A Chance Encounter…
In September 1943, at the Fontanellato PoW camp near Parma, my father Carol Mather and his companion Archie Hubbard decided to head south after the declaration of the Armistice, walking over 1,000 km until they reached Allied lines. Much later, our father wrote a book about his experiences, including nine months in captivity and six weeks on the run, entitled When the Grass Stops Growing. Seventy years later, the next two generations became engaged in this story through a series of unlikely chance encounters, whilst staying on a farm near the camp, directly on Carol and Archie’s route.
Inspired by our Italian friends, Federico and Antonio, the mayor of Fontanellato threw a party in September 2013, attended by many MSMT members. The next day, we traced our father’s footsteps into the Apennines. As we descended through the coppiced beech forest, my father’s account of meeting a sinister team of charcoal burners came back to me. With Nazis and fascists in the valleys, the escapers were advised to travel “sempre in campagna, niente strade”, staying high and hidden.
Curiosity aroused, I planned a series of hikes to replicate the 1,000-km trek completed in just six weeks. Ten years later, we started these walks with guide Rodolfo Nasini. The map shows my father’s route, with the sections we decided to walk in red. Starting in 2023 in the Sibillini and Laga hills with a good friend, Rupert, we continue in 2024 with two planned hikes in May and June in the western Sibillini and Gran Sasso mountains. Together these trips will cover 150 km, just 15 per cent of their route. Carol and Archie achieved a punishing average of 24 km a day compared with our leisurely 15 km, but they were highly motivated and 40 years younger!
Our father was a good diarist and kept a reasonably accurate map of their route, finishing near Campobasso, south-east of Rome. We aimed to stay as close as possible to his route, using his map, descriptions in his book, and Rodolfo’s expertise. We broke the trip into chunks, starting an adventure for our family, now fully unfolding. Later in the year, I will report on these southerly trips, but here is a sense of last year’s experience and reflections.
Starting the walk
Our four-day trek started at Colfiorito, south-east of Perugia, climbing into the Sibillini mountains with a midpoint overnight in the Castelluccio valley, famous for floral strips sown amongst lentil crops. On day four, we finished at S. Capone near Amatrice. This was 63 km of walking.
On the first day, we climbed up through a lush, narrow valley, brushing through long grass and wildflowers, spotting cherry, oak, hornbeam and hazel. Orchards gave way to beech forests as we ascended. The beech forests had self-planted since WW2, with dense thickets of coppiced Fagus and some remarkable giants. We walked through alpine meadows on limestone dotted with wild peonies, occasionally accessing rugged mountain roads built in the 1960s and 1970s to reverse rural depopulation. Post-war migration left fewer people to harvest timber, allowing forests to return.
Descending towards Riofreddo on the first evening, we met two sheepdogs and a large flock blocking our road. We were warned to stay still, as these dogs and their Romanian shepherds are unused to strangers. The threat from predators is minimal, as Rodolfo noted…” by killing off most of the wolves, we have exercised Darwinian selection, such that only the very shy wolves are left. Man has nothing to fear”.
Striding out along a ridge with stunning views above Norcia on our second day, we encountered endless green meadows and occasional rocky outcrops, above hillsides dotted with oaks; we encountered few people, just high trilling larks and low flying quail. Carol and Archie avoided people, spending time with other soldiers or deserters only when unavoidable. They carefully selected lonely farmsteads where peasant families might offer food or shelter. These brave, poor contadini families often shared their meals, hoping other families might treat their boys the same; no doubt a welcome addition to their regular foraged diet of September nuts, apples and grapes.
The 1943 travellers wouldn’t have encountered the earthquake towns we saw. This region suffered a terrible quake in 1997, leaving towns in ruins. In Visso, our hotel was a portacabin and reconstruction signs were still evident in every affected town. But these hills had seen conflict before. Enjoying our sandwich lunch that day, we soaked up fabulous views towards the west and later of the Castelluccio di Norcia plain (1,270m), famous for its Fiorita, an annual explosion of wildflower colours cultivated by local farmers. Rodolfo told us about the ancient enmity between Norcia and Visso, and how Norcia lost the plain or “Pian Perduto” in 1522.
The Forca di Presta pass
On day three, we crossed this plain, rapt by the beauty of the alternate red, white, and blue of poppy, daisy and cornflower. Given how open the land is here, I did doubt that Carol and Archie would have risked such a convenient but visible traverse. But Rodolfo insisted that it was the logical route, with the mountain range to the east being too tough a climb, and the valley to the west too well populated; Rupert and I concluded that they must have made the crossing on a moonlit night. Climbing slowly in their footsteps to the Forca di Presta pass (1,536m), we said goodbye to Rupert on the top road near a herd of ancient white long-horned cows. We saw few other animals on the hike, though later that day I startled a group of wild horses sheltering from the midday sun in a birch copse. Through the late afternoon we descended through alpine meadows graced by birch clumps and juniper bushes, before dropping down steeply through an immense chestnut and plane tree forest.
Overnighting in Spolonga, we started to move south from the Sibillini towards the Abruzzo hills, which we had viewed in the distance from Forca di Presta the day before. Crossing the Via Salaria, the old Roman Salt Road – running along the valley between the pass and Spolonga – was dangerous for the young British soldiers, being heavily travelled by German vehicles. Our B&B hostess Aurora was a font of local knowledge. As she kindly drove us to the starting point for our climb that fourth day, she told us that her parents had resisted moving to the city; and we learned about the allocation of chestnut tree stands to each household. At harvest time, the whole village joined in climbing the hill to gather the crop.
On that last day, as we climbed, we noted sandstone replacing limestone, with small streams running down the hill, similar to Scotland. The abundant water supply was another reminder of the natural bounty enjoyed by the escapers eighty years earlier. Despite many scrapes, my father described that period as one of great contentment, living off the land and with no responsibilities. It would have been different had the Armistice been called in October. As Carol wrote, “…our relentless progress had saved us from a terrible winter.”
After climbing to 2,000 metres, where we found snow still resting in north-facing hollows and mossy tufts dotted with narcissi and orchids, Rodolfo and I descended slowly from one microclimate to the next before reaching our driver at the end of a long and rutted track.
To be continued…
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