PWAC Victoria: Frances Backhouse, Writing Sample

The Reading Room

A Corner of Italy That is Forever Canada

by Frances Backhouse ©

Reflections on a Remembrance Day visit to a little-known Canadian war cemetery in Sicily. The Georgia Straight, Nov. 8-15, 2001.

I suspect that Flanders' fields hold a prominent place in the geography of the imagination of every Canadian who, like me, was required to sit through a dozen years of solemn Remembrance Day school assemblies.

November after November, in echoing, sweat-haunted gymnasiums across the country, we heard John McCrae's famous verse intoned. By the 12th time, we knew the opening lines by heart. Yet scarlet poppies, stone crosses and slain soldiers remained an abstraction--nothing to do with us. It took me 22 years of wandering the world after high school to turn those abstractions into flesh and blood.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie . . .

I found them not in Flanders, but in a tiny island of carefully tended green surrounded by parched farmland and overlooked by an austere Sicilian town.

Agira is not a place globetrotters on the grand tour of Europe visit. You will search for it in vain in the indexes of most travel guides to Italy, including those with phrases like "off the beaten track" in their titles. Even Sicily guidebooks ignore its existence or dismiss it as being of little interest.

Nevertheless, we were determined to go to Agira and visit the only exclusively Canadian war cemetery in Italy. An unusual ambition, perhaps, but travelling with a military historian I was accustomed to this kind of itinerary. Over the previous month we had already gone to six Italian Second World War cemeteries--four Commonwealth, one Polish, one German.

Tourist activity in Sicily is almost entirely confined to the coastal regions. Foreigners rarely venture into the rugged, sparsely populated interior, except to speed across the island from Palermo to the Valley of the Temples, or to Catania on their way to Mount Etna, the ancient Greek city of Siracusa or fashionable Taoromina, playground of the European jet set. Venturing off these well-worn trails invariably means changing buses at Enna, aptly nicknamed the umbilicus of Sicily.

Arriving at Enna in the late afternoon, we found the bus station thronging with teenagers returning home from school. Clearly we were a novelty. They giggled and stared and tossed snippets of stilted English our way, but always from a safe distance.

Only one boy dared to approach us. "How are you?" he asked, diligently shaping each word. "My name is Alessandro."

We replied in kind, but our exchange was cut short by the signal to board the bus and a stampede of students eager to secure their favourite seats.

From Enna to Agira was a mesmerizing two-hour journey through an arid, undulating landscape of stony fields and impoverished farmsteads. Although we saw our destination long before we reached it, Monte Teja from a distance looked like just another one of the barren, conical hills that studded the countryside. Only as we drew near, did its steep slopes resolve into a tightly packed jumble of buildings that appeared to have been carved right out of the rock. From roof tiles to stucco walls to painted trim, Agira's frugal, unpretentious architecture was dominated by shades of dun. The only conspicuous colour was in the bell tower of Chiesa di San Salvatore, patterned with blue, green, ochre, black, and white glazed tiles.

After disembarking at the piazza in front of San Salvatore, we went in search of our hotel. An old man in a faded black suit jacket and wool cap pointed the way for us, but we had to stop several times and ask for supplemental directions as we negotiated the maze of narrow, cobbled streets that have remained unchanged since the mediaeval era.

By the time we were registered and settled, it was too late to go to the cemetery, which we had learned was two or three kilometres east of Agira, on the road to Regalbuto. We would rise early the next day, November 10, and make the trek before catching the noon bus back to Enna.

Walking along the deserted roads the next morning, I thought about the fuzzy plastic poppy that would have been blooming on my jacket if I were at home. Through my 20s I struggled to decide whether wearing a poppy meant I condoned warfare's violence. Then gradually I came to accept it as a symbol of respect for those who had risked their lives to fight political evil--among them my two grandfathers, who survived the horrors of the First World War, and my father's elder brother, shot down over Germany during World War II, three months after his 20th birthday. I wasn't any less in favour of peace--just more confused about how it might be achieved.

