Police cook pasta for elderly Rome couple suffering loneliness

Right now, in the heat of the Roman summer, the police force of the Eternal City send out continual reminders to citizens to keep their eye out for the elderly who might be suffering through the 35 degree-plus plus Roman summer days.

The problem can be exacerbated not just by the sustained summer heat but also by the fact that so many regular Roman citizens tend to leave for the sea or the mountains, particularly in the month of August.

Thus when police received an emergency call from someone who had heard cries of desperation and distress in an apartment block in the Appio “quartiere” in central Rome, one of their first suspicions was that this involved elderly folks.

Indeed it did but not in the way they had imagined.

When the police knocked on the door of the apartment lived in by 89-year-old Jole and 94-year-old Michele, they found that the couple, who have been married for 70 years, were in good health.

They had not been robbed nor had they been the victims of the unwanted attentions of a door-to-door salesman trying to sell them health insurance or some other product that they neither needed nor could afford (yet another Roman August speciality).

No, they were alive and well, but just a little bit lonely. All their shouting had been prompted by watching the TV news, perhaps the images of yet another Syrian atrocity. The police called an ambulance, just to check on the couple and then, as they waited, the cops did a very Italian thing.

They set about cooking the couple a plate of pasta alla parmigiana convinced, as Italians often are, that a plate of the national dish can resolve a host of problems.

At the moment, Rome police are running a summer PR campaign, called "#EsserciSempre" (We're Always There). The story of Jole and Michele was too good not to be used on their Facebook page as a positive example of what the police force can achieve.

Curiously, too, it attracted a lot of attention registering more than 760,000 likes. A simple little story but, in the Roman context, for once one with a happy ending.