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Marisa Parker
a book bubble about
Goodbye to Italia
Biographies & Memoirs
Author Insight
In Times of Adversity
It’s what we do in times of adversity that can make the difference. We’ve all heard the glass half full/ half empty speech. With stock markets plummeting and fears escalating, even I felt a jolt this morning after listening to the news. I switched it off after receiving the pertinent facts … anymore, and I might be rushing out to buy another pack of toilet rolls, to add to the pile that will already last my husband and I a month. Logic and common sense have to be drivers now whilst still being aware and cautious, even if Tom Hanks and his wife have been admitted to a Gold Coast hospital with the coronavirus! In a South African POW camp in WW2—far from his beloved Italy and all that was familiar—my father always tried to be positive and prompted others to do the same. As James Allen (1903) stated, “A man is literally what he thinks …”, and it is easy to give in to panic at these times. So, let’s not … despite the growing noise from those babbling monkey voices in our head that always seem get louder in times of adversity.
Book Excerpt
Goodbye to Italia
‘We really cannot complain,’ I say to my counterparts on Christmas Day. We are sitting in the mess room and opening up little parcels that have been circulated by La Croce Rossa, the Red Cross, in honour of the festivities. And at mass, we are told that this is the biggest attendance than ever before. It is not surprising, as at present, there are sixty-three thousand people in the camp. I don’t know how they manage to coordinate everyone. In fact, one of the English sergeants lets slip that one could lose a prisoner on the twenty-four miles of road that winds around the internal camp site. ‘It would take us days to find him if he was determined to hide.’ I store this information for future reference.
What good spirits we are in when listening to the radio. Il messaggio di Natale, the Christmas message, is read out from the Pope. For just a few minutes, home is not so far away. The dulcet tones and Catholic traditional blessings fills me with warmth and comfort. For just a little while, I am transported from my stark and regimented surrounds.
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