Vincent Lera

Vincent Lera was born in Fulham on 25 March 1909. His father Galileo Lera (1878–1937) was an Italian mechanical engineer who arrived in England in 1902, and his mother was Irish, Winifred (nee Doyle) (1888–1944). His brother Wilfrid Lera was born in Devon in 1910. When Vincent was about 13, his father left his mother and returned to Italy to establish with his brother, Giulio Lera, a ‘ceramica’, a china clay business called Olubria, making decorative plates and vases; many of their wares were exported to the United States. Vincent was a talented artist and he and his brother moved to Italy in their teens to work in the ceramica, decorating the wares. Vincent was also an artist in oil paint. But the business was weakened by the US Depression and, with his British passport, he feared the fascists in Italy. In 1933 he made his way back to England on a coal ship from Genoa. He lived in Westminster and later Bloomsbury, working as a signwriter. He also had a spell as a shop assistant at Fortnum & Masons.
His stage career was relatively brief. In 1937 he was an Extra in The Laughing Cavalier by Reginald Arkell at the Adelphi Theatre, giving 38 performances from 19/10/1937 to 20/11/1937. In 1942 he played Andreas Braun in a production of Lilac Time at the Stoll Theatre London giving 80 performances from 13/10/1942 to 12/12/1942. His brother Wilfrid, who adopted the stage name John, Lera played Moritz von Schwind in the same production. In 1943 he was in Monsieur Beaucaire including performances at Leeds Theatre Royal.
He was a Fire Warden during the War, but his war experiences left him traumatised and after the War he moved out to the country at Bricket Wood, north of Watford, taking a job as a cook at a country club. In 1948 he married Maisie Lee (1928–2022) known as Dixie, and got a job at a scrap metal works, John Dales in London Colney, breaking up old WW2 aero engines. A plan to move to Italy in the mid-1950s was abandoned and he and his wife and son moved to Redbourn in Hertfordshire in 1956. He worked as a cloth porter at Rodex (later Aquascutum) in St Albans and at Vauxhall Motors in Dunstable from 1959 until his retirement in 1972. He died in St Albans General Hospital on 2 June 1983 and is buried in St Mary’s churchyard, Redbourn. He is survived by his children Sebastian Galileo Lera (born 1952) and Anita Louisa Lera (born 1958).