Summer in Italy. The scent of jasmin hangs heavy in the air. Swallows are nesting under the balconies and the cicadas in the orange trees provide the sound track to the long, cloudless summer. The aroma of espressos and pizza drifts in the heat of the day. But not in Orkney.

On the edge of Scapa Floe, several hundred young Italian men are rough casting dozens and dozens of large concrete cubes…

Given the fate of many Italian soldiers in WW2, a mass grave in Cephalonia or a helmet propped on an rifle stuck in the sands of the Sahara, it must have been with mixed feelings that these young men found themselves prisoners of war in Northern Scotland.  They were no longer under sentence of death. But there they were, courtesy Mr Mussolini, stuck – on Orkney.

I was surprised to find that Orkney is not one island but a small archipelago. It might be renamed the Orkney Isles – except that sounds too cosy, too comforting and too.. dare I say it…. English. Cold and windswept, a lot nearer the Arctic Circle than the Med, there were no orange trees here. Come to think of it, there were precious few trees at all.

Churchill Barriers

The prisoners had a job to do. They were to block the narrow channels between the four main islands on the eastern side of the Scapa Floe natural harbour. This had been specifically ordered by Churchill, in best “shutting the stable door…” fashion to stop (any more) German submarines sneaking through. In time it would also provide the foundations for a road to link the islands. So Italian prisoners casting huge concrete blocks to form the “Churchill Barriers”.

It is hard to imagine now what it must have been like for these young men, far from home. Their days: cement, gravel and water, cold winds and salt spray. Their nights: featureless Nissen huts, with the wind whistling outside.

But homesickness can have surprising results.  In the soulless prison camp, the Italians created a statue of St. George, a symbol of the homeland they had left behind, cast out of concrete on a frame of barbed wire (the only materials they had to hand) –  They also made a concrete billiard table in one of the 13 huts which made up their camp.

Enter Major Buckland

In 1943 a new Camp Commander, Major. T.P Buckland arrived, and the prisoners, through their Italian padre, raised an issue very important to them.  Might they have some place where they could practise their Roman Catholic faith in a communal act of worship? Major Buckland agreed to allow them two Nissen huts.

In their spare time, the prisoners set about making these truly theirs. They had no proper building materials but they had paint, talent and ingenuity, and of course, lots of concrete.  The front of the chapel, cast, of course in concrete, and Cleary Mediterranean in design, masks the stark outlines of Nissan huts behind. Inside, there are painted trompe l’oeil wooden panels, ceramic tiles and stained glass windows, and elaborate alter lights cut out of bully beef tins.

One man in particular made his mark: Domenico Chiocchetti.  He had been the designer of the statue of St. George, and he had kept with him throughout the war a battered postcard of the Virgin and Child, which he now set about recreating as the altar piece above the (concrete) altar. His Virgin and Child, now depicted holding an olive branch as a symbol of peace, dominate this small, intimate building.

At the end of the war, when the Italians were repatriated, the islanders promised to care for the chapel. Keeping the promise was harder than they thought and fifteen years later it was looking shabby and neglected. The Orcadians, sorry to see the chapel deteriorating every year but without the skills to repair it, hit on a plan – get Domenico back to renovate it. But finding him was another matter. Italy is noted for having quite a lot of Italians, and no-one knew where Domenico lived or even if he was still around. Then someone hit on the idea of putting out a search call for him on BBC’s Italian World Service. Amazingly, it worked and Domenico got in touch.

The Italian Chapel, originally created in an enemy country, now stands as a monument to peace and a moving symbol of our common humanity.

Italian Chapel. Lamb Holm, Orkney.
1 April- 30 Sept 9.00am – 10.00 pm
1st Oct – 31st March 9.00am – 4.30 pm
Admission free.