Elderly teacher overwhelmed by response to adoption advert

So went Giorgio Angelozzi’s appeal in one of Italy’s most popular newspapers, tugging at the heart strings of a country worried that its traditional extended families are disintegrating.

Yesterday, the 79-year-old was having to fight back dozens of offers. The classics teacher, who has lived alone outside Rome with seven cats since his wife died in 1992, was taken aback.

"So many families want to adopt me as their grandfather," said Mr Angelozzi who promised 500 euros (336) a month to the family who took him in. "So many families answered my appeal and want me to teach their children and their grandchildren about Horace and Catullus."

Among those who responded - from southern Catanzaro to northern Milan - was much-loved Roman popular music singer Antonello Venditti, one of Mr Angelozzi’s former pupils.

"I was not expecting so much warmth, so much interest in my story," Mr Angelozzi told Corriere della Sera, the paper that published his original classified advertisement, yesterday. "But remember my problem is one that affects so many elderly people in Italy."

Italy has long been famed for the central role of the family in society. But in recent years, as the divorce rate rises and families become more mobile, elderly relatives are frequently left on their own.

In summer 2003, 4,175 old people died in the record heat. Many had been left to sweat out July and August in the cities where, during those months, pharmacies and food shops often close and services are reduced.