Ok, so yesterday was the turn of former Eastenders actress Tamsin Outhwaite to get the Who Do You Think You Are? treatment, focusing on her British-Italian ancestry. An interesting story, Tamsin's shock at discovering the treatment of Italian immigrants during the Second World War was touching. The interment camp on the Isle of Man (referred to by Tamsin's grandmother, perhaps not unfairly, as a 'concentration camp,') was an unfair place in which hard-line fascists were entrapped with people who were, to all intents and purposes, British, and had no love for the Italian regime.
The fascists were unfortunately able to dominate the camp, largely due to the fact that the British left organisation of accommodation, roles, and work, up to the inmates. This meant, perhaps inevitably, that those in charge were those who were the most likely to be violent, intimidating, and thuggish. Innocent people, also labelled 'enemy aliens,' tried to get on and keep their heads down.
The other interesting facet to this story was the immigration of Italian ice cream and café workers to Glasgow, sometimes only for a few months a year. This reminded me of the South Wales tradition of the affectionate title of the 'Bracchi' café (the name was thought to originate with one of the first Italian families to move to South Wales.) Several of the older members of the South Wales communities still refer to ice-cream parlours, Italian cafes, etc., as 'Bracchi shops,' though this is less common than it once was.
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