I had no poppy this year, but when we reached the cemetery and entered through its wrought-iron gates, I found an even better token. Neatly clipped rosemary hedges contained by low sandstone walls flanked the grassy slope leading up to the graves. Rosemary for remembrance, tradition says. I picked a sprig and inhaled its pungent aroma as I began to walk slowly along the rows of white marble headstones.

Gunner J. Osborne, 21 July 1943, age 17. "In loving memory of my boy who is sadly missed."

Priv. L.W. Boyce, 24 July 1943, age 23. "In memory and in thoughts we are still as one. Your loving wife Doris."

One by one, I read each of the 490 markers, responding to a deep and unexpected need to perform my own small ceremony of remembrance, feeling my throat grow tight with sorrow. It was silent, except for the soft calling of birds in the pines clustered near the entrance.

Priv. K.J. Earnshaw, 1 August 1943, age 21. "Dear Ken, Rest in peace from the roar of battle. Love, Aunt Mary."

The perfectly aligned ranks of headstones led me up the hill and down the other side. On the far edge I paused and gazed northeast across the rolling terrain to the grandeur of Mount Etna. Then I turned and starting working my way back through the half of the cemetery I had not yet visited.

Priv. C.A. Perry, 2 August 1943, age 33. "To memory ever dear. If love could save, thou hadst not died."

Sapper O.F. Foster, 4 August 1943, age 22. "We are waiting, Frankie lad. Mother and Dad."

All of these men landed on Sicily's shores on July 10, 1943--part of a massive Allied invasion force destined to cross the Strait of Messina and drive northward up the boot of Italy towards Germany's "soft underbelly." Within weeks they were dead, but not before helping to liberate Agira and the surrounding countryside from German occupation.

The warm welcome given to the Canadians when they entered Agira on July 28 was heightened by the already celebratory mood of the town's citizens. Three days earlier, Benito Mussolini had been ousted from power.

Unfortunately, Pte. Hugh Anderson of the Royal Canadian Regiment did not live to see the fall of either Mussolini or Hitler. Dead at age 28 on July 18, 1943, he was survived by his wife and mother. The inscription they chose for his headstone spoke directly to the beliefs that had ultimately brought him to this place: "In loving memory of an anti-Fascist fighter."

Whatever my skepticism about the wars currently tearing our world apart, I knew Hugh Anderson had died for a cause worth defending. I murmured my thanks, laid my sprig of rosemary beside his grave and moved on down the row.

ACCESS: There are no direct flights from Canada to Sicily's main airport in Palermo, but connections can be made through Rome on Alitalia or British Airways. If you have more time than money, the train is an ideal way to reach Sicily from the mainland. A one-way, second-class ticket from Rome to Palermo (11 hours) or Rome to Catania (nine hours) costs L140,000 (about $106) or L130,000 respectively ($99).

Within Sicily, trains work well for inter-city travel, but most smaller communities are more easily reached by bus. There are eight buses daily from Enna to Agira, most running in the early morning or late afternoon. The one-way fare is L5000 ($4).

The only tourist accommodation in Agira is the Albergo Aurora (ph. 0935 69 14 16), with fewer than 10 rooms. A pleasant, but basic, double with private bathroom is L80,000 ($60). Like many rural Sicilians, the proprietress speaks no English.

Despite a population of about 2,800, Agira's only viable restaurant seems to be the Beside Bar, on the main piazza. The menu is limited, but the value is good by Italian standards. Dinner for two with wine can be had for under L35,000 ($27).

The Agira Canadian War Cemetery is one of 23,000 cemeteries maintained worldwide by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Their Internet site (www.cwgc.org) has a searchable database of 1.78 million names of Commonwealth military personnel who died in the two world wars and list where each one is buried.

Frances Backhouse
| Author Profile | More Writing Samples |

Last updated: April 21, 2002 http://www.islandnet.com/pwacvic/backho07.html