by Jane Grant
On the steps of St. Peter’s another young American made the reverse mistake, speaking to us in Italian, urging us to stand near the the Swiss Guards. ‘Les colors’ he kept saying, and we grasped that he wished to take a coloured photograph, and that Mary’s yellow dress and my royal-blue one would add to the charm of the Swiss Guards’ uniforms.
It was early in the season for tourists, and what was to us a bright summer’s day seemed only a cool spring one to the Italians, so that while we wore summer dresses, they were still huddled in greys and blacks. Our clothes and the open-mouthed wonder we displayed as we clutched our well-thumbed maps and phrase books, stamped us immediately as tourists, and though in a month or so the Latin male with his predatory habits would have tired of gaping Northern females, with spring in his heart and novelty still our asset, we created quite a sensation. Youths on scooters would crane their necks without lessening their terrifying speed. Brightly uniformed caribinieri would fight to come to our rescue in difficulty; crossing the road was like the Grand Finale at Covent Garden ‒ traffic screaming to a halt; beaming faces ogling, while we were waved gaily across holding everything up.
Whenever we stopped to look at a monument a host of promoters of Anglo-Italian friendship would rush up and proceed to tell us the entire history of it in dog-English, while we in the time-honoured fashion added an A to the end of our words in the ingenuous belief that this made them more comprehensible.
The men all smiled and most of them spoke; even the middle-aged ones, even the ones with girls already hanging on their arms. If unattached, they were sometimes quite hard to shake off.
We had been all round the Vatican Museum, sagging visibly as we reached the sculpture, much of which was in small fragments that did not provide much interest to our untrained eyes. Before a large flat foot under a glass case, its only claim to fame being age, Mary remarked: ‘That foot looks like mine feel.’
I thought that a short stocky little Italian in glasses was following us, but gave him the benefit of the doubt. He might after all have been interested in flat feet and broken arms. But when we emerged and were walking towards the bridge of San Angelo we saw him running behind.
‘Good morning, Missa. Callda Pietro ‒ and you?’ He beamed hopefully.
‘Oh ‒ Good morning.’
He went on talking in good English, and though we were hardly encouraging, he offered to take us for an ice cream. We refused politely, but found ourselves all the same in a café with ice creams before us. He seemed to fancy me rather than Mary, and said he would take us dancing that evening. He would bring a friend for Missa Maria. He would show us Roma, the Roma no tourist ever saw.
Proprietorially, he took our arms; all excuses fell on deaf ears. He either ignored the excuse completely or pretended he did not understand it.
‘Well thank you so much ‒ we must go.’
‘We dance on the how you say sheeps on the riverie ‒ ah is quite loffly at night ‒ the stars shine.’
We exchanged startled glances across our abductor.
‘It’s time we met our friends,’ Mary said rather shrilly. ‘Please.’
Pietro he suddenly no speaka da lingo.
We maintained a brisk pace towards what we hoped was the hotel. A little man slid out of an alleyway. ‘Cameos Lady verra cheap.’
Pietro was scandalized. ‘Parasites ‒’ he dismissed them contemptuously.
At last to our relief we located our pensione, which appeared to us as a sanctuary. Smiling graciously, we released our arms.
‘Thank you very much,’ I said grandly.
‘It was kind of you to see us back,’ Mary added falsely.
We fled, in our anxiety almost getting jammed in the doorway.
Babington’s English Tea Rooms on the Spanish Steps were rather a shock. We walked in out of the hot Italian sun and were amazed to see tea and muffins, baked beans and chips. However, as we were there we thought we might as well enjoy a cup of real English tea with milk.
As we sat in the corner, a nice-looking Italian boy came in. He had evidently made up his mind to be dashing and try a good old English meal. Thoughtfully examining the menu, and disguising his ignorance of the language, he ordered a hamburger.
This grand English dish arrived; a flat greyish meat cake in the middle of a crisp roll. We saw him look doubtfully at the knife and fork provided, then with a shrug he opened the roll and covered the hamburger liberally with tomato sauce. Picking up his knife and fork, and sizing up the opposition, he attacked the roll, which shot like a bullet from a gun across the table, leaving a desecrating train of tomato sauce on the tablecloth. Recovering the roll by hand, he pinned it down firmly while he sawed at it with his knife in the other hand. Bits flew off, till his place became surrounded.
Undeterred, after eating this first course, he ordered what he called a Banana Spleet, and looked rather surprised when it arrived, obviously expecting pineapple.
