It looks quite juvenile, but it may be the photo and you said it bloomed last year. I think it is the weather - too dry for much of the last year.

Thanks Kildermorie, i have had the tree for 2 years

I find fruit trees are like that, lots of things, usually the weather in one form or another, can affect them, even a high crop one year results in a poor crop the next. My Williams pear flowers early and is easily caught by the frost

Thanks Pamg

We have two Abate pear trees, bought at the same time, 5 years ago, from the same place. One is now about 20' tall and gives dozens of pears every year, the other is scarcely 5' tall and this year had all of two blossoms on it. As with humans, there's no rhyme or reason in them.

Biennial bearing is a problem in some fruit trees, particularly apples and pears, where they crop heavily in one year and then produce little or nothing the next. Some cultivars are naturally biennial but weather conditions and soil fertility can contribute to the problem, (copy from RHS site). Gattina, I am very jealous that you have Pere Abate pear trees, I buy the Italian pears from Lidl supermarket when I see them, they are delicious.

I had a feeling that they are around in the UK but go under a different name. They are nice, aren't they? Our favourite. They don't keep too well, though. (mostly 'cos we eat them all)

Thank you all.
Stewart