It is always sombre coming back from some where, the expectation ends and the routine awaits. However, I remember feeling free, my spirit high, my batteries charged, the world was a huge space worth investigating, and I could do it, I had the opportunity of working and earning my living as well as being able to set a side small amounts for vacations such as the one I was coming back from. With this feeling of future ventures the monotonous hours of travelling by coach passed quickly and we arrived at Victoria Station.The next few months we bragged about our holiday to everyone we knew and bored them to death, I am sure...
It was an exciting time for me too, in the sense, that I was able to speak with some ease the English language, and having worked and learnt so many new things my enthusiasm wanted more, and in 1967 I decided to go to Paris to learn French and return to Spain and find a good job. I cannot remember how but I found some residential convent addresses in Paris and with out further a do I bought the train ticket and arrived in la Garde du Nord in the heart of Paris by myself. What a treasure youth is! The senses are alert, the ears open to novelty and the eyes recognise new surroundings as accessible and one fears nothing. The sounds I could hear in French were recognisable to me, I was amazed at how easy it sounded after the hard consonants of the English language. These sounds were similar to my own language and I could understand directions verbally issued to me. I took a taxi and arrived at 87 Rue Reaumur, near to Sebastopol avenue.
The nuns were from a charity order and offered me accommodation. We were 900 residents. All young women in our twenties either studying at the university or at different colleges. It was good environment for me, and soon, I was part of the furniture in the convent and with my colleagues. The nuns as nuns were and I expect are, help me to find decent jobs and curry no risks executing them, in exchange for prayers and the pretense their order demanded. I was sent in the mornings,to look after an elderly lady that lived in a beautiful house,near the Louvre museum with her priest son. Madam Morell, was a decent woman that cared for me as if I were her grand daughter. I had light duties to do in the house and a bit of shopping that she could not carry. As a gesture of generosity she gave me a glass of milk and biscuits every morning to protect me from tuberculosis. She said if I had a glass of milk every day the chances of falling ill were limited at my age. She was right, I was never ill in Paris.
Through her son's previleged position she actually got me a job as a telephonist in a large company. The telephone operators must have known I was getting the job through the back door and decided to leave me alone as soon as I arrived. It was a huge exchange board with multiple flashing lights from incoming calls. I stood silent for a while before I took my coat and left. The french workers are well informed about their rights and procedures and quite rightly resented me.
In the convent the food was mean and unsuitable for hungry young adults. We were 300 in each floor, our dormitories contained a bed, a side table and a small wardrobe, separated from the next cubicle by a curtain. The shower rooms had cold water permanently. The lights went out at 9,00 pm and we had to get up at sun rise for prayers. I could not complain as accommodation was given to me free of charge until I found some work, but some of the residents were from rich families who paid fees for board and lodging, I could not understand why they put up with it. Many a night we had one artichoke for dinner with vinaigrette and a yogurt. (perhaps the nuns knew about size zero already!)
Fortunately the convent was situated besides a fruit and vegetable market and tomatoes and baguettes were bought by the kilo to fill our tummies. Months later I was given a receptionist job by the nuns, at the convent, and I used to see hot platters steaming with roasted baby pigs, lamb and other nutritious dinners going to the nuns dining room on a daily basis. Preaching one thing and doing another has always been the catholic church representatives motto. A good stew and lots of french bread would not have broken the convent´s bank, but the illusion of poverty had to be maintained.
Myself, two nuns, my sister Tina, Charo and Manoli
I attended French classes in the afternoon at the Aliance Francaise and life was fool of new and exiting experiences. In the convent we had theatre and dancing every Sunday. The theatre actors were the residents, some were very good, and the priests were excellent directing and forming singing chorus etc. The dancing hall was full on Sundays and we all looked forward to the event with grate expectation. Some of the people attending the dance had been previous residents , and had now married and came with their children. Others were parishioners from churches in the vicinity and they too attended the dance and the celebrations.
