lives – In Italian with English subtitles.

Introduction in English by Silvana Serra

Free admission

The screening will be followed by a social gathering with Sardinian wine and nibbles

Sunday September 22nd at 4.30pm       

Cross Street Chapel – Cross Street Manchester M2 1NL

Societa’ Dante Alighieri and Comites Manchester are pleased to invite you to the following screening

To allow us to organise the seats and nibbles please book in advance at dante@newfuture.org

The Societa’ Dante Alighieri has a branch in our city.*

“It was established in 1996, and the Manchester branch is one of the Society’s many branches around the world.

The Society’s headquarters are in Rome, and its mission is to promote the Italian language and Italian culture abroad.

Membership is open to both Italians and non-Italians, and members and supporters enjoy a wide programme of events throughout the year.

Members and non-members alike are welcome to attend.”*

So that is it.

Location; Manchester


Pictures; courtesy of the The Societa’ Dante Alighieri, and from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*The Societa’ Dante Alighieri, https://dantemanchester.org.uk/

Of fresh mornings and tired evenings on the beaches of Alghero

Now if I had to choose the best part of the day here in Alghero I guess it would be the early morning.

The sun is up, and there is that freshness in the air which combined with the promise of things to come makes it very special.

But then I have to say that I am also drawn to those last few hours of sunlight on the beach.  Most people have left and you get that sense that the day which seems tired and a little tatty at the edges still has plenty to offer.   You can still get plenty of the sun as sinks down the sky and there is plenty to watch.

On the paid beaches the staff are cleaning the sand off the beds, dropping the umbrellas and putting protective covers over the umbrellas.  It is slow methodical work and no one hurries, they have after all been working all day in the heat of the sun.

A few people still hang on, perhaps with nowhere to go, or just want to enjoy the cooler time.
But already there the early holiday makers heading along the coast road towards the old town, all dressed up and ready for the night ahead.

They make an odd contrast.  On the beach the few still tenaciously holding on while passing them in ever increasing numbers are the advance guard of the evening to come.

And across the place there is a stillness which is mirrored in Alghero as the fair begins and the bars and restaurants fill up.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking into Alghero

It had been another one of those evenings when we decided to get into town early.

Simone was keen to take some more photographs and was trying to get one of the harbour just as the sun sank below the hills, and I just wanted to record some of the people who were sitting enjoying the last of the sunshine.

Some were dressed up for the evening while others were late off the beach.

Pictures; from;the collection of Andrew Simpson

Waiting for the call from the Alghero Tourist Board

Now yesterday I featured a pure piece of silliness based the idea of taking a favourite picture and turning it into a style of poster popular in the middle of the last century.

The poster was a painting by Peter of a photograph I had taken in Alba Adriatica.

And that made me think of other places in Italy which might need an advertising poster.

So with that in mind I pondered on using this picture which was taken in the old part of Alghero which is in Sardinia.

For those that like their seaside resorts with a dash of history and romance Alghero has it all.  The streets twist and turn becoming impossibly narrow, the town wall looks out over the sea and the main piazza bubbles with activity in the evenings.

So If I were the tourist office of the town council I might decide I didn’t have to work too hard on promoting the place but if I had to I might choose the Lemon Man

I shall await the phone call from them offering me a job.

Location; Sardinia

Picture; Alghero 2015, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Posters from the Past, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/posters-from-past-no-8-eating-fresh.html

Passing the time ............... early evening on the beach

An occasional series of pictures of people and places.

Location; Alghero, Sardinia, Italy

Pictures; People & Places Alghero, Sardinia, Italy, 2012 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Afternoons in a city ............... nu 2 Alghero

A short series of places I like.

Location; Alghero, Sardinia, Italy

Picture; softdrink sellerAlghero, 2011 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Pictures I remember taking .............. down a side street looking for the museum

It was the summer we went to Alghero and I had wandered off looking for the museum I had found the night before.

And as you do I found so much more.

Location, Alghero, Sardinia

Picture; Alghero, 2013, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A sorry tale of Sardinia Wi Fi and lots of thank yous

Now the villa we spent a chunk of August offered Wi Fi, which was true but only up to a point.

It was open for an hour and bit from 5 till just after 6 in the morning and started up again at 11 till midnight.

So this is a way of a thank you to Peter, Lois, Chrissy, David and Lois who picked up the blog and posted it on to facebook and twitter.

And I have returned with a bout of man flu!

Picture; looking out at the north east coast of Sardinia from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Of fishing boats, fields and hotels

I suppose there must have been a time when there were far more fishing boats in the harbour than today. 

I counted a few along the landing stages and there might have been more out at sea but I never saw them.  For the rest it was a mix of pleasure craft ranging from sleek sailing yachts to big powered boats.

But then according to the guide books Alghero had always been a trading port and in its time would have seen the ships of Genoa Catalonia and a host of other Mediterraen.

And I guess there would have been a mix of different languages spoken in ad around the harbour, so in that respect little has changed.

