With the help of her two grown-up sons, our columnist finally puts a lifelong fear to rest by visiting the historic Roman city destroyed by Mount Vesuvius.
I was 12 years old when I learned about the tragedy of Pompeii. I was in the first year at Barnsley Girls’ High School and struggling with learning Latin. Phrases such as “Milites barbaros adgressi sunt” (“The soldiers attacked the barbarians”) didn’t seem especially useful to a 20th-century schoolgirl, but the Pompeii story has haunted me ever since.
Miss Pilling, our fierce and frightening Latin mistress, related the 79AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius with what seemed like delight as she described a huge Roman city being engulfed first by a shower of pumice stones and then by a high temperature pyroclastic flow. No one in the city could’ve survived. Archaeologists, she told us, had found lots of corpses, and some had been covered in plaster casts showing the horror of their terror as they died.
I’ve had nightmares about it for years, always thinking I really should go and see it for myself, but a strange lifelong fear made me say no. It was at the top of my bucket list, but I never imagined I’d be brave enough to face it.
I mentioned my bad dreams about being suffocated or burnt to a crisp to Charlie, my younger son.
“Let’s go, Mum,” he replied. “I’ve been there and it’s fascinating. Not scary at all. It’s a long walk all around, and the roads are very bumpy, but they have wheelchairs and they’ve made a reasonably accessible route. Let’s ask Ed to come with us and then you’ve got two big, strapping sons to wheel you around.”
After much thought about the wisdom of spending a week on holiday with two young men, 38 and 42, who I love to distraction but who drive me crazy with the silliness that follows when they’re together, and the bossiness, which seems all wrong (I’m their mother for goodness sake!), it was time to make a decision. Should I go or shouldn’t I?
As a somewhat doddery 75-year-old woman who has very poor mobility since I broke a bone in my back, and the onset of arthritis, my sons were now my only chance to see what I’d thought about for so long. I agreed.
It was amazing how speedily they arranged everything. Flights. Airbnb with swimming pool in Massa Lubrense in the hills off the Amalfi coast. Car to be picked up at Naples. All I had to do was contact Pompeii expert Mary Beard to get a recommendation for a brilliant guide.
My boys could not have been more impressed by the special assistance at both Luton and Naples airports. We shot through passport control, security and boarding – the two of them hanging on to me, my wheelchair and the assistant who pushed me around.
It was cheaper to insure only two drivers for the hire car. Fine by me when I saw how narrow and wiggly the roads around our villa were. I sat in the back as we toured around Amalfi, Positano and Sorrento. I felt loved and cared for throughout, especially in the house, which had endless stone stairs. They helped me up and down, telling me they wouldn’t let me fall, and the exercise was good for me.
The house had a most wonderful view of Vesuvius, my scary mountain. Happily, we were on the opposite side of the bay, so no fear of any eruption. I had to do nothing during our stay apart from relax and produce my credit card occasionally in some wonderful restaurants.
Then came Pompeii. Chiara, our archaeologist guide, said the spelling has a double “i” to ensure foreigners know how to pronounce it! My teenage horror at what had happened to the Roman occupants of the city was not eased by being there and seeing a display of casts of a family – sleeping children and mother, father trying to get up and failing to do so. It was as upsetting as I had anticipated, but the city’s remains are truly extraordinary.
I was most impressed by the House of Julia – beautiful frescoes, a lovely garden and lots of rooms. She ran a boarding house, so middle and upper-class Roman women appear to have been pretty independent.
At the end, I ached from the bumping of the wheelchair, and my sons were exhausted, but I will never be able to thank them enough for persuading me that I was fit enough for such an important trip. Their assistance made it all possible. They took every bit as much care of me as I did of them, and we didn’t fall out once.
If you want to follow in Jenni’s footsteps you can take a trip to Pompeii with Saga.
Enjoy a visit during an eight-day escorted tour taking in the Highlights of the Beautiful Amalfi Coast or stop off at the ancient site during a two week Grand Tour of Italy which takes in some of the country’s most iconic sights as you travel from north to south.
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