A young man called Miguel from the south of Spain dressed himself in fancy cloths one Easter and confessed his love for me in beautiful Spanish verses that he had learnt by heart. It took me sometime to realise who he was...
At the Alliance I met this handsome man that followed me everywhere and used all his charm to enchant me. I say this because he was extremely polite, caring and loving.These ingredients are appreciated by young minds and I accepted going out with him. We danced, walked and saw many plays and discussed many issues. Paris is ideal for lovers. He took me everywhere and we had a good time for several months. He told me he was studying medicine and showed me lots of homework from his lectures. I had no reason to doubt him...
The nuns are very strict with time keeping and evening dead lines and we had to be in by nine or the door would be shut. Not very charitable thing to do with young people. Once three of us had to enter a house in front of the convent and sleep on the stairs. We had arrived 10 minutes late and the iron door was not unlocked for our mercy.
Antonia and myself in ParisAntonia was a lay nun -nurse that had taken care of leprosy patients in the mountain of Valencia. She had come to Paris to expand her charitable work and from the convent she moved to a room adjacent to the convent. The rates were cheaper, and she invited me to go and live with her
(it is possible that she wanted to take care of me) I accepted because I was going out with Sacha and the evenings would be more enjoyable not having to be back by 9 pm.
We lived in this room and shared a toilet and water from another floor. The students and service providers accommodation in Paris I found to be substandard and unsuitable for habitation. It does not suit the richness of Paris to offer such rooms for the workers . The resident maids of wealthy families had their quarters on the top floor, mostly several floor above the property. It is said that it was done on purpose, so that, the effort of going upstairs would only be made at night when they were totally exhausted.... To compare I can say that in England it is the reverse, the servant quarters were and are today in the basements and I know of many good flats provided for the servants.
In 1968 Paris suffered a revolution that showed me the power of the people defending ideals. Paris as most cities is an example of richness and beauty, as well as poverty and deprivation. Both examples live side by side in what appears to be harmony, until it irrupts.
Paris 1968
May '68 was a political failure for the protesters, but it had an enormous social impact. In France, it is considered to be the watershed moment that saw the replacement of conservative morality (religion, patriotism, respect for authority) with the liberal morality (equality, sexual liberation, human rights) that dominates French society today. Although this replacement did not take place solely in this one month, the term "mai 68" is used to refer to the shift in values, especially when referring to its most idealistic aspects.
The revolution was an intimidating situation, specially for those like me that were residing in a religious institution. The nuns were very frighten and took charge of the iron doors as their most precious possession. The right wing newspaper "France Soir"was situated directly opposite the convent, and most days we had the students and workers sporting red kerchiefs and beret demonstrating outside the newspaper building throwing stones and shouting slogans against the right wing printing press.
May 68, also brought to light the issue of celibacy dispensations for priests and nuns.
1962-Pope John XXIII: Vatican Council II; vernacular; marriage is equal to virginity.
1966-Pope Paul VI: celibacy dispensations
1978-Pope John Paul II: puts a freeze on dispensations.
History of Celibacy in the Catholic Church
First CenturyPeter, the first pope, and the apostles that Jesus chose were, for the most part, married men. The New Testament implies that women presided at Eucharistic meals in the early church.
Second and Third CenturyAge of Gnosticism: light and spirit are good, darkness and material things are evil. A person cannot be married and be perfect. However, most priests were married.
Fourth Century306-Council of Elvira, Spain, decree #43: a priest who sleeps with his wife the night before Mass will lose his job.
325-Council of Nicea: decreed that after ordination a priest could not marry. Proclaimed the Nicene Creed.
352-Council of Laodicea: women are not to be ordained. This suggests that before this time there was ordination of women.
385-Pope Siricius left his wife in order to become pope. Decreed that priests may nolonger sleep with their wives.
Fifth Century401-St. Augustine wrote, “Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of a man downwards as the caresses of a woman.”
Sixth Century567-2nd Council of Tours: any cleric found in bed with his wife would be excommunicated for a year and reduced to the lay state.580-Pope Pelagius II: his policy was not to bother married priests as long as they did not hand over church property to wives or children.
