Alfonso De Marco arrived in England from Italy as a 7-year-old
Alfonso De Marco arrived in England from Italy as a 7-year-oldAlfonso De Marco has lived in the same house for 100 years after arriving in England from Italy as a seven year-old.
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home sweet home: Alfonso De Marco (left) with a certificate sent to him by Pope John Paul II, while (right) his father stands outside the same address
in 1919 |
De Marco was born near the southern Italian city of Cassino in 1902 before moving to Eastbourne to join his father Guiseppe who had relocated to East Sussex in 1885.
They ran an ice cream parlour from the same seaside building De Marco still calls home.
Upon turning 100 and receiving a certificate from Pope John Paul II De Marco was offered the chance to live with one of his three daughters, but he turned them down.
The great-great grandfather said, "I love it here, it is my home. I could have moved somewhere else but I have never wanted to."
"The street has changed a lot since I was a boy. I remember seeing horses pulling carts up and down this street, and smelling chestnuts being roasted.
"It is different now, it is much noisier, but I still love it there are a lot of memories for me in this house.
"My daughters grew up here, and my father lived here, so I cannot imagine living anywhere else, or anywhere better."
