Anecdote:-

The tower to the Sacred Heart church in South street Exeter had finally been finished and the church was due to be Consecrated.  Many Local Exeter people Catholic and non Catholic alike had donated something towards the final finish of the church, all that is except my grandfather Domenico (Benedetto) Forte.  He, as one of the most successful business men in Exeter at that time had not offered to do anything towards the final touches of his church. 

One morning Father Thomas Barney came out into the porch of his church and there were two men painting the plaque commemorating the consecration of the church with Gold Leaf. STOP he cried who ordered this? I cannot afford to have this work done.  Well, you had better go and see Dominic Forte father, He ordered it.;  father Barney flew up south street to the Forte's icecream parlour.  There he accosted my grandfather and said "Whats the big idea" theres men down there painting gold leaf on the plaque.  AH yes father, Dominic replied, you did a great job with the church, but you do not know how to Advertise.

Anecdote:-

My Grandfather was very much respected in the business community.  This was especially true of the Italian Community of Devon and Somerset.  At the outbreak of the Second World War many Italian emigrants who had not become naturalised British Subjects, either because of ignorance of the procedure or they may not have been in England very long.  Some of them feared internment when Italy joined the war on the Axis side.  Many of them approached my grandfather with large amounts of money.  They asked him if he would look after the money for them until the war was over?  My grandfather agreed to do this and put these monies in a large safe at the top of No 2 South Street where we all lived at that time.  During the Blitz, An Elizabethan property across the road in South Street that housed a bakery, recieved a direct hit from an incendiery bomb and caught fire.  The Building collapsed acroos the road onto our shops setting them alight.  The fire quickly spread through our property and up through the roof.  The large safe with all the money in it crashed through Three floors and ended up in the basement.  The fire had heated the safe up to such an extent that all its contents were cooked to near ashes.   Grandad was obviously concerned, not only about the loss of his Businesses, but also all the money in the safe.  with difficulty they managed to open the safe, and inside it they found the charred remains of hundreds of banknotes and coins that had fused together through the heat.  Grandad went to his bank "The National Bank" in the Cathedral Yard and spoke to the manager, who went and looked at the damaged safe.  The bank agreed to replace all the money that could clearly be identified as Paper currency.  My grandfather was thereby able to repay some of each persons entrusted savings when they requested them.  Consequently our family have remained faithfull to this day to "The Natwest" bank because of their genuiness on that one important occasion.