Keith Killby, founder of the Monte San Martino Trust, is turning 100 years old today. The President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II have both conveyed messages of congratulations for his milestone birthday.
Keith Killby served in the British army during the Second World War. During the conflict, he was captured in the Libyan desert and then transferred to a prisoner camp in Sevigliano, in the Italian Marche region. After the signing of the Armistice of Cassabile on the 8th of September 1943, Killby managed to escape and received food and shelter from the habitants of nearby villages. The first to offer aid were the citizens of Monte San Martino, a small village next to Macerata. Killby was one of 4,000 British soldiers that received help in hiding from the nazi-fascist patrols from the farmers of the Appenines, who often paid the ultimate sacrifice in doing so.
When the Second World War ended, Killby settled back in the United Kingdom, but never forgot the great sacrifices made by the habitants of Northern Italy. He often returned to the country to visit those people who had greatly helped him during his escape and learned their language perfectly.
In 1989, Killby founded the Monte San Martino Trust, a charity with the aim of giving back to the many Italians who had courageously helped him during his escape. The Trust collects funds to finance English immersion programmes in Great Britain for students from the Marche between 18 and 25 years of age.
The association then progressively expanded the geographical area with which it worked to include all the other villages where Killby and his comrades received assistance: Sulmona, Castel di Sangro, L’Aquila, Parma, Fontanellato, Modena e Macerata.
Because of his efforts to promote the strengthening of the relationship between the British population and the Italian one and his creation in favour of the memory of those thirty years that the Italian people saved the lives of numerous British soldiers, Killby was awarded with the title of Cavalier Ufficiale and with a Monte San Martino honorary citizenship.
