The Italian Connection

by Roberta McGee

Many Italians came to Scotland in the late 1880s to escape poverty and with the ambition to set up small businesses such as ice-cream parlours and fish & chip shops. They were hardworking and family orientated and integrated well into their chosen community. Later, immigrants came to Scotland for political reasons. The Italian families who settled in Cumnock were originally from Tuscany. 

MARIO LUNI was born in 1882 in Castelnuova, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy. We first find him on the 1911 census in Cumnock at 4 Ayr Road, an ice-cream shop, with two Italian-born assistants 24 years old Giovanni Rossi  and 16 years old Enrico Pucci. He travelled back to Tuscany in 1913 to marry Elvira Bertucci and returned to Cumnock immediately after their marriage. It was here that their three children were born, Ernesto (Ernie) in 1914, Pietro (Peter) in 1916 and a daughter Bice in 1919. 

Shop is below the Capstan sign

In 1920 Mario had a fish & chip shop at 6 Glaisnock Street, Cumnock, (which would be where Connell's was) and a cafe called "The Welcome Cafe" at 6 Ayr Road. The 1921 census shows that he was still at 6 Ayr Road with two Italian-born male assistants. The Catani family were boarding - Bruna 23 who was the housekeeper and three young male Catanis - Nello 13, Oyea 9 and Sirio 7 who were all born in Castelnuovo. On the 1930 Valuation Roll Mario was living at 10 Manse Lane, Cumnock.

Both Mario and his wife Elvira died in Tuscany - Mario in 1948 and Elvira in 1953.

Ernie and Peter carried on the business. The Cafe was on Ayr Road corner with the Fish & Chip shop upstairs. It was accessed by an outside stair at the side of the building. Ice-cream and confectionary were sold downstairs. It became a gathering place for the teenagers in the town and the Luni family were well liked by the townsfolk. 

Ernie Luni

Images - Cumnock Connections Tree

Peter married Giuseppina Guidi in 1948 at New Cumnock and opened a cafe there. Ernie married Letizia Marchi and about the 1960s they opened another Fish & Chip shop at the bottom of the Barrhill Road. Ernie died in Cumnock in 1987 and Letizia died in the Bute Nursing Home, Cumnock in 2016. Their son carried on their tradition and has a very popular fish and chip shop in Ayr. Unfortunately the Welcome Cafe is no longer there having been demolished like many other businesses in Cumnock.

Another Italian family to settle in Cumnock was the Quadris.

PRIMO QUADRI  was born in 1894 in Castelnuovo, Carfagnana, Italy and married Maria Elvira Lenzi. When he arrived in Cumnock is unclear. He was a salesman for fellow countryman Mario Luni at 4 Ayr Road. They had a son, Licio, who was known as Tony, in 1925 born most likely in Italy as I can find no record of his birth in Scotland. 

1925 was a turbulent time in Italy. Mussolini had declared himself Italy's dictator in which he had asserted his right to supreme power and under his fascist regime there was widespread unrest. 

On 10 June 1940 Benito Mussolini declared war on Britain. Overnight all Italians living in Britain were looked upon as 'enemy aliens' and the men aged between 16 years old and 70 years old were rounded up for internment. The fear that the Italians might work with the enemy led Churchill to coin the phrase 'Collar the Lot'. There were 3 levels of internment:-

     

• Category A - to be interned
• Category B - to be exempt from internment but subject to restrictions decreed by special order.
• Category C - to be exempt from both internment and restrictions

  Those classified in Category A were interned in camps being set up across the UK, the largest settlement being on the Isle of Man although there were others set up in and around Glasgow. 

Due to concerns over space to accommodate the growing number of internees a decision was taken to deport them to Canada and Australia. On 2nd July 1940 the 'Arandora Star', a converted passenger liner, was en route from Liverpool to a camp in Canada when it was struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland. On board were 734 Italian internees (civilians), 438 Germans (including both Nazi sympathisers and Jewish refugees) and 374 British seamen and soldiers. Over half lost their lives including 446 Italians. Some of these men were from immigrant families from Ayr and Glasgow. This incident caused much public sympathy towards the 'enemy aliens'  and many of the Italians were released early.

