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Whether over here or over there, what will the weather be in Edinburgh  or Rome.

Allow me to introduce myself and bore you with the details of why I set out and developed this site.

My name is Alessandro (Ale) Nardini, I am a thirty year old, fourth generation Scots-Italian. In the real world I currently run the Seaview Cafe in Wemyss Bay with my mother Lauretta, sister Alessia and brother Michele.

I was born in Scotland, studied in Scotland and so naturally many of my friends are Scottish. However, within the walls of my home we ate Italian food, spoke Italian, often watched Italian TV (only for the football though as everything else was pretty dire) and spent most childhood summers in Italy getting fat and being spoiled by fussing relatives. Ah, them were the days.

Anyway where was I? Yes, I am proud of my Scottish Italian roots as I would assume many of the 50,000 or so Scots-Italians living in Scotland are, but a little research soon revealed that there really is very little documentation on the history and culture of the Scots-Italian creature out there.

There are countless books on the migration of Italians to Australia and the America's, but very few on Scotland and of those the vast majority are either out of print or very hard to get hold of. Some excellent books do exist, and it is from these that I have borrowed photographs and other such material. The internet usually a reliable source of information, for this topic produced very poor results. 

Consequently much of the material in this project comes to you from word of mouth alone.

I recall as a child growing up I was fascinated by the tales from my late father Fabrizio (Fabby) and his friends - many of them Scots-Italians and like him hard working fish and chip shop owners or ice cream makers.

The stories were wide and varied and included tales of the extravagant dinner dances at the Casa d'Italia, to the traumas of internment during the war years. 

What I hope to achieve with this site is a backdrop for Scots-Italian Culture and History without focussing on the semantics of it too much. 

I've also included a Family Tree page, where you can post a message for long lost relatives (if you really want to find them), you can read about the Scots-Italians who have hit the headlines (for all the right reasons might I add) and I've have included a Spotlight page which features current Scots-Italian stories in the media.

www.scotsitalian.co.uk went online in April 2001, and is heavily dependant on your input - if you're Scots-Italian or know of someone who is, then why not email me with your stories or you could even send me photographs and I'll try and feature them.

So here's hoping that in some small part this website can go a way to preserving the identity of the Scots-Italian people.

Would you like to link to this site or submit an advert? If so, please email us.

On a final note www.scotsitalian.co.uk is a non-profit website so that may explain why it perhaps isn't updated as frequently as it could be (apologies).