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Melanina R.I.P.
| Author: John Riches | Published: 12th June 2018 17:12 |
Melanina in 2017 with pictures of her sister Anna and her family who live in Brazil.
Melanina died in Duncote Hall on 11th June 2018 at 9.30 am. She never really made much of her recovery from the stroke she had at the beginning of March and over the last few weeks had become increasingly drowsy and uncommunicative. She was very well cared for by the Nurses at Duncote and Dr Akram from Greens Norton had been seeing her regularly.
Melanina has been an integral part of Abthorpe village for decades and her death represents the end of an era.
I will miss her as a good friend with a nice sense of humour and a great love for her village.
Her funeral will be in Towcester Catholic church and I hope she will be buried close to Alberto, who died in 1997.
I will let you have the details as soon as they are arranged.
Those were the words of Dr Charles Fox an outreach volunteer for Towcester’s Roman Catholic Church. Her death indeed marks the end of an era.
Melanina’s connection with Abthorpe all began with Alberto Guiliani from Modena in northern Italy close to the Ferrari factory. He was called-up to serve in the Italian Army and served in the North African desert campaign fighting against General Montgomery and the British Eighth Army. Alberto was captured and ended up as a prisoner-of-war at Slapton in a camp just a short walk across the fields from Abthorpe. When hostilities ceased Alberto decided to remain in England and settled in a cottage overlooking our village green. It wasn’t long before he met Melanina a fellow Italian who came from Avellino a small town in the shadow of the volcano Mount Vesuvius. She came from a big family and as a teenager she worked hard with her father in the fields. Several of her siblings emigrated to Brazil, South Africa and the USA. Melanina chose to come to England and obtained a job to work as a domestic at Bloxham School. Nora Hindes met her and was instrumental in bringing her to Abthorpe almost 70 years ago.
She met Alberto and obtained a job working for Reg Chapman who ran the post office from the thatched cottage on the village green. She did most of the counter serving at the post office for many years and also delivered the mail to parts of the village.
Alberto died in 1997 and is buried in our cemetery. He had never been able to afford a car – just a three-wheeler. But Melanina was determined that his love of Ferraris would never be forgotten and asked our then parish priest Canon Bridget Smith for permission to have a picture of his favourite car placed on his gravestone. Her wish was granted.
Having a conversation with her was fraught with difficulties and misunderstandings as she never did master the English language despite living amongst us for over 70 years. But Melanina was a wonderful character who will indeed be missed from our community.
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