590-604-Pope Gregory “the Great” said that all sexual desire is sinful in itself (meaning that sexual desire is intrinsically evil?). St. Ulrich, a holy bishop, argued from scripture and common sense that the only way to purify the church from the worst excesses of celibacy was to permit priests to marry.
Eleventh Century1045-Pope Boniface IX dispensed himself from celibacy and resigned in order to marry.1074-Pope Gregory VII said anyone to be ordained must first pledge celibacy: ‘priests [must] first escape from the clutches of their wives.’
1095-Pope Urban II had priests’ wives sold into slavery, children were abandoned.
Twelfth Century1123-Pope Calistus II: First Lateran Council decreed that clerical marriages were invalid.1139-Pope Innocent II: Second Lateran Council confirmed the previous council’s decree.
Fourteenth CenturyBishop Pelagio complains that women are still ordained and hearing confessions.
Fifteenth CenturyTransition; 50% of priests are married and accepted by the people.
Sixteenth Century1545-63-Council of Trent states that celibacy and virginity are superior to marriage. 1517-Martin Luther.1530-Henry VI
Seventeenth CenturyInquisition. Galileo. Newton.
Eighteenth Century1776-American Declaration of Independence.1789-French Revolution.
Nineteenth Century1804-Napoleon.1882-Darwin.1847-Marx, Communist Manifesto.1858-Freud.
1869-First Vatican Council; infallibility of pope. Twentieth Century1930-Pope Pius XI: sex can be good and holy.
1951-Pope Pius XII: married Lutheran pastor ordained catholic priest in Germany.
1962-Pope John XXIII: Vatican Council II; vernacular; marriage is equal to virginity.
1966-Pope Paul VI: celibacy dispensations.
1970s-Ludmilla Javorova and several other Czech women ordained to serve needs of women imprisoned by Communists.
1978-Pope John Paul II: puts a freeze on dispensations
1983-New Canon Law
1980-Married Anglican/Episcopal pastors are ordained as catholic priests in the U.S.; also in Canada and England in 1994.
The Catholic church and their princes the popes have over the centuries done and undone laws that have been in most cases unreasonable and unnatural.
The nuns and priests in the convent were young and full of life and expectations. They were also surrounded by youth. Being a nun or a priest does not mean you cannot appreciate beauty or desire love and being loved. It is all part of being alive.
The prayer routines, the cold environment, the shock of cold water showers and the cilice that some priest wore, would only work for a while, then real life was facing you again with all the temptations and desires.
Cilice
The next day I took the train by myself to Porte de Choicy station. It was raining very hard and I had taken no umbrella. After a long walk in the rain and several directions I arrived to the Choicy police station. As soon as I entered I was taken through a long corridor. In passing I looked to the left and holding the rails of his cell I saw Sacha. He looked terrible, he had been beaten up. He looked at me in total desolation and I made signs to him questioning why,why?. He simply asked for cigarettes.
On the way out another policeman took me down and we passed by Sacha, the policeman told me quietly that he had stolen from the patients at the hospital. I am not sure he was telling me the truth because for that reason one does no beat a man in the face and make it black and blue.
It was now May 68, the Spaniards were taken by especial buses back to Spain. Embassy recommendations for all Spanish citizens living in Paris and France. For me arrangements were made to take a blind nun back to Madrid.
During the journey I had many doubts and questions in my mind that I was never going to get an answer to, it was an episode in my life that I had to put behind me as soon as possible.
In Madrid I went to Charo's house. Charo had stayed at the convent and had helped me with French lessons. We were good friends and her family treated me very well. Charo unknown to me belong to the Opus Dei. I was naïve, for I should have known. She had given me “Camino” to read which should have alerted me.
She lived in Calle Bravo Murillo very near to St Antonio's church. There, she knew a priest who was very kind. He took us by car every where and showed me Madrid in good style. We ate at best restaurants and he was very generous. I was later to find out that he too belong to Opus Dei and was sawing the seeds for me to join their profitable organization. It was not to materialise.
