In Search of Times Past

Reading Aristotle's words “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet” made me think of my own scholastic endeavours.

I didn't find those roots particularly bitter as my eagerness to learn, having lost two years of study during wartime, made them more palpable.

My education had been sporadic during the years of the conflict. My family traipsed all over the Italian peninsula to avoid danger but the situation returned to normality in the aftermath of World War Two, and I was able to join a school that was no longer a target for air raids.

It was in a town called Arcisate, north of Milan and near the Swiss border.

The Scuola Elementare (primary school) was in Piazza De Gasperi, right opposite the Villa Teresa where my parents had rented an apartment.

The Victorian villa was an impressive building with large metal gates and a gravelled drive.

It had been converted into several flats. Ours was on the first floor, accessed by a staircase at the back of the building. Our next-door neighbour was a widow with a son, a newly qualified doctor who, years later, would die in tragic circumstances.

On the left-hand side on the ground floor lived a goldsmith with his wife and two sons whom I befriended. An old lady, called Semiramide, was the landlady and she had rooms on the right section of the ground floor.
It only took me a few minutes to cross the road and join my classs so I had no excuse for being late.

Even though I was a newcomer I was made to feel welcome by the other pupils and a kind female teacher whose surname was almost synonymous to mine.

I became part of a motley collection of students from different backgrounds. We had mixed classes with giggling girls and boisterous boys who were transformed into disciplined pupils once the bell rang to start the lessons.

There was no corporal punishment in Italy for misbehaving in school, (it was abolished in 1928), but transgressions could affect the grades.

Once out of school, though, we might indulge in some foolish caper and suffer the consequences.

A cinema located in the basement of the Municipio (Town Hall) showed, at weekends Westerns, which we watched with such enthusiasm that during the interval we tried to replicate the fights between the cowboys and the Red Indians. 
Because of the fracas we created we were eventually banned from attending.

We were not tearaways intent on causing mayhem but kids full of energy which we eventually burned on the pitch of the local football club.

Not much excitement happened in a town like ours but one incident is still vivid in my memory: 
On February 4, 1948, shortly after midnight, the Gavi powder magazine, a state-owned war material factory, exploded, claiming some victims and damaging some buildings.

Anyway, it wasn't an everyday event and life was relatively quiet.

However, one should always expect the unexpected and one year I had a lovely surprise. Because I had managed to make excellent progress with my studies I was awarded a Post Office Saving Book credited with 100 Italian lire which, if my calculations are correct, would be equivalent nowadays to approximately 1600 Euros.

My good fortune continued as I was able to pass the fifth-grade exam that allowed me to advance to the middle school.

In those days we had no middle school in Arcisate so I had to travel, by train, to Varese (7 Kilometres away) to continue my education.

 
© Luigi Pagano 2025