As we walked about Rome, seeing smiles everywhere, or sat at our hotel table, surrounded by three or four young Italians to wait on us, for whom nothing was too much trouble, we began to be conscious of nationality for the first time. We saw ourselves as Anglo-Saxons and from the outside.
We noticed our female compatriots in their plastic macs, circling around the alleys by the Pantheon, constantly returning to this landmark lost and scarlet with embarrassment, but too shy to ask their way. We observed the Englishman in the hotel who gave us a shy smile, and then ducked hurriedly behind his Telegraph. And we saw the Italians ‒ eager, happy, gay, spontaneous and out-giving.
We were not the first English people to fall in love with Rome, and we threw our coins in the fountain, and promised to return.
The second time I went to Rome I was on my honeymoon. It was more than three years later, and in the interval I had worked at St. Bernard’s; had specialized in the world of the theatre; had fallen in and out of love; and had finally got engaged to Don McKie, from a farming family in the neighbourhood of my home.
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A Country Practice: New Beginnings by Judith Colquhoun
Welcome to Australia’s best loved country town. Based on the award-winning, international hit television serial A Country Practice, this new series of novels follows the lives and loves of the rural community of Wandin Valley, South-Eastern Australia.
It’s 1981 and a desperate woman arrives at the Wandin Valley Bush Nursing Hospital in the final stages of labour. Can Dr Terence Elliott overcome his demons to save both mother and baby?
Simon Bowen, the newest doctor in town, is frustrated at being seen as an outsider by the tight knit country folk. Will he succeed in winning them around ‒ especially young vet Vicky Dean?
Vicky’s mum, Sister Shirley Dean, is courted by widowed police sergeant Frank Gilroy. But is he the man for her?
Brendan and Molly Jones arrive in Wandin Valley. Are they prepared for the realities of country life?
Meanwhile, a teenager in love clashes with her father and a serious car accident reveals a surprising secret about two of the town’s residents.
Whether you are already a fan of A Country Practice, or are meeting the locals of Wandin Valley for the first time, you’ll be captivated by this entertaining, poignant and heart-warming look at an Australian rural town and its inhabitants.
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The Country Doctor by Jean McConnell
Captivating tales from a young GP’s case notes
Young doctor Linda Ford swaps a busy London teaching hospital for a six month post at a small West Country General Practice. She soon discovers that countryside life is far from uneventful.
John Cooper, the senior doctor, warns Lin
da not to get emotionally involved in her cases. But Linda can't help taking a personal interest in her patients, particularly when their problems seem to be more than medical. And as this is the late 1970s, Linda also faces some misgivings about a female doctor. Especially a young and pretty one.
Linda clashes over medical matters with Dr Peter Cooper, the older doctor's son. But there is an undeniable attraction too. Where will it lead? And as Linda is keeping Peter's place until he joins the practice as his father's partner, what will her future hold?
This slice of rural life uncovers the dramas, family secrets and dilemmas which confront patients young and old. Their stories are in turn intriguing, poignant, and heart-warming.
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Home from Home by Cath Cole
Home from Home is the true-to-life, moving story of five student nurses in the 1960s. The No.1 medical bestseller.
The lives of Theresa, Maggie, Jenny, Sarah and Chris are about to change forever as they start their nurse training at The School of Nursing at Farnton General.
They soon realise that they have much to learn about life, both on and off the hospital wards. A strong bond is formed as the young women face the challenges presented by families, boyfriends and their nursing responsibilities.
Friendships are tested as the young nurses experience the joys and heartbreaks of growing up. But for each of them, for different reasons, the hospital will become a home from home.
A touching, bold and, at times, amusing account of the lives and loves of five trainee nurses in the 1960s.
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City Hospital Book 1: New Blood by Keith Miles
City Hospital: One busy hospital, five medical students, plenty of drama ...
Join five young trainee medics as they learn about life and love on the wards of City Hospital.
Suzie, Mark, Karlene, Gordy and Bella share a house, and the ups and downs of being a medical student in a busy teaching hospital.
In City Hospital Book 1: New Blood ...
An accident leaves a young life hanging in the balance. A guilty Suzie holds the key to catching the culprit.
A party goes horribly wrong when an argument has unexpected and far-reaching consequences.
Karlene discovers why it's never a good idea to get too close to a patient.
The City Hospital series is perfect for fans of television medical dramas.
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