I took the train and went to Seville to see my sister Lourdes and family. My intention was to find a job there but I was not lucky.
At the end of August 1968 I took the train back to Madrid in order to find a job. I was 19 years old. My savings were 12,000 pesetas, a small fortune in my bank, but looking for cheap accommodation was my first priority in order to make my saving last as long as possible.
I bought a newspaper and started looking for a room in the centre of Madrid. I remember buying a map and asking the people offering rooms for the nearest tube station. I telephoned several numbers before I found one that was central and appeared to be suitable for my needs. I took a taxi from the station and arrived in Calle Barbieri. This is a street in the red district of Madrid.
I was taken to a suitable room and after placing my few belongings in their rightful place I descended to the kitchen to see the atmosphere and to find out where I could have something to eat. In there I found people of different ages and appeared to have very different professions too.
One of them was a retired cabaret singer, looking at her one could tell her singing carrier was over and something else was her current employment. Another young person was facing the cooker where she was preparing her lunch. Her name was Loren. Lillian was an English teacher, Maria Jose was teaching young people in a school and Mary Carmen was working as a telephonist. That was not bad I thought, they all had decent enough jobs I had done well choosing the cheap pension.
During the following days I kept looking at adverts and telephoning companies for work. I was fortunate enough to see an advert as a sales assistant in Torrejon de Ardoz near the American Base. I made an appointment and I arrived at this alabaster factory near Plaza de Castilla. There were several people applying for the position and I wondered what my chances were. The owner Pilar a nice kind woman explained that the job was some distance away and we would be taken by car.
Six of us were taken for a trial at the shop. When we got there we were mostly disappointed because it was a portakabin souvenir shop in the middle of no where. However, American pilots did purchase goods there. Apart from the normal souvenirs goods, alabaster lamps,statues and ashtrays were sold in large quantities. Pilar's brothers were good carvers of alabaster.
I was told what the position entailed and I was given guidelines. An American officer entered the shop asking for an alabaster lamp, these are placed on alabaster pedestal and are lit inside. I had never seen one of those before, but I approached the ones displayed and he pointed to one of them. I took it to the counter and in English told him the price and whether he would like it packed. He nodded and took his purse out to pay me. I wrote the receipt and put the money in the till. Then this item had to be dismantled and wrapped, the pieces are heavy, after all alabaster is soft marble. No problem, I looked at it and started taking a part. Seven pieces were ready for me to wrap in carton and tied with string. I must have done a good job, for the head sales assistant took me outside while others where interviewed and she said to me quietly, “don't worry the job is yours”.
In effect it was, and the following day I was to go to Ventas station and Pili would collect me by car to my new job. I was to be paid 8,000 pesetas. This was a very good salary at the time. Loren was a waitress and she had minimum wages plus tips, Vivian was earning 5,000 pesetas as a teacher, Mary Carmen was earning just above the minimum 3,000 as a thelephonist and Maria Jose, would not disclose her salary
I would leave the house at 7.30 and go to a coffee shop to have a coffee and toast. I was ok now, I had a job. I then took the underground and travelled for 16 stations to meet with Pilar in Ventas station. At 8,30 on the dot she was there waiting for me. We travelled in her own car to Torrejon. In the shop there was one young man called Ezequiel, who was to help with heavy goods, cleaning etc. The shop was not very busy, but the gain in sales exceeded 300 per cent. This taught me something about sales and cost of product.
In our rooms, life continued and the people that did not profit from the red district like myself,Loren,Vivian, Mary Carmen y Maria Jose, got talking about finding a better location. Our reputation was at stake, as well as realising that going home at night was not enjoyed by any of us. I found a flat for rent in a much better location, Quevedo. We rented a large flat with 5 bedrooms, kitchen and sitting room. It was the 5th floor and we had good views and plenty of space, no more encounters with dirty men in our street. This flat was unfurnished. Such were the times. We had nothing, no bed or table or chairs.