Arandora Star Italians who died | Anglo Italian Family History Society

Primo, who was working in Mario Luni's cafe, was arrested and interned on the Isle of Man. According to a newspaper report there were eight Italians detained in Cumnock but, unfortunately, no names. An older resident recalls the anger of the Cumnock townsfolk when they were arrested.  

Oban Times & Argyleshire Advertiser 15/6/1940 

On his release Primo went back to working in Mario Luni's cafe and in 1948 his son Tony married Paradisa Angeli at St Patrick's RC Church in Greenock. Tony and Paradisa (known as Rina) set up house in Cumnock. 

95/97a Glaisnock Street

Through the years Primo & Maria and Tony & Rina built up their businesses opposite the Town Hall in Glaisnock Street. They bought Bowman's Ice Cream and Confectionery shop. Older Cumnockians will remember the sitting area where they could enjoy a 'McCallum' or a '99'. Further up Glaisnock Street was Primo and Maria's fish and chip shop. There was a snooker room adjoining. In between the ice-cream shop and the fish & chip shop they created a cafe with a juke box where teenagers would gather.

Tony died in Cumnock in 1981 and Primo and Maria died in Cumnock in 1982 and 1986 respectively.   Rina, also died in Cumnock in 1998. 

R Grierson

THE TOGNINI FAMILY

Luigi Tognini was born in 1896 in Castelnuovo, Tuscany, Italy, the same area as both Mario Luni and Primo Quadri. He was only sixteen when he travelled from Italy to Cumnock to work in Mario Luni's fish & chip shop in Ayr Road. He returned to Italy in 1920 to join the Italian army. In 1921 he married Amelia Terni and later that year he returned to Scotland. His business progressed and he had, over the years, the Savoy Cafe and the Central Cafe in Ayr then a cafe at 163 Ayr Road Prestwick and a bungalow at Lilybank Road, Prestwick.  Luigi and Amelia had six children and Amelia travelled back to Italy to give birth each time. Two sons and two daughters survived - Renato, Piero, Anna and Aduo and were educated mainly in Prestwick and Ayr.

The day Italy entered the war on Germany's side Luigi closed his cafe, Next morning two policemen arrived at the bungalow, arrested Luigi and his oldest son Renato, and immediately took them away to be interned. Amelia was informed that the remaining family must leave the coastal region and move inland for a distance of at least 20 miles.  They persuaded a local merchant to take them in his car and they headed for Cumnock. They reached Auchinleck and, with the help of some villagers, managed to persuade a lady who lived on her own in Arran Drive, to temporarily let them have a room in her house.  Son Piero managed to secure employment at Josephine Antonucci's fish & chip shop in the village. Josephine's parents came from the same area in Italy as the Tognini family. 

On the morning of his 16th birthday Piero was arrested and taken to Barlinnie. From Barlinnie he was taken to an internment camp in Strachar, then down to Liverpool and finally to the Isle of Man where he was reunited with his father Luigi and brother Renato. He was released five months later on 12th December 1940 on the condition that he undertook work of national importance so he made his way back to his mother and sisters in Auchinleck and got a job as a woodcutter at a farm at Low Glenmuir, Cumnock. In 1941 they moved into a rented room and kitchenette in the Royal Hotel, Cumnock and in 1943 they moved to a flat at 29 Glaisnock Street.

During his time in Cumnock Piero met Tony Quadri while swimming at Cumnock Swimming Pool and they formed a lasting friendship. He also joined a small band which consisted of mainly Hawaiin guitar players. They called themselves 'The Twilight Serenaders' and were based mainly in the Cumnock area.

Luigi and Renato were released in January 1944 having been interned for four years on the Isle of Man. Luigi found work as a cobbler and Renato as a coalminer in Lugar. 

