NUNZIA: QUANTI BEI RICORDI!

A few days before her retirement, the hotel's longest serving staff member was, as always, a busy woman. It was only through the intercession of the hotel's operations manager Aldo Sersale – whose nappies she had helped to change when he was a baby – that she was finally persuaded to sit down with Le Sirenuse Journal's Lee Marshall for an exclusive interview. She insisted on receiving the journalist and il signor Aldo not in one of the hotel lounges but in Room 39, so she could continue her morning shift immediately after.

Even convincing Nunzia to sit down and rest for a while took some doing. But once she embraced the break in her schedule, this treasured governante warmed to her task of recounting her 45 years of service, and the friends she had made along the way. Picture a bright late October morning in Positano, sun streaming in through half-closed curtains, a shock of auburn hair, a pair of twinkling eyes that would sometimes mist up with nostalgia, sometimes turn teasing and mischievous.

We leave Nunzia's story in the first person, uninterrupted… because it is troppo bello.

“In those early years many of the first-generation members of the Sersale family lived in the hotel alongside their guests. Aldo Sersale – the uncle of this young Aldo – was in Room 64. He had quite a few lady friends, and he would give them all nicknames. One he called La Farfallina (‘The Butterfly’) because she had a habit of flying away. Then there was la baronessa, Maria Sersale, who used to keep her spare cash hidden inside Kleenex boxes, underneath the tissues. “No burglar would ever think of looking there”, she once told me.”

“Back then, the hotel stayed open all through winter. We would keep around half of the rooms open – those on the higher floors – and close the other ones for maintenance and redecoration. But there were still plenty of guests, especially on weekends. La marchesa Anna, sister of Maria, Paolo, Aldo and Franco, would organise a big family get-together. She also looked after the Christmas decorations. One year there was a Christmas tree outside the lobby when a storm blew up. It was lifted up into the air and carried all the way down the road to Piazza dei Mulini!”

“Franco Sersale, who arrived to take charge of Le Sirenuse in 1992, was a visionary who was at least twenty years ahead of his time. He was elegant but he was also a simple person who had time for everyone, he'd ask you how you were, what you'd been up to. He was a perfect gentleman but he could also be hilariously funny. I remember once he came back from London with a broken wrist. I asked him what had happened and he replied, in broad Neapolitan dialect: “Eh, you may well ask… that's what comes of running after women”.”

“In 2006, when I was still part of the housekeeping staff, I was I was called by il signor Antonio, who was doing interviews in Room 61. He asked me if I would like to progress from being a chambermaid to becoming the governess in charge of the hotel's entire laundry operation. I was happy… but I wasn't sure I was up to the challenge. I didn't even speak English. He looked at me and said, “Signora Nunzia, why do you think I called you in and made you this offer? Because I know you can do it. Remember: the train only stops at the station once”. So I got on the train!”

“I have wonderful memories of my 45 years here, quanti bei ricordi! I wouldn't have changed anything. The staff and the owners have been like my second family. These two boys, Aldo and Francesco, it's like they're two more nephews to add to the eight nieces and nephews I have already. I'm sad to be leaving, but I'll be back to visit, that's for sure. Just try keeping me away!”

Photos @ Roberto Salomone