Nori or Nonna as our family all know her was a truly inspiring and extraordinary woman. She is one of the only people I have ever met who lived from her first until her last according to her principles. These principles were loving and fighting for her friends and family, opposing religious and undemocratic authority of any form, improving the lives of the least fortunate and most vulnerable in our society and furthering the knowledge of medicine to improve the lives of all.
During all the hardships she had to face in her lifetime – a world war which tore her home and her family in two; working all round the world as a top medical researcher in her field when few women left home or the secretary’s desk, let alone from a conservative Catholic background; never marrying and having a child out of wedlock which was then much more than now deeply unorthodox and frowned on – during all this she never stopped believing in her principles. She never compromised. Sometimes we would laugh at her dogmatism: like when she told us the reason she couldn’t gain British citizenship was because she refused to swear allegiance to the Queen, or the time she sent the mineral water back in Italy and demanded tap water instead to the total incredulity of the poor waiter.
Recently my mum told me that Nonna had originally been thinking of moving back to Italy but decided to stay and live with us when I was born. I am so glad that she did. If she had not then I would have had no-one to play with when I was little at home, no-one to sleep with when I was scared, no-one to play Othello and watch Gone with the Wind with on a Friday after school, no-one to regale me with fantastic stories about bitchy nuns and Mussolini and the beauty of Scotland, no-one to sing Italian lullabies to me as I went to sleep, still beautiful even if I didn’t understand the words. But I had Nonna and still have Nonna in my memories and in my heart and for that I will always feel lucky. Thank you.