Mario

Mario and my dad

For Remembrance Day I’ve looked out this slide of my dad, Robert Douglas Bell, meeting Mario, a policeman on duty at the entrance to the Vatican Museum in August 1963.

They got talking a discovered that they’d been on opposing sides at the Siege of Tobruk in 1941. The siege lasted 241 days, from 10 April to 27 November and was the longest in the history of the British Army.

Mario and Douglas
Mario and Robert Douglas Bell at the entrance to the Vatican Museum, August 1963

Mario remembered the big guns pounding away and I believe that he was taken prisoner. My dad never talked about his experience there but my cousins in Sheffield say that he was trapped behind enemy lines when he attempted to rescue a wounded comrade. The local Bedouin tribesmen helped him escape.

At the time he was in the Royal Engineers, along with his old friend Alf Deacon manning a Bofors anti-aircraft gun.

Mario and Robert Douglas Bell at the entrance to the Vatican Museum, August 1963
My mum, in the background with family friend and travelling companion Philippa, was the only one of us who actually stepped inside the Vatican Museum as she was determined to see the Sistine Chapel.

Roman Graffiti

Graffitie
Suburra poster
Suburra: Blood on Rome

Lock-up on the Via di San Giovanni in Laterano, a back street behind the Colosseum. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to photograph graffiti in Rome, but Barbara had set herself a bit of a challenge, so photo credit to her for this one (although can I just mention that I did the location-spotting?).
I love those textures and colours and the way the graffiti echoes the shapes of the wrought iron. Would make a great location for the gangsters’ hideout in Netflix’s Suburra: Blood on Rome, which was advertised on a huge billboard at the end of the street.

Link

Suburra: Blood on Rome, Netflix.