sledge.trovatore(at)gmail.com
My blogs
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Location | Minjup, WA, Australia |
| Introduction | I'm Percy (Sledge) Trovatore, a superannuated rock'n'roll guitarist who was paid out from lifetime contributions to the Gough Whitlam Super Fund for the Totally Bewildered after contracting chronic arthritis (AKA fretboard-hand cramp). "Percy" was my parents' strange idea of an English-sounding name. My family is part Italian, part Norwegian. Father was Giuseppe Trovatore who fought in the Italian army (North Africa campaign) in WWII and, after being captured by Australians, was interned at the Balmoral POW Camp, near Minjup WA. (If you go to the remains of the camp you'll see 39-45 referred to on the memorial plaque as "World War 11".) Mother was Astrid Eriksen, a visiting Norwegian anthropologist -- or, as she quaintly put it, "a professional describer of the bleeding obvious" -- who "went native". My father refused to speak Italian, perhaps out of a kind of shame at having been a "prisoner". As if most white Australians didn't come from such stock. So I learned Italian at my mother's knee (and various other low joints). Even now, I have problems at the all-Italian-speaking Minjup Deli because I speak with such a heavy Norwegian accent. |