On Saturday those of us that were not working decided to go to the Rastro to buy beds. We had a brilliant morning bargaining and buying our first pieces of furniture, well, metal, for the beds were made of cheap aluminium. We also bought some sponge matress that were wrapped in a paper tube. The next problem was how to take them home, we thought nothing better but to take the underground. Four young women,four metal beds and four sponge mattresses. The exit to our destination was very near to our flat and we arrived laughing and happy.
Some of the girls were tidy and respectful to others, others had no common sense and would leave the toilet or bathroom full of hairs or worse. This caused some problems and I introduced a roster for cleaning. Did it work? no. Just the same we had a good few months there in harmony and enjoyed our new found life.
I decided that I needed to gain some certificates if I wanted to improve my chances in the labour market, and I started going to school to study the "O" levels that I had left undone as a teenager. I went to school for 2 years and managed to improve my writing and arithmetic skills.
A few months later Vivian came saying that there was this flat in Hernani, Cuatro Caminos, with 5 bedrooms and much cheaper. Naturally, Quevedo is an expensive location. We moved there with our meagre possessions and improved our life style by having more money for ourselves.
My sister Tina was at the time in Geneva and having learnt English very well and French as well as German, she decided to come to Madrid and try her luck with finding a job. Tina had been a very good student, and had had pre-university studies as well as having worked as a teacher. She placed an advert with all her skills and had lots of offers of employment. However, this being the Spain of the early seventies the interview locations were questionable and she had to sieve through the offers before she managed to get something respectable. She managed to get a job as a secretary for a Doctor at the Consejo General.
She became number 6 in the flat.
A few months later another friend of mine Celines, who had being a student dressmaker with my eldest sisters decided to come from Barcelona to find a job in Madrid. Celines became number 7 in the flat
Then my brother who was by now 16 was sent to Los Salesianos to learn a trade.
Due to my brother coming to Madrid I looked for a job nearer in order to be able to give him lunch and a bit of family life. I got this job in a hotel in Puerta de Hierro and I used to get a two and a half hour lunch break, as most Spanish do.
I took the tube at 2,15 and rushed to Cuatro Caminos to have lunch with my young brother, rested for 15 minutes and took the train back to my job at 5,30 until 9,00 pm.
My father must have guessed what was happening and decided to pay us a visit. He immediately found a small flat back in Quevedo and installed us there with my mother. My mother suffers from claustrophobia and the flat had roof windows only. She was not happy and she develop orientation problems.
The flat was in a circle of houses with a fruit market stalls in the middle, you would think that my mother would be able to find the entrance of our block of flats, just by following the circle, well she could not, she was totally disorientated and would wait in the flat for one of us to appear. This many give the impresion that my mother was a fool, nothing further from the truth. She had a proven record .
This situation was not suitable either and my father decided to return to Madrid in order to set us up as a family. He did just that. He found a beautiful flat in one of the best districts of Madrid, Barrio Salamanca. In Calle Sainz de Baranda.
The flat was spacious and luxurious by our standards. We were eight people in it but we all had our space.
My parents were retired and had a small pension.
My eldest sister was a dressmaker and looked for a job in her profession.
Isidro her husband found a job as a Pestologist.
Tina was working as a secretary and teaching english privately.
Celines continued to work as a sales assistant
Myself worked in the Hotel as a sales assistant in a boutique.
My mother,eldest sister and her husbandm my youngest brother and our friend
My brother went to school to learn a trade
There was a lot of activity in the house and everyone did their best to survive. Some comments made today by people of my generation complaining about the world situation, working conditions or the size of benefits provided by the goverment, make me ungry for they forget that we had nothing like that, that no help was at hand if you had no job. There was nothing to fall back on then.
The youngsters or young people of today must realize the effort made by us and our ancesters fighting for better working conditions,working hours,better rate of pay,holiday, working rights, uniforms,health and safety and many more benefits found in the work place as given rights, when in fact they were all fought for.
It remains to be seen what legacy this new generations will leave to their descendants!
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