Life can offer few more delightful experiences than to be feted in a magical place. The Ischia prize gave me this experience

I am an economist who has been lucky to write for a great newspaper

to receive the prize in this wonderful island, located in the most beautiful country in the world, which is also the cradle of western civilisation.

"It is a great honour to receive this prize, which is so remarkable for the distinction and indeed the bravery of those who have won it before me. It is a great pleasure to receive the prize in this wonderful island, located in the most beautiful country in the world, which is also the cradle of western civilisation.  

“I am only sad that my father, who loved Italy and was a distinguished journalist and broadcaster in his own right could not be here with me tonight. He would have been so very proud. But I am delighted that my daughter, Rachel, is here. 

"Nevertheless, I must confess that I feel I am an impostor. I am not, in truth, a journalist. I am certainly not a hero, unlike Syed Saleem Shahzad, martyred winner of last year’s prize. I am an economist who has been lucky to write for a great newspaper in English, today's global language.

“I am well aware of that good fortune. I am also aware that on the other side of the coin of my ability to write about the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s is very bad luck for hundreds of millions of people, including people here in Italy. 

"Since the crisis began, I and my colleagues at the Financial Times have sought not only to explain what is happening as clearly as we can, but to make pragmatic and workable recommendations for immediate policy and longer-term reforms.

“This week, it appears that the eurozone may at last have taken big steps towards resolving the crisis in the continent. If it is so, I greet the news with pleasure, unalloyed by any fear that the end of the crisis, should that occur, would mean an end to the centrality of commentary on economics that my receipt of this prize represents. I can live with that. You surely can live with that.

"Once again, may I give you all my thanks at this enormous honour. This truly is among the very greatest pleasures and honours of my life."That was the speech I would have delivered on receiving this year’s Ischia Prize for International Journalism if I had been able to do so. Instead, I found myself participating in a unique – and uniquely Italian – event: a compered national television programme that celebrates the award of important prizes in journalism, but is also decorated with beautiful young women, enlivened by musical entertainments and located in front of a lovely little church. This was the Oscars for journalists – an extraordinary and unforgettable experience.

What made it more extraordinary still, for me, was the fact that I dared to answer questions on economics in my faltering Italian. I can only hope that I avoided making catastrophic blunders. But, by then, I had already become used to doing interviews in Italian, though, fortunately, I had been able to do the big panel discussion on the crisis for television in English.

Everything about our three days in Ischia was extraordinary: the hospitality; the heat; the elegance of the hotel; and the beauty of the island. It was a wonderful, indeed unforgettable interlude, in a busy life. Moreover, this is not a part of Italy I know at all well: we have a flat in Liguria. So the impressions were new and so more vivid.

What were the highlights of the visit, apart from everything associated with the prize itself? I would list two.

The first was the visit to the Villa Arbusto Museum, to see Nestor’s Cup, found in the excavation of Pithekoussai. Before I studied economics, I studied the classical languages at Oxford University. As is true of everything that happens to one before one is 21, the memory of reading the Iliad is still very fresh.  The idea that the Euboean script on this cup was the ancestor of the Latin alphabet, which then became the alphabet of all European languages, was extraordinarily moving. I was reminded, yet again, that Greece and, not least, the Greek colonies in southern Italy known as Magna Graecia, were the progenitors of our common European civilisation.

The second highlight was the visit to the gardens of La Mortella, created by Susana Walton together with the English designer Russell Page. The gardens themselves are a magical creation. But Sir William Walton himself also has personal significance for me, chiefly for his unforgettable music for the film of the patriotic play, Henry V, directed by Laurence Olivier in 1944, in which Olivier also played the title role. My father was a playwright and great lover of Shakespeare. This was the first film of a Shakespeare play I saw. It is, of course, a brilliant success artistically, not least for the heroic music. Seeing the home of the Waltons brought back many memories of my father and my childhood introduction to the work of the great playwright.

I am grateful to the sponsors of the prize, above all, the Valentino family, the jury that awarded it to me it and all those who made our stay in Ischia a magical experience, particularly Lesley Morton.

Life can offer few more delightful experiences than to be feted in a magical place. The Ischia prize gave me this experience. I will not forget it.