by Philip Paris
On 10th April 1960, the day before Domenico was to leave Orkney, a service of rededication was held in the chapel. The service, some of which was subsequently broadcast on Italian radio, was attended by more than 200 Orcadians, who represented a wide cross-section of denominations. Domenico was the first person to receive Holy Communion.
Father Whitaker commented on the strong ties that now existed between the communities of Orkney and Moena. He conveyed his great admiration for Domenico and the other men, who had fought so hard against the elements and hardships of a prisoner of war camp to create this monument to God in which they were gathered.
‘Of the buildings clustering on Lamb Holm in wartime only two remain: this chapel and the statue of St George. All the things which catered for material needs have disappeared, but the two things which catered for spiritual needs still stand. In the heart of human beings, the truest and most lasting hunger is for God.’
During his three weeks working on the chapel Domenico had written a letter to the people of Orkney and he presented this to the preservation committee the next day.
Dear Orcadians – My work at the chapel is finished. In these three weeks I have done my best to give again to the little church that freshness which it had sixteen years ago. The chapel is yours – for you to love and preserve. I take with me to Italy the remembrance of your kindness and wonderful hospitality. I shall remember always, and my children shall learn from me to love you. I thank the authorities of Kirkwall, the courteous preservation committee and all those who directly or indirectly have collaborated for the success of this work and for having given me the joy of seeing again the little chapel of Lamb Holm where I, in leaving, leave a part of my heart. Thanks also in the name of all my companions of Camp 60 who worked with me. Good-bye dear friends of Orkney – or perhaps I should say just ‘au revoir.’
Domenico Chiocchetti
Epilogue
Shortly after Domenico Chiocchetti’s visit to Orkney in 1960, a group of artists in Moena opened a workshop to produce sacred carvings. Domenico gave up house painting and joined the business as a decorator of statues. He dedicated all his spare time to painting.
He returned to Orkney in 1964, this time with his wife Maria, who was at last able to see the chapel her husband had been so instrumental in creating. As a personal gift they brought with them the fourteen Stations of the Cross, which can be seen on the walls to this day. He returned once more in 1970 with his son Fabio and daughter Letizia. On each occasion he carried out some minor repairs.
Domenico’s fame spread far beyond his home town of Moena in the Dolomites, where he was a well respected man. In 1996, at the age of eighty-six, he was granted the freedom of Moena. He was also president of the ex-POW association for Camp 60 and Camp 34, which had been formed during the late 1960s.
Domenico Chiocchetti died on 7th May 1999, only one week from his eighty-ninth birthday. Such was his standing at the time that several national UK newspapers carried his obituary. The following month a memorial requiem mass was held in the Lamb Holm chapel, conducted by The Right Reverend Mario Conti, Bishop of Aberdeen (now Archbishop of Glasgow), and amongst the congregation were Domenico’s wife Maria and their three children, Fabio, Letizia and Angela. Maria Chiocchetti died in 2007 at the age of eighty-nine.
Giuseppe Palumbi returned to Italy at the end of 1945, and was reunited with his wife Pierina and young son Renato. Giuseppe confessed everything and even showed Pierina the photograph of Fiona, which she promptly burnt. However, they stayed together and, in 1950, had their second child. When this daughter later had her own baby girl, she named her after the woman her father had met and fallen in love with during the war and so, twenty-six years after leaving Orkney, Giuseppe achieved a little part of this dream.
When he left Camp 60, he brought away a photograph of the rood screen. Many times over the following years he could be found staring at the picture, hanging on a wall at home. Giuseppe continued to work as a blacksmith and was very close to his granddaughter. He died in 1980 at the age of sixty-nine. Giuseppe never achieved his wish of returning to Orkney, but the beautiful rood screen remains one of the wonders of the chapel. The heart is still there, where the two gates meet.
