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Daddy and Dante

1st August 2011 by Helena 3 Comments  

The most wonderful memory of my trip to Italy this summer is from a party that my mother had. She billed it “an evening of poetry and magic” and it was held at a friend’s house next to a river in Umbria. The magic was the atmosphere, as well as a charming man making animals out of balloons, and the poetry was provided by my father.

He sat on a rock (and this is a man who is 86 years old) and recited Dante from memory. Not just the odd line from Dante, but great chunks on the Inferno. Including of course my favourite Paolo and Francesca. He was accompanied by musicians, whom he conducted, rather like he used to ‘air-conduct’ the orchestra when we went to La Scala. They strummed their guitars and played their pipes to increase the drama, or the romance, or the suspense of what he was reciting.Here he is entertaining the children before his recital.

Then last week my mother rang to tell me my father was in hospital. He has a kidney infection. At the age of 86 that is not a good thing. I called and spoke to a lady who I think was in the next bed. All was not well with the “dottore” she told me. We had two days of utter panic and I wondered whether I should just get on a plane to Italy. I didn’t go. I know he would have told me not to, and if the end was near, he would have preferred me to remember him reciting Dante than lying in a hospital bed. Eventually I managed to speak to him.

“What is important is not my health, but the book you are going to write about living in the desert, in an utterly fake world,” were his first words. I told him that right now, his health was more important to me than anything. He laughed and said “OK, just for now.”

Thankfully he is pulling through. My superhero mother drove four hours yesterday to be with him and the reports are all good. He is going to have an operation, and he will need to have more help at home. But he should be fine.

And I am hoping to get on a plane before the end of the year, so that I can film him reciting Dante and keep it forever.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2011


Filed Under: Family, Italy, Lifestyle, blog --> Tagged With: daddy, dante

3 thoughts on Daddy and Dante

  • mimi says:
    1st August 2011 at 5:50 am

    Do film him, Helena.
    I have nothing at all on film of my mother, and the only film of my father is at my wedding, he died suddenly 10 days later.
    Your father sounds an amazing character, and sounds like he has a long life ahead of him too. I certainly hope so.

  • Patricia Rodriguez says:
    1st August 2011 at 3:20 pm

    I sent Don Benedetto an email, hopefully it will cheer him up.
    I’m praying for a quick recovery.

  • Lulu says:
    2nd August 2011 at 6:28 am

    None of us know how long we have got to do anything,

    Go… film him, don’t wait, you know how wonderful Dante and your father are but the children will treasure seeing it on film
    for themselves, especially the girls as they get older and curious
    about what has been before.

    I wish him a speedy recovery, he reminds me terribly of my own
    father, glorious imperfection and all – they make us what we are!

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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