Modern Marvels, Magicians and Portobello Showmen

[rathbone]

This is the story of Harry Marvello, Andre Letta and the Codona family, the showmen who transformed Portobello into the seaside attraction it became between 1900 and 1950, and forms part of the Portobello On-line Local History Project.

Most of the information forming the background to this history has been gleaned from the Scotsman Archives, to which go many thanks and the obvious acknowledgments. The illustrations come from a number of web sources, on which original copyrights are not listed, so I apologise for any, inadvertent, breaches of the same and express my thanks to those people who originally posted them.

Inevitably, with a dependence on a single source of information, there are gaps. For example, the Scotsman Archive contains no record of when Andre Letta died. Hopefully as the Local History Project progresses and other sources are explored, a fuller picture will emerge.

In the 1930s my mother’s family had the franchise to sell ice-cream on Portobello promenade and worked closely with the show people. Harry Marvello lived in Rathbone House on the Promenade. My grandparents subsequently took on the lease of Rathbone House and my mother grew up there. Andre Letta lived in 12 Bath Street. Later, my parents took on the lease of that house and I grew up there.