Charles Quest Ritson, expert writer on gardens and the Riviera, sent me a fascinating insight into the British in Bordighera in 1907. It comes from an essay by Edmundo de Amicis, a writer who was living at Bordighera at a time when there were reckoned to be about 3,000 Brits there, including servants:
‘You just have to see the exodus from the Anglican church on Sunday morning; it is a great river that fills the street, a parade of faces, expressions, gaits and attires that makes you stare in disbelief, and smile inwardly to see how deep is the respect we have for this great nation… All are tireless walkers, readers in the open air, lovers of flowers and worshippers of the sea. Very few are idle out of habit; most have a habitual occupation; they make botanical and mineralogical collections, collect historical memories of the country, write for newspapers, cultivate music. They live a methodical life…’
Clarence had resigned as the resident Anglican priest in 1899, a year after he arrived there, and there is no record of him attending church much thereafter – but while he was still very much at the centre of expat life. In the summers he would be in Casterino and with the rock engravings in the the Vallée des Merveilles from June to September not down in the heat of the coast. In 1906 he had completed the building of his Casa Fontanalba at Casterino so his mind was not on Bordighera.
Edmondo De Amicis (1846-1908) was an Italian novelist, journalist, poet, and short-story writer. His best-known book is the children’s novel Heart (1886). The nationalist message visible in De Amicis’ works was soon fused with a commitment to socialism (a trend visible within Heart). In 1896, he adhered to the Italian Socialist Party. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1901. De Amicis died in Bordighera at the Hotel de la Reine, which he chose because it was George MacDonald’s Casa Coraggio.
Read Susie Bicknell on MacDonald at
https://clarencebicknell.com/wp-content/uploads/clarence_bicknell_george_macdonald_bordighera_sb_feb2015.pdf