Monday 4 February 2013

Memories of Little Italy




Now I have been reflecting on Little Italy in Ancoats.*

And the stories have prompted quite a bit of interest.

Last week I got a series of emails from Marie in Canada who wrote that “my great granddad, Simon Robino, had a business making barrel organs.  

He came to Manchester around 1897, was born in Italy but studied music in Marseilles.  

He wrote a lot of music and there is a lot of information about him in the site run by Anthony Rea.**  He was my nanna's dad and she was called Angelina Robino, she married my granddad, William Henry who was a policeman from Sligo, Ireland."

And more recently David told me that
"I can relate to the Italian quarter in Ancoats as I went to school in Ardwick and the various ice cream men who used to park at the school gates were called Carlo and Sivori etc.   It was unusual for a Tech High School (St Gregory's RC) but it taught Italian as an O level option and various kids took it up as an easy option.. (Lets; see, Ronchetti, Crolla and another lad I remember doing well in it?!)"

Now I chose a picture which comes I hope closest to the memories of Marie and David.  It featured in an earlier story http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/what-difference-half-century-makes.html
It was taken on a July day in 1958, the sun was shining and the pull of ace cream is all too evident.

Picture; Market Street on a Saturday afternoon in July 1958, A.P. Morris Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council m62093

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Little%20Italy
**http://www.ancoatslittleitaly.com/




No comments:

Post a Comment