 

Kilmarnock Herald & North Ayrshire Gazette 14/7/1944

At the end of the war in 1945 the Togninis left Cumnock and returned to Prestwick where they re-opened their business/

                   

Source for the Tognini story - 'A Mind at War', an autobiography by Piero Tognini

Love and War

By Alexandra Watson

 The latter days of the 18th Century

Great events even far away can often impact our surroundings and lives. How many of us who pass through Ayr and see the ruins from Eglinton Street, know that this was the Citadel Fort, commissioned in 1652 and one of a group of five impressive fortresses established following Scotland’s defeat and the establishment of a Commonwealth between England and Scotland. English occupation forces were housed there, with the intention, to repress a still hostile Scots populace. A later addition to the town was The Barracks, built on the south side of Ayr Harbour as part of the British response to the threat of the French in 1795 and it was to there came an English soldier.

The turmoil of the second half of the 18th century saw events that not only changed the world but the individual lives of ordinary people living in Ayrshire. The last Jacobite rising of 1745; the War of American Independence of 1775 -1783; the French Revolutionary Wars of 1792 -1802 and the Napoleonic Wars of 1799 - 1815 and the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Against this background the British government had a real anxiety that there may be alliances amongst disillusioned Scots and Irish and the French. 

In 1794, some one hundred and seventy-five miles away in County Durham, a weaver, John Watson was recruited into the Durham Fencible Cavalry, which changed its name the next year to the Princess of Wales's Fencible Cavalry. It was led by William Vane, who was also Colonel of the Militia.  After spending three years in Scotland, they proceeded to Ireland and were disbanded in 1802. 

“During the French Revolutionary Wars from end 1792 until May 1802 the regiment was tasked with maintaining order as well as anti-invasion duties and for this purpose they were employed outside of their area of recruitment and kept on the move “so as to avoid fraternisation with the local population” 

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_and_Volunteers_of_County_Durham

Well, as Robert Burns said just about that time in 1785:

“The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men gang aft agley” 

How and where John Watson met the local girl, Catherine Henrie we will never know. She was born on 11 March 1779, in Kirkmichael, Ayrshire, Scotland. They married in St Quivox on 23 August 1797 and it is known that the army moved supplies such as cattle and horses inland to there, away from the Ayr coast, in case of French raids.

The beginning of the 19th Century

When John left the army they settled in her home village of Kirkmichael and John worked as a weaver. They had at least 5 children who in turn had families. Each of the boys had at least 6 children and so this particular branch of the Watsons was established in Ayrshire.

Our interest is with John's son William and then the line from William's daughter Janet. William was born on 21 June 1802. In the church records he and three siblings are belatedly recorded as Irregular Baptisms, maybe harking back to John’s English background and not originally being a member of the Church of Scotland. William married Euphemia Duncan in Sorn, her home village on 6 June 1826. Euphemia was 27 and William was 23. William moved to Sorn and raised his children there but by 1851 he is back in Kirkmichael. William sadly died relatively young at 54 years old in 1856. However, Euphemia moved to Cumnock with her youngest son James, and lived to the age of 77. Sadly Janet Watson, William and Euphemia’s daughter died at the age of 25 in 1857 having given birth to a son out of marriage. He was called George Henrie Watson and it seemed that his paternity would remain a mystery. However, with the advent of DNA testing, we have noticed multiple links to a Howe Family, also resident in Kirkmichael. We also noted the death of a young man John Howe, ages with Janet who also sadly died the same year as the birth of George. 

The mid 19th Century

So we follow George’s line, he remained in his brother James’s household in Cumnock till he married his next-door neighbour Jeanie Crichton in 1873. Both Jeanie's parents' families had originated in Lanarkshire making their way to Ayrshire for work in the coal industry after their marriage in 1843. Coincidently George and Jeanie’s next-door neighbour in the Barrhill in Cumnock was none other than a certain journalist James Keir Hardie, a founding member of the Labour Party.

