With a heavy heart, I write this personal tribute to Alba, who passed away in Sora hospital last night.
To say that Alba will be missed is a gross understatement. For many years and for many people, Alba was Mortale and Mortale was Alba.
Although she was born in the UK and worked in her family catering business for several years in Burnham-on-Sea, Alba moved back to Italy at a young age to look after her elderly parents, Camillo and Annunziata Forte, in Mortale. She was passionate about the village and our local heritage, and, with her house located at Via Garibaldi, 1, just off la soda, the square at the entrance of the village, she was ideally situated rather like a gatekeeper surveying all who entered within. Not dissimilar to Garibaldi, she challenged authority and fought many successful campaigns to preserve the unity and character of the village. Now, the residents of Mortale and those who visit can be grateful for all her sustained efforts over the years. Alba became such a permanent and well-known fixture in the village, that I’m sure many of us have used the sentence “Sono parente di Alba. I’m a relation of Alba” when our identity has been questioned. It was almost better than showing ID, because everyone knew Alba, not just in Casalattico, but well into the local area and far beyond. Such was her fame, that her Forte surname was almost superfluous. Like royalty, her first name “Alba” sufficed.
A trained artist, she was an accomplished painter and her works often captured the history of Mortale and many of the people who have shaped our lives. She was someone who was interested in so many aspects of Italian culture – the arts, music, film, opera, history, literature, conservation, all things green, the list is almost endless, but we will all remember Alba as one of the biggest and most loveable Mortalese characters of recent times. When Ettore Forte started making his films in the 1960s, it was Alba who played the lead role in three of his works, and these masterpieces of cinema can be viewed here https://www.fortefamilyhistory.com/Ettore_Film_Productions.html.
Alba was never afraid of expressing her opinion or for standing up to authorities for things such as animal rights, the preservation of our heritage and keeping the modern world in check just in case things ran away uncontrolled. For many years, she organised our village festas, and first and foremost in her planning was the adherence to important tradition, which meant that generations of us now celebrate these festas in as close a way as possible to how our ancestors did.
We will all have our own personal memories of Alba. For some, it will be in her film roles, for others spotting her at the wheel of her white Fiat 128 Sport, or listening to her stories at a meal or a party, organising the festa, sitting and chatting on the benches at la soda, or just hearing her characteristic voice reverberating around the village. For me, I will always treasure the time we spent together, often looking through old family photos. “Alba, who’s this?”, I’d say, pointing to an ancient grainy photo. “Ah, that’s Francescone”, she’d say with confidence and affection. “Ah, Francescone, he lived in …… and he …….” I know of no other person who was as good at identifying faces in old photos, and normally this took hours and hours, because not only could she identify the face, but she would also be able to recount a punchy story or two about the person in question. Alba loved photos of the past and, I remember her making me promise that I would label as many photos as possible, to stop the faces of our past becoming anonymous. She was right. How many of us have boxes of unlabelled photos? So, as I write my tribute to her, I will pause here simply to say to everyone that we should all do everything we can to label our old photos.
I valued Alba’s opinions, loved her directness and her sense of humour too. She invariably brought a smile to my face. I remember her recounting a story about a couple who came in recent years for a day visit to Mortale with the intention of staying longer the following year, and they asked her if there was wi-fi in the village. Knowing full well what they meant, she said “wi-fi, what’s that?”. The couple said “you know, the internet”, to which Alba said again “internet, what’s that?”. Needless to say, the couple didn’t come back, but it is a story that I loved Alba telling, not only because it brought out her wicked sense of humour, but also because, at its heart, it reinforced Alba’s desire not to allow the innovations of the present to destroy the traditions of the past.
She leaves this world a better place and now, when, in the future we look at photos of her, and people ask “Who’s this?”, we, who were privileged to know this legend will say proudly “THAT is ALBA!”, and off we’ll go telling people all about her, no doubt for hours as there will be no shortage of stories to keep alive this wonderful lady who touched so many of our lives. And the lovely thing is that she will continue to bring beaming smiles to our faces for many years to come. I’m sure she would have liked that.
