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Luciano Giuseppe Ciardini

1937 - 2025

The wonderful man who was Luciano
Giuseppe Ciardini was born in Florence in
Italy on 23rd May 1937 to Quinto and
Leonella. Quinto was a cobbler, a shoemaker,
and Leonella stayed home to look after Luci
and the home.

Luci went to school in Florence and then took
a qualification in hospitality. In Italy, working in hospitality is
considered a profession and is valued more than perhaps it is here.

Young Luci knew that he needed to speak English to take his
career as far as possible, so in 1959 he came to England to learn
the language and, though we don’t know why, he chose to come to
Swanage. And while he was there, he worked in Forte’s restaurant
where there was a girl called Olive working in the Ice Cream
Parlour. She came from Harmans Cross and they soon became a
couple. They moved to London together and subsequently married
in Islington Town Hall.

Nick came along, followed by Bob, and Luci realised that he
needed to earn a better living, so he joined the Merchant Navy,
Cunard Line, working his way up to Chief Steward on the QE2.
Olive moved back to Dorset as Luci was away so much, six
months at a time, and she wanted to be nearer to home.

After ten years or so of travelling all over the world with Cunard,
Luci decided it was time to come ashore to spend more time with
his family and he moved back to Swanage and went back to
Fortes, as Manager of the restaurant, a job he did for the next
twenty years. He then moved to Millers Pie Factory in Poole until
he retired when Olive was ill. He cared for her until her death in
2003.

But Luci wasn’t done! He wasn’t one to sit around doing nothing.
So, he went back to work, taking a job washing up at The

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