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It all started with the arrival of a business card in the letterbox. I had visited Italy many times and had always been keen to learn ‘la bella lingua’. And here in the letterbox was a card from one Beniamino Petrosino advertising his services as an Italian language teacher. I started lessons with some trepidation but all went well. I was aware from Beniamino’s overly wordy business card that he had written a book in English – “The Passage of the Frog and the Wild Strawberries of 1942,” a semi-autobiographical account of his early life in Campania and Basilicata, where the impact of superstition, religion and economic deprivation was profound. Reading this moving tale helped me understand t