Letter: Do you remember Italian prisoner of war who lived in Harborough?

I hope you may be able to help me as I am searching for information on an Italian prisoner of war called Pasquale “Patsy” Venditti.

My mum and her sister, who are now in their 70s, remember Patsy as a friend of their parents in the late 1940s and 50s and they are hoping for more information about his life in England and perhaps capture.

At the moment what we know is that he was born in about 1915 and somehow ended up in England.

Apparently he was based in Market Harborough at 1 York Street until at least mid-1961, because his wife Maria Teresa Venditti died in Leicester General Hospital on February 4, 1961.

We also know Patsy had links to Somerset in the mid-1940s/50s and may have worked on farms in this area although his occupation in Market Harborough in 1961 is shown as mechanic and engineer machinist on some official documentation we have managed to find.

We have heard that he returned to his native Italy (Ripabottoni) sometime following Maria’s death, where he may have married again and died there in about 1993.

Hopefully someone in your readership may remember Patsy and his wife?

Jackie Burgoyne, by email