30,000 Page Hits Guest Post & My Lent Book

This post is actually slightly late for 30,000 page views. In fact this 'guest post' is from my Lent book this year. Regular readers of my ravings here will know that I like to borrow this practice from the Christians, and invert it by choosing a remarkably unsuitable book. Last year it was Hooligan Nights, and this year it is One Little Maid, the autobiography of Dame Hilda Bracket. In this extract she is talking about her years studying singing in Italy.

'When I first arrived in Vicenza I had some difficulty in finding anywhere to live and in desperation I took a time room at the top of an old tumbledown house in the poorer quarter of the town. I had intended moving from this garret as soon as I found somewhere else to stay, but after a few months I became very attached to it and as the rent was considerably cheaper than in any other part of town, I decided to stay there permanently. The house was owned by a man whom I only ever saw after dark. He was very hospitable and used to let different girls use the rooms every night; sometimes he would even let one sleep in the room for part of the evening then another when the first had gone. The curious thing about these girls was that they always had their brothers with them, although some of them looked old enough to be their fathers. But after what mother had told me about Italian men, I was very pleased to see that these girls were chaperoned so carefully.

'Sometimes a girl would come to the house with an extra brother, at least that is what I assumed, because the landlord tried to persuade me to let one or two men sleep on my floor when I first arrived. Of course I explained to him that it was quite out of the question and when he enquired why I had come to the house in the first place, I told him it was in order to practise my singing (which was not strictly true). He only came up a few times when I was singing and after that he never bothered to come again; he must have realised where my talents and interests lay. Not that I was a prude in any way. I used to enjoy listening to these girls and their brothers having pillow-fights late at night. They always sounded as if they were having such fun – it reminded me of the times when Gil and I had played together as children.

'My little room was very sparse. There was an old wooden bed, a chair, a rickety table and a rail behind a curtain, where I hung my clothes. I bought a lamp-shade and curtains for the windows to make it more cheerful, as well as a second-hand rug which I found in the market, and a patterned counterpane, which I hoped would keep me warmer. There was a small oil stove/heater which used to smoke rather a lot, but which was the only means of heating and I used to make coffee on top of it before I went to bed. I used to lie there at night with the curtains open, looking over the rooftops of the old quarter of the town bathed in moonlight. It was very romantic and I felt terribly Bohemian. It was so unlike anything I had ever experienced before that I easily imagined myself in La Boheme. It was also so cold sometimes that a good deal more than my tiny hand was frozen.'

(Dame Hilda Bracket: One Little Maid. Heinemann, London, 1980, pp. 58-59)