Ian Laing
“I met Keith Killby, the Trust’s founder, in the mid-1990’s when my father was helping Ian English to gather material for the latter’s wonderful book Home by Christmas?, which was published in 1997.
Keith got to know the group of Fontanellato escapees who included Ian and my father and who were still holding reunion lunches in the basement of an Italian restaurant off Haymarket. It was at one of those lunches that Keith (the guest!) commandeered three of us who had come with our fathers to take over the organisation in subsequent years.
Judith Lahey-Bean, Peter Jones and I happily fell into line, invited the next generations to join us and rechristened it as the “Fontanellato – MSMT lunch”, with the enduring aim of supporting the Trust. This gave the lunch a whole new purpose and relevance.
Retracing my father’s escape route
The tradition of visits to Fontanellato and other camps to commemorate anniversaries of the Armistice came of age from 2003 onwards and was greatly enhanced by the walks that we did, first with the veterans covering ground they knew well and, more recently, under our own steam. I shall always treasure walking our father’s escape route from Italy into Switzerland on the 75th anniversary in 2018 with my brother, Hugh, and Hugo de Burgh and Christopher Woodhead, whose father/grandfather took the route to Zermatt around the other (western) face of Monte Rosa.
I’ve greatly enjoyed my 18 years as a trustee and congratulate Letitia Blake, the secretary, and many others who ran the Trust so efficiently and economically under Nick Young’s chairmanship. It has a great spirit of gratitude at its heart, which Keith and our parents passed on to us and which gives us purpose for the future.
It’s also a real pleasure to see our strategy of building stronger links with academics in the UK and Italy, and with local organisations based in Italy such as the British Institute of Florence, coming of age. These links will help our message to be understood more widely in Italy. None of this would be possible without the generous endowments that we received from Keith and from the fundraising campaign that my dear friend Vanni Treves led with such style and dedication –introducing him was undoubtedly my greatest contribution to the Trust!”
Christopher Prentice
“The fundamental task of British ambassadors in Rome is to nurture all aspects of relations between the UK and Italy. They are hugely helped in this by the breadth of the historical personal and institutional connections between the two countries and peoples. When I was first briefed on the role of MSMT on my arrival in Rome as ambassador in 2011, it struck me as the most admirable and inspiring example of this web of connections.
The founder, Keith Killby, and those he had recruited to help him build up the work of the Trust, had turned painful war-time experiences into a project celebrating the courage and generosity of a former generation and offering friendship, hope and opportunity to future generations. I was glad to lend the embassy’s full support to MSMT’s programmes and acts of remembrance during my five years as ambassador and then, on retirement, to accept Sir Nick Young’s invitation to continue my association with MSMT as a trustee.
Broadened activities
Under his leadership, MSMT has honoured the founder’s vision, consolidated the Trust’s finances, inspired a fresh generation of supporters, with and without personal connections to former Allied PoW escapees, and broadened the Trust’s activities, including into important initiatives to support research and preserve archives. And, of course, hundreds of young Italians have been given a valuable, perhaps vital, life chance through the bursary programme.
As I now leave the board, I am just grateful for the chance to have helped in some small way such an open-hearted and inspiring charity; and in the process to have further deepened the ties of affection between the UK and Italy.”