The early 20th Century

George Henrie Watson and Jeanie had 7 children. These were very hard times ...The Depression; World War 1 1914 -1918; the National Strike 1926. The girls all followed their husbands for work and left Cumnock. The Yuills and Ronalds headed for Glasgow. George was the first to emigrate and he went to New Zealand. Mary and her husband Alexander Vallance of Burnside farm, Cumnock, headed for Canada and then James too decided to emigrate.  James a recently remarried widower took his new wife and family off to Canada. Only Robert (born 1885) remained in Cumnock but sadly he too died at the young age of 37, leaving behind a young widow and three of a family. Only one son to carry on the Watson name in Cumnock - Hugh Watson.

George Watson (born 1892) had a successful life in New Zealand. He was widowed after 40 years of marriage and then decided to visit Cumnock again. He stayed with his nephew Hugh (mentioned above) and coming home by sea he succumbed “to a shipboard romance” marrying again on his return to New Zealand. The Cumnock Chronicle ran quite a story on George and his visit. 

Happily, James (born 1890) who was also widowed young had married his employer’s (The Craigs from the Guelt Farm, Glenmuir) daughter and set off with his family and new bride to Canada and received a land grant. James fathered five children and his two boys' children established quite "a Watson Clan", in Fredericton, New Brunswick. These Watsons are regular visitors to Scotland as are their children and the connection is as strong as ever. We also hear from the Vallances in Ontario who recently made "an eighteen-strong party expedition" to Scotland.

World Wars

Young Hugh, the son of Robert, was born in 1917 and only 5 when his father died. He was brought up by his mother Elizabeth Crawford Blackwood (1885 - 1963), a well-known and respected figure. Hugh had a very happy life with his mother two older sisters Martha and Jean and his young cousin Jean that is until war intervened. 

Hugh was a grocer and at the outbreak of the war, he went with two friends to enlist. The three of them were attracted to the glamour of the Air Force, the queue was long and being processed alphabetically so the W’s were last to be signed. His two friends successfully were enrolled into the Air Force before him but Hugh had to take the army. Sadly as the attrition rate was high in the Air Force it might come as no surprise that Hugh’s friends never made it home.

Hugh was in the Black Watch and was taken prisoner on 11 June 1940.

source:  https://51hd.co.uk/history/valery_1940

This is not the place to record the horrors of the situation, the enforced marches, the near starvation, the deaths and the misery of war. Hugh was the most optimistic and positive man you could meet. At home, his widowed mother and sisters feared for his life.  

Calum MacIver bottom right and Hugh Watson top left in Stalag XX1D (Poland)

Hugh did make it home but fate brought that twist of love and war exactly like in the John Watson & Catherine Henrie marriage, meeting his wife only because of the war. 

The first John Watson’s home in Durham had been one hundred and seventy-five miles away from Cumnock. At an even longer distance of three hundred and twenty-eight miles in a tiny village on the Hebridean island of Lewis, a baby was born to Murdo MacIver and Isabel MacLean. She was Eiric Mhuruchaidh Iain Aonghais and spoke no English till the age of six. Effie, as she was known, was a really clever girl and wanted to be a nurse. In those days you had to pay for your training, so she went to the capital city of Edinburgh and worked as a servant till she raised sufficient money. She had two brothers and a sister named Barbara. The latter came to Edinburgh with her and their brothers enlisted; John into the navy and Calum into the army. In 1940 the family was advised that Calum too had been taken prisoner by the Germans. Effie worked hard and eventually became a Ward Sister in the prestigious Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. In those days women who held those positions did not marry and had rooms on site. The war was hard for her too as not only did they treat civilian patients from the city but British soldiers and German soldiers too – an irony when her brother was imprisoned there.

Effie far right

Calum and Hugh were in the same prisoner-of-war camp and became very close friends. The end of the war came and Calum came home and married his sweetheart Cathy and in those days a Lewis wedding lasted for days. Effie, Barbara, and one of Barbara's friends, Mary Dougan, went up north for the wedding. Not long after the wedding Effie decided to visit Barbara's friend who was now married and living back in her native Ayrshire. The friend knew Hugh Watson and the connection between Calum and Hugh and arranged for Effie to meet Hugh...and the rest is history. 