A few weeks after he left Lamb Holm, Major Buckland was promoted to Lt Colonel, but by the end of 1946 his services in the army were no longer required. He set up a small commercial stationery business, which he ran from his home in Shropshire where he continued to enjoy music, singing and practical jokes. Following the visit by Domenico Chiocchetti in 1960 the two men kept in regular contact until the death of Thomas Buckland in 1969 at the age of eighty-two.
Padre Giacomo spent three months in the military hospital in Orkney and when he came out the men from Camp 60 had long gone to the camp in Yorkshire. He spent some time based at St Margaret’s Hope on South Ronaldsay, then was based near Sheffield, before being repatriated in 1945. Apart from a brief period as a military chaplain, Padre Giacomo spent the remainder of his life in various Italian monasteries. He was involved in helping to extend a small chapel in Milano Marittima where he spent many years. Padre Giacomo died in 1971 at the age of seventy-six and was buried in Missano, west of Bologna. In 1985, the nearby town of Pavullo nel Frignano honoured his memory by naming a street ‘Padre Giacomo Giacobazzi’.
Like most of the Italians who had been prisoners of war in Britain during the Second World War, Sergeant Major Guerrino Fornasier was repatriated to Italy. However, while ‘Rino’ was based at the camp near Skipton he met a local girl whose parents were Italian, and he later returned to England to marry her. They had one daughter. Rino worked for the family’s ice cream business, which they expanded, eventually moving the factory to Keighley in West Yorkshire. He continued to work in the business until his death in 1975 of cancer. He was only fifty-nine.
Sergeant Giovanni Pennisi set up a business as a decorator upon his return to Italy. He married and had a son. Giovanni Pennisi died in 1989.
James Sinclair continued to take photographs until his late seventies and when he died in 1984 at the age of eighty-three, he left a unique record of Orkney life that spanned some sixty years. His photograph of Domenico and Giuseppe is one of the most famous ever taken of the Italian chapel.
Ernest Marwick became a well known Orkney author and a writer for both the Orcadian and the Orkney Herald newspapers. Following Domenico’s visit in 1960 he remained in regular contact with the artist until his death in 1977.
Father Joseph Ryland-Whitaker was based in Lerwick on Shetland from 1953 to 1961, at which point he was transferred to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. He died suddenly in 1963 while working in Edinburgh.
Father Frank Cairns was based in Shetland from 1955 to 1958, when he was moved to Orkney. He took over the role of chairman of the Italian Chapel Preservation Committee, a position that has been held by successive Roman Catholic priests on Orkney for many years.
The fate of Fiona, like Buttapasta, Major Booth, Micheloni and others in the story, has been lost over time.
In 1992, eight ex POWs from Camp 60 and Camp 34 made an historic return journey to Orkney, fifty years after they had first arrived on the islands. None of the men had been back since they had left and they were treated as honoured guests, with Italian flags flying from many vantage points during their stay. This, of course, included a service held in the chapel.
By this time Domenico Chiocchetti was too frail to join them. However, amongst them was Primiano Malvolti, better known during his captivity on Orkney as ‘Shipwreck’. He returned to Italy after the war, worked on the railways, married, had four children and lived to be eighty … without the use of a walking stick.
Another of the men who returned to Orkney in 1992 was Coriolano ‘Gino’ Caprara, the star of many performances in the mess hall. At the time of writing, Gino is a sprightly ninety year old, full of stories about his time in the camp and the friends he made of local people.
The small girl who was so delighted with the woo
den toy made by Sergeant Major Fornasier moved years later to live in Orkney and Sheena Wenham now helps to train tour guides on the islands. Her aunt, Alison Sutherland Graeme, remained honorary president of the preservation committee until her death on 30 November 2009 at the age of 102.
Following the completion of the barriers, Bill Johnstone was called up, joined the Royal Navy and sent to the naval dockyards in Freetown, Sierra Leone … where he was put in charge of a power station! He died in 1981, having run a successful concrete manufacturing business in Orkney for many years after the war.
