John Cornwell, author and academic.
From Palazzola, the summer villa of the Venerable English College, high on the flanks of Lake Albano, south of Rome, to Naples, walking, more or less, along the Via Appia. We should arrive at the Duomo on 19 September in time for the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of San Gennaro, a 4th-century martyr. If it fails, the parenti, or “aunts”, of San Gennaro hurl insults at the archbishop, who officiates. The saint’s blood, kept in an ampoule, looks like a lump of black rock. After hymns, and a lot of turning back and forth, it turns bright red and fizzes like Tizer – at which 5,000 cheering worshippers rush out into the piazza for their gelato and espresso fixes. The miracle is like the lighting of the Easter candle: a sense of resurrection for a troubled city. There are plenty of theories explaining away the prodigy, but it’s the celebration of hope and new beginnings that matter.
The Monastery of Monte Cassino, founded by St Benedict in the 6th century, gleaming like ivory high on the mountain range above the Garigliano valley, and scene of the savage battle in 1944 when 55,000 Allied troops lost their lives breaking through the German front. Then I would visit the Minturno war cemetery, where many are buried, looking out to sea at Scauri on the Gulf of Gaeta.
My youngest brother, Jim, who chairs the Gay Outdoor Group. He’s a formidable hiker, rambler and athlete; last year he won silver and bronze medals at the annual Old Age Olympics in Derby. He’s an amateur podiatrist and would treat my corns, carry my knapsack when necessary, and keep me amused with anecdotes and mimicry. He has a great singing voice; he was the town crier of Tenby.
The Academy Club, Soho, for disreputable writers – many of them more or less Catholic. It was founded by my late lamented friend Bron Waugh. The bar was made by the late Septimus Waugh, Bron’s youngest brother, who was a cabinet maker and is a surely a saint. I am the dean of the club, among other things – in charge of the morals of visiting dogs. I could keep an eye on things canine, despite being absent.
Under an umbrella pine, confident that Jim would pitch our superlight mini-tents for inclement weather, and deal with stray dogs.
Pictures from Italy by Charles Dickens, his most neglected book, and Italian Hours by Henry James, in which he proclaims that the view across the campagna from the terrace at Palazzola is the most stunning in the whole of Italy.
Wisdom 9:4. “Give me the wisdom that sits beside your throne; give me a place among your children.”
George Herbert’s “Prayer (I)”:
Prayer the Church’s banquet, angel’s age, God’s breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth…
“La Montanara” (The Song of the Mountains). Sung gently, it’s a love song to remind me of my wife. Sung energetically, however, it’s an Alpini marching song.
A self-cleaning water bottle that uses UV light to kill bacteria inside it in 60 seconds. It keeps liquids hot for up to 12 hours, and cold for up to a day.
