We met on the platform at Brescia whilst we were waiting for the train. Ugo is very chatty this morning, asking me lots of questions about the mandolin scene in England. I don’t feel completely awake yet for detailed conversation. Suddenly he stands up and takes down his briefcase from the overhead luggage rack. He rummages around inside the case for a moment and takes out a booklet. “Have you seen this before?” he asks me. “No,” I tell him, “I know of this and strangely I have been trying to trace it.” The booklet, a photocopy of the out-of-print original, is entitled Mandolin Memories by Samuel Adelstein – a nineteenth century American mandolinist. I know this document is of interest to me, but I’m not exactly sure why. “Leggi, leggi,” Ugo encourages. Read it, read it. I settle back in my seat and begin. The language is old-fashioned, sometimes rambling and a little clumsy to my twentieth century ears, sometimes beautifully crafted and exquisitely evoking the charm of a long-forgotten era.