There are no Watsons from Jeanie Crichton and George Henrie Watson's line living in Cumnock but all have a piece of Cumnock in their hearts.

Chester Kerr

By Stanley Kerr, edited by Kay McMeekin

Czeslaw Sobiesniewski was born on 29th May 1915 in Waplewo Wielkie (Gross Waplitz) which at that time was on the East Prussian border of Poland, north of Lubicz. Although the population was Polish, it belonged to Germany until the end of the Great War. So his birth certificate states he was born in Germany.

He served with the Polish Navy from 1938. 

His first ship was the motor torpedo boat ORP Masur, then the destroyer ORP Grom. At the outbreak of World War Two the Grom was seconded to the Royal Navy, based in Rosyth, and it was used as a convoy escort in the North Sea. Czeslaw was promoted to Able Seaman in April 1940. On 19th April ORP Grom was sent to Narvik and became part of the Norwegian campaign. The ship's duty was to patrol the fjords and harass the German shore batteries around Narvik. It was so successful and accurate with the guns that the Germans came to hate the Polish ship and made an all-out effort to destroy it. They finally succeeded in May 1940. It sank with the loss of 59 lives. 

Czeslaw was transferred to ORP Gydnia which was based at Plymouth and later the ORP Ouragan . 

In 1940 he was transferred to ORP Piorun which was built in Clydebank in 1940 as the RN destroyer HMS Nerissa. It was loaned to the Polish Navy and renamed Piorun. It served in the western approaches as a convoy escort. In March 1941 it was in Clydebank for repair at the time of the Clydebank Blitz. The crew of the Piorun used their anti-aircraft guns in a continuous and deadly barrage too deter the bombers. They had to throw buckets of seater onto the gun barrels to keep them cool. A memorial dedicated to the crew of the Piorun was erected in Clydebank  in Solidarity Plaza in Clydebank. Czeslaw earned his first Cross of Valour that night.

During the course of the war Czeslaw  was awarded the Cross of Valour twice, the Sea Medal four times, the 19439-45 star the Atlantic Star, the France and Germany Clasp, the Italy Star, the War Medal 1939-45 and the Arctic Pin.

When the Second World War, ended the Russians were given control over Poland as a communist state. This meant that the majority of Poles were concerned they could not return to their native land for fear of reprisals. Their fears were justified and word started filtering back during the following months that Poles who had returned were inprisoned and some had been shot.

Czeslaw decided to stay in Britain and remain in the Navy as an instructor until 20th February 1947 when he transferred to the newly formed Polish Resettlement Corps which was set up by the British Government to help integrate the thousands of Polish servicemen into jobs and houses in Britain.  

He met his future wife Pearl Campbell Kerr from Cardonald during the war. They moved to Hut no 9 Crookston Camp in Glasgow where they were married on 22 January 1944. By now he was known as Chester Kerr.

Hut no 9 was just a bare wooden building with a corrugated iron roof. Czeslaw a practical man set about erecting partitions  to create rooms  and made all the furntiure himself.  Tom and Bill were born and the family moved to another camp Hangingshaws in Prospecthill Road Glasgow where Allan was born in 1949.

When Chester came off the reserve list he became a civilian and had to find a job. His qualifications were left behind in Poland so he had to find work as a labourer. He got a job with William Arrol and Company and worked on the Loch Sloy dam at Loch Lomond.

The family moved to Bellshill in 1951 and in 1952  a new estate Netherthird in Cumnock, was built to house miners and the Kerrs were one of the first families to move in with their first four children Tom, Bill, Stan and Allan to Holmburn Road. Daughters Audrey and Isabella were born in Cumnock. Chester was now a miner first at Knockshinnoch and at the Barony and finally at Killoch. He studied at night school to qualify as a colliery deputy. He retired in 1976. He didn't get a long retirement, though, as he was struck with cancer of the colon and died in 1980 aged 65.

gardening in Netherthird