Originally from Cambridge, my Italian journey began in Puglia as an au-pair, where I learned that lavender was not rosemary and how to make lemon curd. The experience of sitting along a stone table under a vine of dessert grapes we would pick, dip into a bowl of water and devour, alongside the most beautiful house fringed with caper plants, was sublime to say the least.
Fast forward two years and my university instructed us to go and live in Italy for a year. Once I had paid off my overdraft selling cashmere jumpers in Simpsons’ Piccadilly, I instantly took out a new one before the bank could notice, trained off to do an art course in Florence, ended up back in Puglia for a week, and was convinced by friends to go and study in Naples rather than Rome. In the words of the wonderful literature professor Giancarlo Mazzacurati, Naples was “the last stop before the desert”. Not sure I totally agree with that sentiment, but his lectures and Vittorio Russo’s “Lectura Dantis” readings from The Divine Comedy in a freshly renovated former monastery, featuring several famous Italian actors, were an unforgettable experience.
While in Naples, I was asked to interpret for Alfa Romeo and American Express, thus supplementing my student’s diet at the best restaurants in Naples more or less once a month. As well as touring the factory in a mini-bus, making sure the jokes at the Q&A session sounded funny and accompanying top executives to Capri, I took several groups to Pompeii. And surreptitiously helped jump-start a coach in Ravello while the clients were enjoying their coffee.
A background in Italian literature, some extremely ancient and obscure, turned out to be the best preparation for a career in translation, particularly legal translation. Which was lucky, as back in Blighty no-one was interested in language graduates. So I went to live in the more business-like part of Italy, in Milan, on the canal.
As for how I fell into interpreting, I’d been sent off to do a whispered interpretation assignment in a beautiful villa in Cinisello Balsamo, and instead I found myself looking at a simultaneous interpretation booth and an equally bemused colleague. We discovered the topic was water sources in Sub-Saharan Africa, found someone to send up to the stage to tell them to slow down every 30 minutes or so and, once I’d seen how to use the kit, did a pretty good job, if I say so myself (they did too – possibly mindful of the steam coming out of the booth).
That is how it started, and has continued ever since in various different guises in Italy and the UK.
I look forward to working with you wherever skilled human input is key.
