Chapter 2
The story about how we lived without electricity
My parents decided that to get the best out of our experience in Naples we shouldn’t live in one of the expat gated communities. This, they thought would be too easy with the number of British forces out there. We were moving to Italy for the experience, and for the best experience we should move in with the locals, and be in the thick of it. Total immersion would be the best way to learn not just Italian, but also about the Italians.
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It was a massive house spread over four floors, and with four bathrooms (Italians like to be very clean). It had balconies and a roof terrace. It had the roll down shutters, and a mad alarm system that was allegedly connected on a direct line to the local Carabineri, but which would go off at the mere hint of one of Naples’ massive thunderstorms (never managed to summon the Carabineri though), but which could be totally foxed if you commando crawled across the living room floor (don’t ask). It had cool marble floors which were particularly great when you were creeping in late at night (again, don’t ask).
It didn’t have mains gas so it had an oil tank for the heating, and it wasn’t on the mains sewer so every so often the cesspit had to be emptied (lovely job). But more importantly, when we moved in it didn’t have any electricity.
The reason we didn’t have electricity was because the previous occupier (we won’t say which consulate it was) apparently didn’t pay the final bill when they left. To get the electricity turned back on we had to prove that we were not them. It wasn’t enough proof that we didn’t speak the same language, or were of a completely different nationality.
There was only one thing for it, my dad said I had to play the bored teenager card and he dragged me down the local Enel (Italian Electricity Company) office. Eventually they relented, obviously they had teenager daughters who couldn’t live without hot water either, and the electricity was switched on. Now I could wash some clothes (the result of this was dying all my white clothes grey - damn hot water!).
Italian electricity is a strange thing, they used to have two ways to buy electricity, one which was limited by the current you were supplied and the other which wasn’t. At my friend’s house, you would be chatting away and the electricity would trip and the house would be plunged into darkness whilst someone rushed around to unplug the thing that had caused it, normally a hairdryer.
On top of this, as Brits, we found it intriguing how easy it was to electrocute yourself, even our cooker would give you an electric shock if you touched it in the wrong place. The plugs on appliances weren’t fused, and there were normal even sockets in the bathrooms. In fact the lights in one of the bathrooms didn’t ever work so if you wanted to take a bath, you either had to do it in the dark, or you had take a bedside lamp in with you. Once I asked a friend who was training to be an apprentice electrician to come around to see if he could fix the problem, but all he found was a snakes nest of coloured cables with no indication of what each one did. At that point we gave up and went back to risking being electrocuted instead.
Our neighbours were lovely people, who welcomed us into their lives with open arms showing us nothing but hospitality and generosity. We were always invited to meals as the drop of a hat, and we were never allowed to ‘polite’ and turn down the offer.
They made it particularly easy for us to settle into our new surroundings, and gave us copious amounts of advice on how to deal with the goings on in Naples. All the things that we needed to know they shared with us. They became very good friends.
It was a great house which allowed for a steady stream of visitors to come and go. Want to continue reading?