“There’s no chance of not waiting, that’s the name of the room” - a day at the Italian Consulate part 2

I turned up a bit early for my mid-morning appointment, as if being prompt would somehow mean the officials at the Consulate would consider me more favourably than they otherwise would have done. 

I needn’t have bothered; the friendly security man told me to come back bang on time so I sloped off up the street to the nearest coffee shop. I secured a table and a cappuccino - again hoping the Italian-ness of the beverage might rub off somehow - and spent a nervous 20 minutes doing the crossword.

The Italian Consulate in London is on Farringdon Street. It's quite close to the Thames - heading north from Blackfriars Bridge it’s on your left. As I exited the train station I walked past an old pub, The Blackfriar, a great place to stand outside on a warm day, incidentally. 

The Consulate itself is not particularly inspirational as these things go, with a definitive mid-20th century office block feel rather than any particularly Italianate architecture. On my return to the building after my coffee and a rather lacklustre performance on the crossword, I was waved through and up I proceeded to the citizenship office on the third floor. At this point things felt even more nerve-wracking than before; not least because once you set foot inside the embassy you are of course on Italian territory, and it certainly felt that way to me.

I was very lucky to even get an appointment - at the time I booked the system was rather hopeless. They only released three appointments a week, and you had to log on to the website exactly at the allotted time then mash refresh and hope you could claim one of the three times available before anyone else - they were almost always gone within a second or two. An enterprising/unscrupulous service company had even sprung up to offer to book for you, I assume using a coded script to enter details and click through faster than any human could.

The waiting room, as I was soon to find out, also doubled as the interview space. In front of me was a couple of small booths behind which embassy staff sit to interview you. Two other people awaiting their appointments arrived and sat alongside me for the clock to tick round to 1100.

I was particularly nervous because my Italian is not great. Unfortunately being Italian in the UK during and after the second world war was not easy; many Italian immigrants to the UK downplayed their culture and language to fit in - some even going so far as to change their names to more common English ones. We kept our surnames but lost much more. My father and his siblings had an Italian maid in the house as small chidren but Italian was not spoken in the home as much as it could have been for both my grandfather and my father, which ultimately meant for me, that I had no linguistic heritage at al on which to fall back.

I did, once I realised that my Italian citizenship was possible, start to try learn it, but alongside practising French and working full time I am no more than a beginner.

My name was the first to be called so I shuffled a few paces forward to the booth, my fellow applicants sat just a few metres behind. After saluations in Italian I asked if we could speak English, Posso parliamo Inglese? Practico l’Italiano ma non é anchora abbustanza buono (I’m practising Italian but it’s still not good enough).

Luckily for me there is no language requirement for citizenship by descent. I asked if that was the case and happily the official agreed that was correct… but she was not pleased. As well telling me that the state would of course want me to interact in Italian, which is fine by me, she ended by saying ‘this is not a good start’.

There I was hoping to be asked why I was applying for citizenship so I could explain more of the above. How I wasn’t even sure it was possible until a few months ago, how I felt proud to be the first person in my family to truly reconnect with our heritage... only to be brought right down to earth with a bump. 

Oh dear!

It was going to be an uphill struggle and to top it all I imagined the so far silent other applicants sat behind me were likely stifling smiles of their own with their (at least perceived on my part) no doubt excellent Italian.

More in part three and beyond to follow.