The island of Lamb Holm is still owned by the Sinclair family. The quarry where so many of the Italian POWs worked was flooded years ago and is now used by a local shell fish merchant and also as a hatchery for lobsters, which are released back into the sea.
Many Orkney families treasure gifts given to their parents or grandparents by the Italians when they left the islands. The Mathieson family in Burray have the beautiful model of Milan cathedral, made out of matchsticks, while Bill Johnstone’s daughter still has the lemonade bottle containing a carved crucifix, with which he was presented in return for the oil he gave the Italians for their hair. Many other items can be seen in Orkney museums.
Today, the ties between Orkney and Moena are stronger than ever. The regular exchange trips of school children have often included one of Domenico and Maria Chiocchetti’s four grandchildren, while representatives of the preservation committee have visited Moena on several occasions. The wayside shrine situated next to the chapel was a present from the Moena community.
The chapel has needed some tender loving care over the years and the unsung heroes of this story are the preservation committee and men like local artist Gary Gibson, who has overseen restoration work and on-going repairs for more than thirty years.
The committee’s secretary, John Muir, has been a contact point since the 1960s for people around the world with an interest in the chapel.
The chapel has become a popular venue in which to be married or hold concerts and is one of Orkney’s most famous tourist attractions. Around 10,000 visitors a month gaze upon Domenico’s Madonna and Child in the summer, when services are held once a month. A special service is held every year in October, on the Sunday nearest to the anniversary of the sinking of the Royal Oak.
The chapel remains, fragile and immortal, a symbol of peace and hope from people long gone for those yet to come.
Author’s Note
The manuscript was nearing completion (or so I thought) when I heard the story of Giuseppe and Fiona from the blacksmith’s grandson, Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Palumbi. I had asked the Palumbi family a number of questions about Giuseppe and his time on Orkney and the story then came out about Fiona. When Giuseppe’s son Renato told Pino what had happened, I think he was even more surprised than I was when I found out. I never tracked down the woman that Giuseppe loved in Orkney. Fiona Merriman is not her real name and the ‘life’ I have given her is entirely fictitious … almost.
Characters such as Aldo, Dino, Carlo and Ailsa came from my own imagination. However, while they are not meant to represent anyone alive or dead, I have attributed to them many events that are reported to have happened. At least one POW was killed in an accident during the building of the Churchill Barriers and another died of pneumonia. They were buried with full military honours in St Olaf cemetery. After the war their bodies were exhumed and returned to Italy.
The earliest article I can find about the chapel was published in 1959 by the Orkney Herald, following an interview with the Camp 60 priest. In this, he refers to the blacksmith as ‘Palumbi’. A few weeks later, the newspaper carried an article following an interview with Domenico Chiocchetti, and in this the spelling is given as Palumbo. Most articles have since used the latter. It was only in 2001, when Renato Palumbi contacted the chapel preservation committee to arrange a family visit to Orkney, that the correct name could be confirmed.
In the Orkney Herald’s article about Padre Giacomo, the spelling of the stonemason is given as Buttapasta. Many subsequent articles spell this as Bruttapasta but, according to Domenico Chiocchetti’s daughter, there was no ‘r’ in his name so I have used this version.
The Camp 60 priest’s name also causes some confusion. He was christened Gioacchino Giacobazzi and virtually all articles refer to him as Padre Giacobazzi. However, a biography of the priest, written by a man called Berardo Rossi and published in 1997, reveals that he was known as Padre Giacomo, which translates as Father James, and was most likely his ordination name.
Throughout the book, I have tried to keep to known dates, names and events where possible, but obviously some parts have been guessed at, other parts altered for dramatic effect and some situations simplified. The latter is particularly the case with regard to the offer to be ‘volunteer co-operatives’, made in April 1944 by the British Government to the Italians in captivity. In reality, this was extremely complex and the details of the offer changed over the following months.
Before the Italians arrived in Orkney they spent several weeks in Edinburgh, undergoing medical checks and further registration procedures. It was during this time that they were given new uniforms, which incorporated target discs, two on the jacket and one on the outside of the trousers.
