I was reading an article about Armando Iannucci who made the TV show, The Thick of It and movies like The Death of Stalin. I hadn’t realised he was born in Scotland but I shouldn’t be surprised: since World War 2, people have been very mobile and you can’t tell, any more, where they come from by their name or the colour of their face.
It reminded me that, as a child in Blantyre in the 1940’s, for a special treat my mum used to take us to an ice cream shop in the main street. She called it ‘the Tali’s’, short for ‘the Italian’s’ – casual racism but with no malice. Even then, I thought it was odd but, at some point, I was told that lots of Italian POWs who had been interned in Scotland decided not to go back to Italy when the war ended.
I checked Wikipedia and found that Italian influence in Scotland goes back further than that. Even Bonnie Prince Charlie was born in Italy. Hordes came in the 1890’s when there was a famine in their homeland, others settled after the two world wars, and I suppose, if one Italian person settles in an area, they will attract family members or even people from the same village to join them. Whatever the reality of the situation, Scottish-Italians have made their mark. Apart from Iannucci, names like Peter Capaldi, Tom Conti and Lewis Capaldi are well-known around the world and good luck to them.
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