JustOneThing - How I Was Befriended By A Wardrobe In Rome
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In my early years as an "EFL" (English as a Foreign Language) teacher I developed a pleasant routine of spending the summer teaching English at a language school in York, in northern England, and the rest of the year teaching English in Italy.
I spent my first nine months in Italy teaching English in the little town of Imola in the wealthy Emilia Romagna region where the River Po runs down towards the Adriatic Sea.
While I was in Imola I got the opportunity to apply for a job with the same company in Rome and I jumped at it. Fortunately, my application was successful, and after a happy summer back in York, I flew to Rome to take up my new teaching post.
While I was in York that summer a friend of mine had asked me to help him entertain some young Italian guests who happened to be from Rome, which turned out to be a great stroke of luck.
Moving To Rome
When I moved to Rome one of them found me a room in a pension on Via Muzio Clementi, located close to the west bank of the Tiber, a stone's throw from Castel San Angelo and the Vatican just beyond, and an easy walk across the river to the Spanish Steps in the other direction.
It so happened that "la padrona" of the pensione, a short, stout lady who had been born in Libya during the brief glory days of Mussolini's Italian empire, and had been named L'Italia after her home nation by her patriotic (or homesick?) parents, took a liking to me and included me in her inner circle of intimate friends and residents who would gather in her parlour for dinner every evening.
Part of the Family
The regular diners included her best friend Elizabetta; an Egyptian gent whose fluency, wit and eloquence in Italian I thoroughly envied; a Finnish woman who was studying Italian; and myself.
The Finnish woman and I formed a sort of north European Protestant alliance as our Meditteranean friends would go hammer-and-tongs at each other over some outrage that was particularly exercising our hostess that day. The argument was usually instigated by our charming Egyptian friend whose ability to get L'Italia going was a constant source of amusement.
"Questi imbicili... maleducati..." L'Italia would rage against whichever malefactors had provoked her indignation that day...
All through the uproar over the dinner table, completely unrelated Italian arguments would rage on the television screen, sometimes feeding into and fuelling the contention over the dining table.
It was a wonderful immersion in Italian culture, full of lively conversation, good home cooking, plenty of wine followed up with espresso from a large stove-top Moka pot topped up with Sambucca (an anise flavoured liqueur).
But I digress - and you are probably still wondering what any of this has to do with a "Wardrobe"...
All Saints' Church, Via Del Babuino, Rome
One day, walking down Via del Babuino from the Spanish Steps I came to a rather anomalous red brick church with a white spire. On further inspection I realized that I had found an Anglican church called "All Saints'."
The following Sunday, being at a loose end (if such a thing is possible in Rome) I thought I would wander along to the service and check out both the interior architecture of the church and the form of worship, with no great expectations of either.
What I found when I entered was a fine example of late Victorian Gothic in an Italian idiom, with brickwork, Italian polychrome marble, and pale stone arches with pre-Raphaelite mosaic roundels by Edward Burne-Jones.
The chaplain and the rites seemed to be of a piece with the architecture as everything proceeded with dignity and decorum according to the High Church Prayer Book tradition.
After the service we were invited to join the chaplain for refreshments and either then or over a G&T or two in the rectory on other occasions, he and I discovered that in spite of our obvious differences we had a lot in common.
For one thing, he had also been brought up in a non-comformist household.
Also, he, like my father, had served in the Royal Engineers in the British army.
Not only that, but he had lived in York for several years and had been the headmaster of the Minster School which is attended by the boys of the York Minster choir.
We hit it off so well that I put myself forward for baptism and was baptised by the said chaplain in All Saints Church, and confirmed by the Bishop of Gibraltar that same Easter, much to the delight of my dear old padrona, L'Italia.
But I still have not told you what all of this has to do with the "prompt word" for this blog post...
Well, it so happened that the unforgettable name of my chaplain in Rome, the former head of the Minster School in York, was The Reverend Bevan Wardrobe (1926-2006).
Bevan retired from the chaplaincy of All Saints, Rome, in 1992 and looked after the Anglican community up in San Remo for a few years. I visited him there a couple of times. Then he retired to Cheltenham where I saw him for the last time in 2005.
Rest in Peace, Bevan.
David Hurley
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