Padre Giacomo arrived at Camp 60 with the Italian flag that he had saved at the last minute from a field hospital in Soddu, Ethiopia. I don’t know if he hung the flag in the vestry or what happened to it after the Italians left the islands.
Coriolano ‘Gino’ Caprara and Primiano Malvolti spent their captivity in Orkney in Camp 34 on Burray. I liked the story about the walking stick so much that I ‘transferred’ both men to Camp 60. The tale about how ‘Shipwreck’ fooled everyone for over two years, but then gave himself away by entering sports events, is recounted as it was told to me by his good friend Gino. This includes the presentation to Shipwreck of the cup for best overall sportsman and his experience the following day, when the British camp commander ignored him as he stood to attention in his office then, without speaking, simply handed over a card upon which was written ‘Quarry’!
One can only imagine the frustration endured by the men held captive in Camp 60 for so long, but the incidents of conflict that I have recounted between the Italians are not based on any actual events.
Many of the stories that may appear implausible are based on facts, such as how Domenico and his friends caught a gull and painted it to look like the Italian flag. For this action, they did indeed spend a couple of days in the punishment block. Domenico’s meeting with Major Buckland during the initial stages of the chapel’s creation, at which the officer thought the artist was refusing to do the work, is also documented. When he realised his mistake, he slapped Domenico on the back, saying, ‘Bravo.’ Major Buckland’s mother had spent a frantic couple of days while he had been working, as a young man, on the SS Cedric as she thought he had transferred to the Titanic just before its tragic maiden voyage.
One of the Italians was given a ferret by a local farmer, the two men coming to an agreement that the farmer could have the skins of any animal caught. The parcels sent by Italian families to Camp 60 sometimes contained fruit and there are Orcadians today who remember being given these fruits when they were small children.
I never discovered the identity of the popular English sergeant nicknamed ‘Wooden Leg’. Mr Ian McClure was the surgeon at the Balfour Hospital from 1928 until his retirement in 1962, although his interactions with characters in the book are not based on fact.
Most of the men who had been in Camp 60 are dead, but new information continues to come to light. The electrician Michael De Vitto died in 2007 in Lancashire, which I discovered only recently when I tracked down his widow, Margaret. The two met while he was in the Skipton camp and although he was repatriated in 1945, Michael returned two years later to marry her. Margaret tells her husband’s story in the nonfiction Orkney’s Italian Chapel.
Although the majority of published articles
put the date of the departure of the men in Camp 60 as the spring of 1945, they left Lamb Holm on 9th September 1944 to transfer to Overdale Camp, near Skipton.
A copy of the letter from ‘Tony’ to the girl in the Kirkwall shop is in the Orkney library archives (ref D31/27/4), and is reproduced exactly as it was written. Also in the archives (ref D31/27) is the letter Domenico Chiocchetti presented to the preservation committee in 1960. However, this is not in his handwriting, so was probably written for him at the time by someone with better English.
By 1945, more than 150,000 Italians, who had been POWs in Britain, were still in the country. They had become an import ant part of the nation’s depleted workforce, though most were repatriated during the following year. Many later returned to Britain to work, marry and raise families.
This book concentrates on the lives of the Italians in Camp 60, but credit should be given to the huge effort also made by civilian workers in building the barriers, who started the project more than eighteen months before the Italian POWs arrived on the islands. Tragically, several men were killed during the construction work, most of them drowned in the first year when travel between the islands was extremely dangerous.
Many chapels were built in POW camps around the world by Italians during the Second World War and although most have been lost there are still examples that exist today, such as the one in Henllan, West Wales and Letterkenny, USA. The chapel that was built under the supervision of Giovanni Pennisi in Camp 34 on the Orkney island of Burray was demolished after the war along with the other Nissen huts. It was the fate destined for the chapel in Camp 60 … if the demolition crew had not refused to carry out their orders.
Also by Philip Paris
Orkney’s Italian Chapel