Frankfurters and beer in Venice, 1946

…It was very pleasant, at 11 o’clock in the morning to go down to the Piazza San Marco, and we’d have frankfurters and Italian beer in these small glasses. Then I’d go and get my trunks and a towel and head down to San Zaccaria where I’d catch a ferry across to the Lido, go down to the beach, where Death in Venice was filmed, and have a swim. After about an hour at around 1.30 I might think about going into the office and doing a bit of sub-editing for this newspaper The Eighth Army. It didn’t take very long, we’d work until 4.30 maybe and then head out for the evening… of course the one newspaper contact I didn’t make in Venice at this time was James Morris, who was working there at exactly the same time, he was in charge of the water taxis, that was a missed opportunity I’ve always regretted it…

This story about drifting around Venice in the aftermath of the war was somehow made distinctly real by the slightly surreal detail of the frankfurters and beer. Partly because frankfurters seem a bit of a throwback in social history – the kind of trivial reference we might record in a diary. The ex-editor of the Evening Standard, Roy Wright, told the story brilliantly – it was all the more incredible as a floating anecdote, unrecorded and on the brink of disappearance.