BY TONY ROCCA

I was born near Manchester in the north of England, where I grew up and joined a local newspaper at the age of seventeen. I graduated to the Daily Mail  in London where I spent ten years doing many editorial jobs, including a spell as New York correspondent. Then followed a further ten years in London with The Sunday Times as a reporter, feature-writer and foreign correspondent. My fifteen minutes of fame came with the demise of Now!  magazine which suddenly become Then!  (it folded on the very morning I joined). Next came a brief period as features editor of the Mail on Sunday  and several years freelancing from the South of France before Mira and I left for Italy and our adventure in Tuscany. My articles have appeared in most British national newspapers as well as The New York Times  and  Reader's Digest.