| The Italian Chapel. - Phillip Paris. |
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It was dark, and icy rain began to fall as the Italians stumbled ashore from the tugs that had ferried them in batches from the bowels of the heaving, rolling, old packet steamer. Despite the biting cold, the men were glad to be released from the dreadful, sea-wrought stench that had enveloped them since leaving Aberdeen. But where on earth was this little stone-built pier on which they now stood and shivered? They soon found out.
For this was January, 1942 and the new home for that batch of about 600 men was to be Camp 60, right there on the tiny Orkney island of Lamb Holm. They were prisoners of war and there was an urgent project to be completed.
They were here to construct barriers between the islands in the eastern approaches to Scapa Flow. Churchill’s Barriers. It had been just over two years since a U-boat had torpedoed the Royal Oak at anchor.
Among those prisoners was 31-year-old artist Domenico Chiocchetti. He carried in his pocket a tin box containing a prayer card featuring the Madonna and Child. That prayer ard and Domenico’s vision and dedication were to change the everyday lives of his fellow prisoners for the next two years. But, just as importantly, they were to leave Orkney with one of Scotland’s best-known icons.
The story — mostly fact but with a vital injection of fiction — is told by journalist Phillip Paris in The Italian Chapel, an account in novel form of how Chiocchetti along with his friends, Domenico Buttapasta, a sculptor in both stone and cement, Giuseppe Palumbi, truly an artist in wrought iron, and fellow painter, Sergeant Giovanni Pennisi conceived the idea of a permanent place of worship for the camp inmates instead of just the mess hall.
The author describes, in his gentle, flowing style, how the idea of a chapel caught on, not least with the British officers commanding the camp. They pulled out all the stops to help with the project, their task becoming much easier following Italy’s capitulation in 1943.
The author — he spent three years researching his novel — describes not only the making of the chapel, but the Anglo-Italian creation of the inter-island barriers, which as causeways, were to deliver such an economic boon to the area. It was a colossal undertaking needing four years of six-day, eight-hour shifts dropping thousands of tons of steel-caged rock and concrete into the sea.
But the real story, though yes, there is a forbidden love affair in this novel, is the chapel and how two Nissen huts stuck together were to touch so many lives. Certainly the British officers provided as much as they could, but the interior is a true testimony to what truly dedicated men can achieve with the rood screen exquisitely wrought from scrap iron, the beautifully-painted plasterwork, the statuary, the windows with their pictures of saints, angels and apostles.
Floor tiles, timber, brass for candlesticks — so much of it came from blockships sunk between the islands. Even the chapel bell was once aboard a sunken ship. Phillip Paris’ final chapter reveals all that he has discovered about what happened to the leading characters in his story. And were they all real people?
The chapel, now fully restored thanks to the good folk of Orkney, plays host to thousands of visitors every month and is a popular choice for weddings and concerts. Its creators would have liked that. |
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