Descendants brought together by their fathers' war

His son, John, had stumbled across the typed manuscript in an old suitcase while sorting some of his father's belongings. The subsequent book, In the Prison of His Days, recounts the exploits of gunner Norman Davison, including his capture by the Germans in North Africa, culminating with the Italian Resistance helping him to escape to the safety of Switzerland.

John, a Rotherham-based solicitor, says it had been his father's wish to return to Italy to thank Giovanni Bellazzi and his family who risked their lives hiding him from the Germans. "He meant to find the people who helped him, but then my mother died and he never went back."

Instead, John decided to try and retrace his father's steps. "After the publication of his book I was determined to use it to help fulfil his ambition, albeit now through me, of returning to meet those who had meant so much to him." He had previously been to Italy on holiday in the hope of finding the relatives of Giovanni and others in the book, but to no avail.

He knew his father had been at the Servigliano Prison Camp in eastern Italy and contacted The Monte San Martino Trust, a charity set up by a former PoW in recognition of the ordinary Italians who risked their lives during the war to help British soldiers. "There were more than 80,000 Allied prisoners of war in Italy at the time of the armistice and between 5,000 and 10,000 of them made it safely to Allied lines, thanks to assistance from local people," says John.

He was put in contact with Vigevano de Resistanza, an Italian website dedicated to the memory of Italian partisans from the town of Vigevano who had died during the war, and sent them a copy of the book. The trail then went quiet until May this year when he received an email from the town's local newspaper.

"In an article they had done on the book I saw names, faces and places suddenly spring to life," he says. "Pictured was the farm where my father and others were sheltered. I saw Giovanni Bellazzi as an older man, Mariella, Giovanni's daughter, and I read about Rossina who had risked her life so many times on the escape routes leading my father and others to safety."

John received an email via the book's publisher from Alessandro Bellazzi, a great nephew of Giovanni, who had read the book and wanted to meet him. In August, he and his family travelled from Yorkshire to Vigevano where he met Mariella and Mario Cabrioli, who lived on the farm when his father was there, at a civic reception held in their honour.

"Mario showed us the prison and from there we took a short drive to Giovanni's farm, Casa Cararola, sadly now uninhabited and derelict, and next door to the outbuildings where my father stayed. He was able to show us precisely where the soldiers lived and the areas they disappeared to whenever German soldiers were in the vicinity.

"Mario chiselled out a piece of stone from the room where my father had slept 67 years ago. I had anticipated such a moment for years and I was almost overcome with the emotion of it."

For Mariella, too, the reunion helped shed light on a chapter of her father's life that hitherto had been glossed over. "She knew little of his involvement with the Italian resistance and nothing of the detail of how he sheltered my father. I think the book also gave her an insight into her father's life at that time. As she put it, in the steps of our fathers we found their memories."

After finally meeting Mariella he presented her with a leather case containing the six lire her father had given to his when he fled to Switzerland. "My father kept the money in the hope of being able to return it to Giovanni one day. Unfortunately, he could not. But in giving it back to her I was able to fulfil his wish."

Before the war his father had been a Sheffield insurance clerk and when he returned home to Yorkshire he rejoined his old firm, becoming a chief inspector before his death in 1986.

"My father was a reserved man and never told me much about the prison. Frequently he used Italian words like 'avanti, or 'pronto' and he never ceased to repeat that he loved the 'farmer' Giovanni who had saved his life.

"I was young and didn't understand the significance of his words and my biggest regret is not listening to him before. But as fate would have it, this was the right time to publish his memoirs. His book has made this all possible."