In the summer months the predominate language would be Italian, with a sprinkling of English, French and languages from half a dozen other northern European countries.
In the winter, with all of the tourists gone it would be easier to pick out the sound of Catalan or at least a version which has evolved over the 800 years since the first settlers from Catalonia arrived and displaced the original inhabitants.

My fishing boats look strangely out of place very much an anachronism in the Alghero of today.  But there are still a few vestiges of that older time.  Amongst the fine new apartments and hotels to the east of the beach are a few open patches of land and they are still being cultivated.  There is also what I take to be an old stone barn which has been given a coat of cement.  Its use has changed over time and it seems to have become a store house and perhaps even a factory of sorts.

And now it stands neglected and I wonder how long it will be before it and the surrounding land falls to an enterprising man of capital who sees the potential for another hotel.
But I might just be wrong for much of this land to the east of the coat was marsh and was only drained during the Fascist era.

Still judging by the holiday apartments and hotels dating from the 1970s it might well be deemed ancient enough.

Of course the fort and the churches are old and I suspect must in places date back to the 11th century.  In time the place was entirely enclosed by tall walls of which only the eastern side looks out on land.  And that helps explain those narrow streets with their tall buildings.  Given the limit on space the only answer is to build high ad close together.  But those are stories for another time.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The old town, a history lesson and an adventure

Yesterday Simone and I went exploring in the old town.

It was one of those afternoons when most of the family opted for the beach again and we went off in search of adventure.  The town of Alghero is really just the area around the harbour and fort and the new development which spread south along the coats and comprises of holiday apartments and the modern town stretching east from the sea.

The name Alghero is not Italian, but Catalan and there is the clue to the history of the town and the island.  Like most of this bit of the Mediterranean it has belonged to various different European cities and royal families who thought nothing of forcing out the indigenous people, resettling their own subjects and eventually just handing it over like you might a newspaper to be used by someone else.

So it was with Alghero, which was developed as a fortified port by one of the trading families of Genova in 1102, before passing from the control of Pisa to Catalonia, and then Spain, who promptly just gave it to the northern Italian royal family of Savoy.

On such decisions as ever hung the fortunes of the inhabitants of the town.  In the Early 14th century the people who had lived here for centuries were evicted after several revolts against Catalan rule and were replaced by settlers from Catalonia which is pretty much how control has been exercised across the ages.  The Romans did it with their retired soldiers, we did it in Ireland and across North America along with the railway it was “how the West was won.”

So nothing new there then, and even today despite the fact that the official language is Italian a small proportion still speak Catalan.  I say small but one linguistic survey suggested 22% speak Algherese Catalan as their first language and up to 90% having some understanding of it.

And as we walked through the narrow tall streets with the washing hanging from the balconies you could so easily have been in Naples or Palermo and Simone who is Neapolitan immediately felt at home.  Here is a warren of streets which spread out to the east of the old fort and at the end of each is a tiny piazza and around every corner a little church.  Not a bad way to start an adventure, with the promise of more to come.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Messages from Alghero

It is by way of a postscript and a reflection on a holiday now gone.

When I first started visiting Greece, all that was available as a way of communicating with home was the postcard.  It never occurred to me that you should search out a phone box and call Manchester.

Now the postcard has a long and proud history and for historians the cards sent not just from the sea side but from towns, villages to family elsewhere are a wonderful historical record.

I have plundered the collections for pictures of old Chorlton and from time to time have wandered across the personal comments written on the back.  Most of course are mundane, but sometimes the drama of the period they were written comes through, like the one expressing concern that his employees were planning to go on strike.

This was the age of frequent collections and deliveries, so a card sent in the morning would arrive by lunch time, enabling the sender to arrange to meet or warn the family they would be home for tea.

Sending a card from the Greek Islands was of course always something you did knowing that in all probability you would be home before the message.  Still choosing, writing and sending postcards is part of the holiday.

Or was as my friend Lawrence ruefully pointed out once, who now sends postcards?  Now Simone and Rosa still do but for most of us technology has pretty much advanced.

It began with the telephone card, making it easier to speak to the UK.  You bought it in advance knew how much time it gave you and used it accordingly.  Of course you still had to find a telephone box which was empty and hope the lines were not too busy.  Neither of which was always easy on the islands.

Then of course along came the mobile phone, expensive I grant you to phone home, but handy and again providing you kept it quick a useful way of keeping in touch.

Last year it was the computer, linked to wi fi, and the year before the internet café.  And now on a resort in an apartment where we do not have wi fi I can talk to the world via a link I push into the computer and it connects me via a mobile in an instant.  We brought out our own knowing it would be expensive, but switched to Vodafone Italia, and so there you have it, in the space of a few short decades, I have gone from pen and post card to instant communication.

On the other hand I now sit on the balcony instead of the beach, typing away instead of getting sand on the card and getting the tan I came for.

Ah well you can’t win’em all.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson