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could while I was there, and then I worked at a dairy to make
some pocket money. I was popular amongst the workers, who
dressed and behaved as the educated milieu back at home. But
when they uttered a sentence, I realized that this was a different
kind of English than the one I was used to. My hosts told me
jokingly that I should not be amazed, since not even they
understood everything from the workers’ dialect. Everyone,
everywhere around the city remembered the events of ’56 in
Hungary, and slowly I became sort of a freak phenomenon.
While working in the dairy, I picked up the habit of singing and
whistling a lot during the hours, as everyone else working there
did. Many asked what I was singing and I told them that it was

an aria from a Hungarian opera, “Hazám, hazám, te
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mindenem…”. Hearing the word “opera” triggered them. I
found out that many Italians worked in England at the time,

23 Picture: Working in Totnes Dairy.
24 The most famous aria in Ferenc Erkel’s Bánk bán opera (1861). It is an aria sang by
the protagonist about how deeply he loves his fatherland. Bán = title used in several
states in central and south-eastern Europe, somewhat similar to a viceroy or duke.

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