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Series 23: Joe Swash

Joe Swash shot to fame as wheeler dealer Mickey Miller in EastEnders. Since then, he’s won the nation’s hearts in I’m a Celebrity and currently stars in his own reality TV show with his wife, Stacey Solomon, and their kids. Family is everything to Joe. He’s very close to his mum, Kiffy, but sadly lost his dad when he was only 12. Joe knows that his dad’s family were supposed to have come from Italy, but he doesn’t know exactly where or even what their surname was. \n\nJoe begins the search for his Italian roots in Islington, London, just around the corner from where he grew up. His mum has given him some documents and photos of his dad’s family, including a marriage certificate for his great-grandparents Charlie Swash and Maria Raimo. Maria is listed as living with her parents, Joe’s great-great-grandparents Giuseppe and Rosa Raimo, in Locks Gardens in Clerkenwell, an area known as Little Italy. Joe learns from guide Rob Smith that it was an impoverished area, but subsequent records chart Giuseppe’s life as he learns a trade as a street piano player before eventually becoming a piano tuner. Cultural historian Annemarie McAllister explains how Giuseppe was improving life for him and his family. She then shows him an intriguing newspaper clipping. It lists Joe’s great-great-grandfather talking at a meeting in Grenault Place alongside the famous suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst.\n\nAt Grenault Place, Joe meets historian Alfio Bernabei. Alfio explains that Sylvia Pankhurst was involved in the Communist Workers Movement and was very concerned about the rise of Mussolini and fascism in Italy during the 1920s. Giuseppe was speaking alongside Pankhurst at an anti-fascist meeting. He was taking risks, as he would have witnessed the violence of London-based Italian Black Shirts at this time. Alfio shows Joe another newspaper, from 1923, containing a letter from Giuseppe, a poetic piece that condemns the rise of fascism. Joe is moved. He knows that his great-great-grandfather was illiterate and so would have had to dictate this letter, but the language and passion reveal a compassionate and intelligent man. \n\nJoe knows Giuseppe was born in Italy and now wants to know where in the country his family was from. He goes to Hertfordshire to meet John, a distant relative. Giuseppe was John’s great-grandfather, and he has a copy of Giuseppe’s passport. It reveals his place of birth to be Senerchia in the province of Avellino, southern Italy. \n\nJoe flies to Naples in search of his Raimo roots. Naples was the nearest port to Senerchia, so there is every chance this is where Giuseppe left from. Joe’s next stop is the state archives in Avellino, where he’s meeting genealogist Joe De Simone. He has managed to trace Joe’s family back another three generations to his five-times great-grandparents. They seem to have been living as peasants in Senerchia, but there is an intriguing reference to his three-times great-grandfather Donato being detained in Avellino jail in 1867. \n\nTo see if he can find out what Donato had done, Joe goes to Senerchia. Here he meets Professor Giampaolo Lecce, who tells him that Donato was on trial for supplying weapons and ‘associating with wrongdoers’. Giampaolo goes on to explain that Italy was only unified in 1861, and that it had previously been a series of self-governing city states. Many Italians were opposed to this new regime, and brigands in the south led a wave of rebellion. Some people saw the brigands as heroes, others as nothing more than bandits. Many villagers, like Joe’s ancestor, either willingly helped the brigands or were coerced into it. Joe then discovers that his five-times great-grandfather had actually been killed by the brigands and wonders if this meant his family were helping them under duress. The trial records reveal that Donato was indeed acquitted, with the family murder given as mitigating evidence. \n\nJoe wants to find out if there are any Raimos left in the area, and he has heard there may be some in the next village. Trying out his basic Italian, Joe asks around and eventually finds a bar called Raimo, which is run by a Raimo. He has a drink with his newly discovered relative and then heads back to Senerchia. Joe De Simone has been in touch to say he’s found out the street where the family lived – Via Vallone – which translates as road by the river at the bottom of the valley. In this beautiful spot by the river, Joe reflects on all the Raimos that came before him, from Donato, who fought to stay out of prison, to Giuseppe, who made a life for himself in London and spoke out against fascism alongside Sylvia Pankhurst. Joe hopes that some of that tenacity and strength has been passed down to him.

Source: BBC 1